Title: Basic Types of Clause Complexes of English and Chinese and (average)X Syntax
Abstract: This paper involves two purposes: (1) to draw the distraction of the basic types of clause complexes between English and Chinese; (2) to interpret the duality of English conjunctions when used restrictively or nonrestrictively. The author reviews first the general idea of coordination and subordination and then contrasts the differences of parataxis/coordination and hypotaxis/subordination between English and Chinese to draw the basic types of clause complexes of the two languages. The basic types of clause complexes of each language have been represented in two different diagrams. From the two diagrams, we will see that in English there is a distinction between restrictive and nonrestrictive clauses and both can be linked to the main clause with the same connective. This paper focuses on the interpretation of the duality of the same connective. The structural contrasts of the duality have also been studied from four different aspects: the entire sentences; tense and modality; focus; maim clause phenomena. Besides, this paper has applied the concept of (average)X syntax to describe the differences of the structures between restrictive and nonrestrictive clauses with the same connective. 'The restrictive clauses will be described as internal/central clauses or V”-complements; the nonrestictive clauses as external/peripheral clauses or V”'-complements.
Publication Year: 1997
Publication Date: 1997-09-01
Language: en
Type: article
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