On the ECM Phenomenon in Mandarin Chinese Causative Constructions Article Summary

Exceptional Case Markin(ECM)is a special case - checking phenomenon in the syntax of Eng - lish.Under the latest framework of the Minimalist Program,it is defined as an operation whereby the uninterpretable features()of a transitive category are erased through the operation of A - gree with those of an NP which is not its internal argument.In English,most of the ECM phenome - na occur in sentences which contain infinite clauses taken by the matrix verbs such as believe.A typical example is as below:(1)Mary believes Bill to be intelligent.Here,theof both the predicate'believes ' and the following NP'Bill ' are deleted in the operation of Agree.But according to θ - theory,no thematic relationship exists between them,thus resulting in the ECM phenomenon.The same situation can also be found in such examples where the embedded clause is a small clause as(2):(2)Mary considers Bill intelligent.Believe-type and consider-type verbs are called ECM verbs in the syntax of English.The Principles and Parameters framework of the Chomskyan generative grammar is said to contain various kinds of modules,each of which is a self-contained autonomous component that consists of a set of principles and parameters.The ECM subject is a hybrid grammatical construct of those interacting modules:a subject with respect to X - bar theory and θ - theory,and an object in the light of Case theory and Checking theory.The ECM phenomenon attracts the interest from many researchers including some Chinese scholars.Huang(1998,1989)and Ernest(1994)once made a study of the ECM phenomenon in Chinese,investigating the Chinese verbs which can take infinite clauses as their complements.They conclude that the ECM phenomenon does not exist in Chinese since no such verbs as'be - lieve ' or'consider ' in English which can lead to a ECM construction can be found in Chinese.This paper intends to explore the syntax of causative constructions in Mandarin Chinese which contains periphrastic causative verbs such as shi/rang as their matrix verbs,and offers evidence of the existence of the ECM phenomenon in Chinese causative constructions,thus proving invalid the assumption made by Huang and Ernest that there is no ECM phenomenon in Chinese.Besides,the existence of the ECM phenomenon in other sentence structures in Chinese which are similar to the causative constructions will also be investigated.