“S+好+V”结构中“好”的词性再议——以“这本书好读”为例

Abstract

In general, “好”in the sentence “这本书好读 (The book is easy to read)”is the character adjective which actually means “容易 (easy)”. However, according to Valence Theory, the adjective of modern Chinese language is classified into one-valence adjective and two-valence adjective. The “好” here seems to be two-valence adjective, but it does not conform to the rule of correlation between two-valence adjective and two nominal elements. Thus, the meaning of“好” which means “容易 (easy)”in the structure “S+好+V”is assumed to be out of the category of classic character adjective. In addition, comparing with the adverbial-verb structure, the grammatical structure “好+V”is relatively close to predicate-object structure (the object of “好” is V). However, such structure as adjective with verb-object in one sentence does not exist in Chinese language, so the grammatical structure “modal auxiliary verb+V” is associated with the structure “好+V”. Furthermore, the character of structure “S+好+V”is considered similar to modal auxiliaries. This thesis discusses the grammatical character of structure “S+好+V” based on the different criterions between adjective and auxiliary verb in order to demonstrate the lexical category of “好”. The conclusion of analysis shows that “好”fits the criterions of auxiliary verb relatively better than the one of adjective. Therefore, the lexical category of “好”can be considered deprototype auxiliary verb. In addition, the structure “好+V” cannot be considered adverbial-verb structure through the comparison between semantic structure of “S+Adj+V” and analytic hierarchy process. In other words, “好”is not the adjective which modifies verb as the function of adverb. “好” is more similar to the predicate-object structure “AV+V” and fits the grammatical character of modal auxiliary verb better. Furthermore, this thesis analyzes the expression of structure “S+好+V” and “S+可以+V” in other 17 languages from linguistic typology’s perspective. The result shows that the distribution of “好”is related to the order of language. It’s similar to the distribution of modal auxiliary verb “可以”and furthermore proves that the grammatical identification of “好” in structure “S+好+V” is similar to modal auxiliary verb.