---The Structural and Semantic Differences of

“他这样做是合理的” and “他这样做是偏听偏信。”

Ling Yan

Columbia University

ly2131@columbia.edu

It has always been a puzzle for Chinese teachers as for how to explain to their students when to use ‘的”as in “他这样做是合理的”and when not to use it as in “他这样做是偏听偏信。” In this paper, after detailed analyses of the data, I argue that the two sentences differ from each other both structurally and semantically. The sentence “他这样做是合理的” actually is the “ 是…的” focus structure while the other sentence “他这样做是偏听偏信。” is of the equation structure “A是B” . In this paper, I argue that “他这样做” in the former sentence can only be treated as topic in the default structure whereas “他这样做” in the latter one can only be analyzed as the subject of the sentence according to the data. Based on their structural and semantic differences, specific methods are provided, which will help teachers to explain and a foreign learner to tell the two structures from each other by testing them in different structures and by analyzing their semantic implications.