A Study of Lack of Non-finite Clauses in Chinese in EFL Learning and English-Chinese Translation

• Main Authors: Chien-Yu Shih, 史千育
• Other Authors: Shian-Jung Chen
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2018
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/jtm2vq

碩士 === 國立臺灣科技大學 === 應用外語系 === 106 === In the contrastive study between English and Chinese, the most striking difference is the typological difference in terms of finite and non-finite verbs. English has both finite and non-finite verbs whereas Chinese does not have non-finite verbs at all. In other words, verbals such as infinitives, gerunds, and participles are entirely absent in Chinese. Such an absence leaves Chinese with only one kind of clauses to express events, in contrast with English that has finite clauses and non-finite clauses to do the job. This difference brings forth a lot of trouble to ESL learning by Chinese speakers and to translation between English and Chinese. There are simply no counterparts in Chinese to English non-finite VPs and non-finite clauses. This is a serious POS mismatch between English and Chinese. This study starts from finding out the reasons behind the POS ambiguity in English and the POS mismatch between English and Chinese with a view to understanding what sorts of language knowledge required to do POS disambiguation. The knowledge of this particular POS disambiguation for words ending with -ed or -ing and for the root forms following preposition “to” would certainly equipped non-English speakers to understand English non-finite VPs. Shian-jung Chen’s Computer reader is used to discover how non-finite clauses are used to expressing events, how zero-anaphor resolution used to restore PRO-DROP in non-finite clauses is done, and what kinds of sentence construction rules are used by English writers to express inter-event relations when non-finite clauses are used. The study recommends a lot of suggestions for Chinese learners regarding how to master the knowledge needed to tackle the POS ambiguity in understanding English non-finite VPs and to translate English non-finite clauses into Chinese.