Chapter 1 Introduction
1.1 Rationale of the present research
This study is significant in the following aspects.First of all, through the analysis of the syntactico-semantic features of CECs, this thesishelps resolve some disputes over such clauses. CECs have been discussed by scholars withdifferent backgrounds since the publication of Ma Shi Wen Tong (“ Ma’s Understanding ofLanguage ”). Apart from Chinese traditional grammar, different foreign linguistic theoriesalso have been introduced to the study of CECs in recent decades. Therefore, the studies ofCECs have attained some achievements. However, because of different theoreticalbackgrounds, scholars still have not reached a consensus on such issues as the identificationand classification of CECs as well as the Subject of existential clauses. The present studyattempts to interpret how CECs are organized. In this way, this thesis helps resolve some ofthe disputes on the syntactico-semantic analysis of CECs and it can enrich the literature on thestudies of CECs.Secondly, the present study represents one of the first attempts to apply the Cardiffmodel of Systemic Functional Grammar (the Cardiff Grammar) to the description of CECs.Even though a small number of scholars have studied existential clauses from the perspectiveof Systemic Functional Grammar, few of them adopt the approach of the Cardiff model ofSystemic Functional Grammar to probe the characteristics of CECs. Thus, this thesis attemptsto make a comprehensive study of CECs from the perspective of the Cardiff Grammar.Last but not least, this thesis can verify the validity of the theories of SystemicFunctional Grammar and testify its status of being a general and appliable linguistics. Up tonow, the studies of Systemic Functional Grammar focus mostly on English. However,Systemic Functional Grammar, as a general linguistics (Huang, 2007: 17), can also be appliedto other languages, including Chinese.
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1.2 Objectives and research questions
The overall aim of this thesis is to propose a systemic-functional analysis of thesyntactico-semantic features of CECs from the perspective of the Cardiff Grammar. There arethree objectives related to this aim:1) to ascertain the syntactic roles of different constituents in the CEC;2) to describe and explain the semantic features of CECs from a systemic-functionalperspective;3) to re-classify the verbs that can occur in CECs from the perspective of the CardiffGrammar.On account of the above objectives, three research questions of this thesis can begenerated as follows:1) Which constituent in different kinds of CEC serves as the Subject?2) How do the initial elements, the Chinese existential verbs and the postverbalconstituents of CECs manage to make the transitivity meaning, thematic meaningand informational meaning simultaneously?3) How can the Chinese existential verbs be classified systemically in the CardiffGrammar?
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Chapter 2 Literature Review
2.1 Introduction
Since the publication of the first Chinese grammar book Ma Shi Wen Tong (“Ma’sUnderstanding of Language”) in 1898, Chinese existential clauses (henceforth CECs) havecaught the attention of many scholars in China. As a general linguistics, Systemic FunctionalGrammar is also employed to the study of Chinese. Previous studies are of great significancefor the present study. Therefore, this chapter offers a brief review not only on the previousstudies of CECs but also on the Chinese studies from the perspective of Systemic FunctionalGrammar. Additionally, comments concerning their contributions and limitations will bepresented.
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2.2 Previous studies on CECs
In general, the study of CEC can be roughly divided into the following three stages:The first stage is from 1950s to 1960s. At this stage, most of the scholars focus on theidentification of the Subject of CECs. The second stage starts from 1960s. At that time, thediscussion on existential verbs is a hot topic. As Fan (1963) claims, for a long time, peopletend to think whet
