This dissertation deals with the syntactic structure of Chinese ‘phrasal’ and ‘clausal’ bi-comparatives by mainly addressing the following issues from a minimalist perspective: the role of differential phrases, an asymmetry concerning the co-occurrence of some modals and bi-phrases, and the obviation of the Condition C effect.
In the first two chapters, I will present a background for the analyses in later chapters, including descriptive properties of Chinese comparatives, a few problems to be discussed, and previous studies. Chapter 3 presents an analysis of some fundamental issues, including the parallelism requirement on the compared constituents, the adverbial status of bi-phrases, and Chinese bi-comparatives as underlyingly clausal comparatives. Most importantly, I argue that the unavailability of sub-comparatives in Chinese is due to the nature of the complement of the morpheme bi – a non-finite clause.
Chapter 4 tackles the syntax of Chinese ‘phrasal’ bi-comparatives. I argue against the prevailing assumption that there is a projection of a Degree Phrase (DegP) in Chinese comparatives. Instead, I will argue for other projections, such as Comparison Predication Phrase (CPredP), Aspect Phrase (AspP), and Focus Phrase (FocP). In particular, I will address an asymmetry concerning the co-occurrence of some modals and bi-phrases by resorting to the feature-checking theory.
Chapter 5 deals with the syntax of Chinese ‘clausal’ bi-comparatives by adopting the configuration of Remnant Movement as originally proposed for German. Maintaining the arguments made in Chapter 4 and then taking the information structure of Chinese into account, I will explicate a more complicated phenomenon regarding the co-occurrence of some modals and bi-phrases. Furthermore, the cancellation of the Condition C effect in Chinese bi-comparatives, as noted before but not well handled, will receive a satisfactory explanation based on Remnant Movement analysis. Chapter 6 is a conclusion
