Exploration Of Participial Conjunctions Of Condition In English: A Perspective Of Historical Pragmatics

This thesis purports to investigate the evolution of participial conjunctions of condition as grammatical elements from lexical sources to reveal the path and motives of grammaticalization from the perspective of historical pragmatics. Historical pragmatics now leads the renaissance of historical linguistics which brings the new achievements of modern linguistic theories especially pragmatics into the formal historical linguistic study. By taking historical data from both written and spoken texts, this discipline is based itself on modern linguistic theories especially on the theories of pragmatics and cognitive linguistics and is aimed at finding out by what mechanism language changes through the time from form to function, and from function to form, and what external and internal forces motivate such language changes. Meanwhile, the participial conjunctions of condition have long been recognized as the typical example of grammaticalization by Traugott (1995), but to date there is still no systematic study on it. According to the frequency of their uses in written and spoken text, this thesis will explore the grammaticalization of participial conjunctions of condition of providing/provided (that), supposing (that) and given (that) in the field of historical pragmatics. By revealing the nature of forms and function change of the participial conjunctions, we intend to solve the problems as below: what are the forms and functions of the participial conjunctions in different stage of history; how could they evolve from a verb participle to a conjunction; what are the mechanism and motives of the change; can the conventionalized participial conjunctions replace the conditionals with ifThe grammaticalization of the participial conjunctions of condition can be explored within the framework of diachronic pragmatics, which is made up of diachronic form-to-function mapping and diachronic function-to-form mapping. Diachronic function-to-form mapping takes a linguistic form as a starting point to trace the changes of discourse meaning, and the operation brings about at least five characteristics that are typical of grammaticalization: (i) the data from which we will take an insight is the historical materials, arranged from the Middle English to Modern English; (ii) it is the language use and language interaction between the participants that motivate the language change; (iii) grammaticalization involves both morphosyntactic change and pragmatic-semantic change in context rather than simple formation or morphosyntactic change of the participial conjunctions of condition; (iv) morphosyntactic change in grammaticalization involves two main mechanisms of reanalysis and analogy (metaphorization and metonymization); (v) grammaticalization goes in ways of unidirection and pragmaticality. In brief, we examine the pragmatic-semantic change of the participial conjunctions of condition in connection of the context of situation or rather with reference of speaker/hearer or the writer/reader communication and interaction, so that we can see that the grammaticalization of the changes of the participial conjunctions of condition goes along with the pragmatic meaning change.The diachronic function-to-form mapping is concerned with the classification of conditionals introduced by the participial conjunctions of condition in accordance with the pragmatic and cognitive principles. Such conditionals demonstrate the features of if conditionals pointed by Sweetser (1990), who classify them into three categories: the content domain, epistemic domain and speech act domain.Above all, the present thesis may contribute to historical pragmatics and the use of participial conjunctions of condition as below. Firstly, it is the first time that the participial conjunctions of condition are explored from the perspective of historical pragmatics. Secondly, the participial conjunctions of conditions are studied in a comparatively systematic diachronic way, the form, function and use of them in history may be described. Thirdly, the path, mechanism and motivation of the change of participial conjunctions of condition are explored in the diachronic form-to-function mapping. Fourthly, it is in the diachronic function-to-form mapping that the conditional sentences introduced by participial conjunctions of condition are classified according to the principles of pragmatics and cognitive linguistics. In a word, such study of participial conjunctions of condition within the framework of historical pragmatics is of theoretical and practical significance in language use.As for the layout of this thesis, it consists of six chapters. Chapter One is an introduction, which outlines the background of the study, its methodology and the structure of the paper. Chapter Two reviews previous research on participial conjunctions of condition from both the synchronic and diachronic perspectives, with an aim to illuminate the merits and demerits of previous literature in relation to the issues under discussion. Chapter Three is an integral part of the thesis, for it provides a theoretical background for analysis of participial conjunctions of condition. Historical pragmatics will be introduced, and then grammaticalization will be approached in the field of historical pragmatics. Chapter Four describes the morphosyntactic, pragmatic-semantic features change of participial conjunctions of condition in a diachronic Form-to-Function mapping in search for the path, mechanism and motives of the change. Chapter Five proceeds to study participial conjunctions of condition in a diachronic Function-to-Form mapping. English conditionals with participial conjunctions of condition are classified here according to their pragmatic and cognitive functions. Chapter Six concludes the thesis by summering the major findings of the study, pointing its limitations, and then offering suggestions for the future research.