Revisiting the Grammatical Notions of Subject and Predicate
Taking inspiration from Den Dikken(2006)'s work on the syntax of predi-cation,this article examines predication structures in Chinese.Based on the findings,this article urges to reconsider the definition of subject and predicate in grammatical research.This article starts with an overview of Den Dikken(2006).Den Dikken(2006)is most noted for its proposal of a new functional category,the relator,as an element linking subject and predicate,and how such an approach provides solutions to the syntactic analysis of certain challenging structures in various languages.However,less discussed of this work,and also what the current article wants to highlight specifically,is the work's new definition of subject in grammatical analysis and,based on this,a new outlook for subject-predicate relation.In this new light,adjectival modifier,adverbial modifier,prepositional phrases,topic and focus elements,among others,can all be treated as predicates.The semantics of predication,as stated in the work,is represented as set intersection between the subject and the predicate.Inspired by Den Dikken's innovative approach to subject and predicate,this article continues with case studies of two major structures in Chinese,the de(的)structure and the de(得)structure.Earlier studies have proposed to analyze the two structures respectively as P-de(的)-S and S-de(得)-P.The current study seeks to establish the validity of these claims by a thorough examination of the various semantic and formal combinations of these structures.The semantic relations between subject and predicate as exhibited in these structures in Chinese have great implications for subject-predicate relation at large.The definitions of subject and predicate,especially of the latter,are often traced back to discussion in Aristotle.The definitions are often taken for granted,but they might be problematic due to several factors:the language used to discuss it,how it is framed to support the philosopher's conception of the universal and the particular,and how the terminology might be misinterpreted over translation.Through the case studies of subject and predicate in Chinese,the current study proposes to reconsider the definition of subject and predicate,and one possibility,using the earliest mentioning of the relation by Aristotle,is that a predicate is something said of a subject.
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