漢語形容詞的語意屬性與句法功能之相關性

Abstract

This paper proposes that syntactic functions of adjectives are closely related to their semantic properties, specifically, the number and types of the inherent thematic positions of each adjective determine its syntactic distribution. We mainly investigate two types of prenominal adjective modifiers in Chinese (i.e., 「AN」 and 「A-de N」 types), showing that the presence of modifier marker DE is responsible for the syntactic and semantic contrasts between the two. Discussions on the Qualia structure of the NP modifiee as well as the thematic structure of the adjective modifier are provided to effectively capture the complexity and ambiguity of the adjectival modification. We will also expand our concern to the preverbal modifiers and secondary predicates with the aim of arriving at a unified analysis between the nominal and clausal structures in terms of attributive and predicative dichotomy.