Chapter One Introduction
1.1 Rationale and Objectives
The English Resultative Construction (RC for short) is an important but complexlinguistic phenomenon, which has been a hot topic in linguistic research for manyyears. Linguists analyze this language phenomenon from various points of view, suchas syntax, semantics, the interface of syntax and semantics, lexical-functionalgrammar, constructional grammar and so on. However, none of them gives unifiedand clear explanation for it, so, it is worth exploring.This thesis is under the framework of Generative Grammar. GenerativeGrammar is not limited to the study of particular grammar, but to reveal the unity ofthe particular grammar and the universal grammar. In other words, it doesn’t aim todescribe the particular language, but takes the particular language as the startingpoint to explore the universal law of human language, eventually revealing thehuman cognitive system, patterns of thinking and the nature of human beings. For thehighest goal, Chomsky once stated that there are three different levels for evaluatingthe grammar, they are observational adequacy, descriptive adequacy and explanatoryadequacy. Although Generative Grammar aims to provide a universal explanation forlanguage phenomenon, it doesn’t reach its goal, which leaves some space for myresearch.The objective of this thesis is the syntactic structure of the English resultativeconstruction. Four types of the English resultative construction will be analyzed.They are the transitive, intransitive, unergative and unaccusative resultativeconstructions in English according to the features of the matrix verbs. Although thereare many analyses on the English resultative construction, none of them gives asatisfactory explanation..
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1.2 methodology of the Research
In Chomsky’s Generative Grammar, the language research methodology is akind of “intra-organism” (Halliday, 1994, p. 10). Based on this point of view,language is considered as a human knowledge, which accord with the ultimate goalof Generative Grammar, regarding the Universal Grammar as the objective.Since this research is from the perspective of Generative Grammar, that is to say,it is under the framework of syntax, thus it is also an so-called “intra-organismstudy”. The aim of this thesis is to reveal a general principle of the present languagephenomenon. In specific, for the purpose of reanalyzing the syntactic structure of theEnglish Resultative Construction, deductive reasoning will be employed as theprimary methodology, at the same time, logical principle works as another importantmethod in this research to avoid getting paradoxical conclusions. Furthermore, toprovide a firmer foundation for the thesis, a large number of examples from formerlinguists are collected, quoted and analyzed. Comparative methodology will also beemployed in this thesis.
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Chapter Two Literature Review
2.1 Introduction
The English Resultative Construction, which regarded commonly as the result ofan action described by the matrix verb in English, is an important but complexlinguistic phenomenon that concerns all levels of language research. This linguisticphenomenon has been spotlighted for many years, and it is a hot topic in theliterature of semantics, syntax, pragmatics, cogn，英语论文网站，英语论文
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