A Grammatical Optimal Study On Mandarin 'Cause & Effect' Complex

The dissertation is a grammatical optimal study on Mandarin 'cause & effect' complexes.The grammatical optimal theory(GOT) hold that language is probabilistic,grammatical units can be ranked according to their frequency and the ranking sequences can be interpreted.The grammatical optimal study on Mandarin 'cause & effect' complexes means ranking 'cause & effect' complexes according their frequency and giving interpretations.In this paper,both macroscopically considering and microcosmic analysis were done;and modern linguistics concepts and the spirit of striving for thoroughness were tied in together.'Theory of Clausal Pivot','Grammatical Optimal Theory' and 'Collocation Theory' are guiding ideologies.And combined methods are used in this paper,such as 'two triangle' method,collocation method,statistical method,and etc.Particularly,MI value(mutual information value) is creatively applied to measure certain condition(or conditions) influencing 'cause-effect' complex and 'effect-cause' complex.So then,MI value can be used in doing semantic analysis.There are six chapters in this paper.In chapter one,the nature of the study,the reasons of choosing the topic,guiding ideologies and studying methods,the significances and the values of this study are introduced and interpreted.Chapter two is an overview of prior sequence in Mandarin 'cause & effect' complex on the basis of doing thoroughly analyzing of corpus of four styles(novel,spoken language,newspaper,popular science).It mainly includes three parts:1) examine the causal complex's status in the whole complex(compound) sequences;2) inspect the causal complex's prior sequences in the perspective of the clause-order and the related tags;3) study the structural models from the clause-order point of view.In chapter three,'cause-effect' complex's prior sequences are studied.There are mainly two types of 'cause-effect' complex,one is descriptive 'cause-effect' complex and the other is deductive 'cause-effect' complex.In this chapter,the frequency of the descriptive 'cause-effect' complexes and deductive 'cause-effect' complexes of four styles are firstly discussed.And then,the related tags of descriptive 'cause-effect' complex and deductive 'cause-effect' complex are ranked according their frequency.The order of related tags and subjects in descriptive 'cause-effect' complexes is particularly studied.And we put much attention to if the order of related tags and subjects is related to subject consistency.The information structure of deductive 'cause-effect' complex is particularly examined, and the order of related tags and subjects in deductive 'cause-effect' complexes is studied,too. In chapter four,'effect-cause' complex's prior sequences are studied.There are also two types of 'effect-cause' complex,one is judgmental 'effect-cause' complex and the other is complementary 'effect-cause' complex.The frequency of complementary 'effect-cause' complex is much more than the frequency of judgmental 'effect-cause' complex.In the perspective of related tags,the related tags in complementary 'effect-cause' complexes are all 'centre-type',but it is not simple in judgmental 'effect-cause' complexes.The possibilities and conditions of related tags forming judgmental 'effect-cause' complex are particularly studied.And the order of related tags and subjects is also inspected.The complementary 'effect-cause' complexes are mainly researched in the perspective of discourse,pointing out that a complementary 'effect-cause' complex's cause-clause can be omitted in the context.The order is related to 'who-in-tie who-be-front' rule.There are distinctions in time continuity between 'effect-cause' complexes and 'cause-effect' complexes.In chapter five,the anaphora of front-clause and back-clause is discussed.From the front-clause point of view,the prior sequence of the strength of anaphora of related tags is 'zheng yinwei...jiu yinwei...(正因为......就因为......),jiran...jiu...(既然......å°±......),zhisuoyi...shiyinwei...(之所以......是因为.......)>yinwei...suoyi...(因为......所以......)'.And from the back-clause point of view, the prior sequence of the strength of anaphora of related tags is 'yinwei...suoyi...(因为......所以......)>zhisuoyi...shiyinwei...(之所以......是因为......),jiuyinwei₂(就因为₂),jiran...jiu...(既然......å°±......),zhengyinwei₁(正因为₁),jiuyinwei₁(就因为₁),zhengyinwei₂(正因为₂)'.There is an asymmetry between the anaphora of front-clause and the anaphora of back-clause.Generally speaking, when the strenghth of anaphora of front-clause is weak,the strenghth of anaphora of back-clause will be strong,and vise versa.But that doesn't mean that the weaker is the strenghth of anaphora of front-clause,the stronger of strength of anaphora of back-clause.The asymmetry is mainly related to the information structure and the 'focus-be-back' principle.Chapter six is the ending of the disstertation,including the conclusions,the inspirations,the inadequacies and the future works,etc.