On the syntax and semantics of the idiosyncratic copular sentences and empty categories

Abstract

本文讨论特异"是"字句的语义特性与 句法结构,并且认为这种句子是一种话题类系词句,实际上是一般话题句的变体,包含了一个空语类主语。空语类主语往往表达跟方式、原因、结果等相关的意义。 本文还探讨了前后项互换的条件限制。我们最后采用了一些语法的测试,证明了空语类存在的合理性。 In this paper,we examine some semantic characteristics and the syntactic representation of the so-called idiosyncratic copular sentences in Chinese.It is argued that such sentences are copular topic sentences,a variant of the topic construction,in which the subject is an empty category.The empty subject could convey a meaning of manner,reason,result,etc.The conditions on the inversion of the topic and the predicative are also discussed.The existence of the empty subject in the copular topic sentences is supported by a number of grammatical tests.