Research On The Chinese Existential Sentences From Discourse Perspective

From the discourse perspective, this dissertation gives a more comprehensive study of existential sentences. The dissertation consists of seven chapters:The first chapter outlines the research situation of the existential sentences, recognizing that most studies confined to the semantics and syntax of isolated or static existential sentences, which is the major source this study lies.The Chapterâ…¡andâ…¢analyze respectively the cognitive semantic features of existential sentences and the center-border construction of the existential constructions based on the cognitive level.From a cognitive perspective, on the theoretical basis of the affecting of syntactic form on image formation, Chapterâ…¡uses the comparative method of the synonymous sentence, and analyzes in detail the particularity of the triggered images of existential sentence due to the different location of the words and expressions, with its imagery having five cognitive characteristic of existence and existential relationship as the cognitive basis, the spatial and temporal background is conspicuous; behavioral sememe of predicate is weaken; the sentence focuses on the indefinite existential subject at the end; the sentence is semantically unfinished.Chapterâ…¢analyzes the existential constructions under the framework of construction grammar, and realizes that the type of core semantic structure as "in a space-time background in some existential way the introduction of an objective natural person/objects", and then analyzes the structure of the typical semantic feature type as a whole, that is, the analysis of the previous chapter the five cognitive characteristics. Respectively, then save the current configuration of all components of the extended type carried out to explore and found two major metaphor and metonymy is its extended mechanism of cognitive style. Existential constructions for the next bit configuration of each component type are extended to different areas of results. One way to keep the current extended as the core elements and the existence of space-time is Sentences, which can be combined with each other. In specific discourses after combined, they appear in three common types:parallel boundary, concentric-circle boundary and regional-dispersion boundary. We believe that the reference and coherence function of spatial and temporal words offer expression mechanism for boundary, and provides an explanation for the above three main types of spatial and temporal boundary to build corresponding discourse structure. Finally we analyze the mental cognitive mechanisms of spatial and temporal boundary of existential sentences. We think attention as psychological mechanisms, the syntax position of spatial and temporal words in Existential sentences, which is at the beginning of the sentences and close to the predicate verb, ensures the degree of attention received, so that the government boundary in discourse is more broad and intensive. At the same time, under the impact of attention degree, a narrowing trend of the governing circles appears over the range from its typical members to the atypical members.Chapterâ…¥examines a large number of language cases. We found that existential sentences have a strong function of inspiring the following in discourse, the realization form of this function includes the flowing four kinds, i.e. topic-introduction style, topic-shifting style, anadiplosis and parallel style. The possible cross-appearing of these four types presents multi-level discourse structure. The end noun phrases in the first three cases are all extracted as a topic of the follow-up sentences, which all belong to topic style, which is the main form of inspiring-following function. Drivers of the strong inspiring-following function of existential sentences can be found in the cognitive characteristics:the structure of existential sentences is the typical background-graphic structure, and the main focus at the end of the sentence, semantics of existential sentences unfinished. However, according to the study results, there is a part of existential sentences do not achieved the inspiring-following function in discourse, which is relevant to the competition of follow-up topic between the sentence-initial nouns and the sentence-final nouns. Then we analyze the possibility sequence of sentence-initial noun phrases and sentence-final noun phrases of existential sentence selected as the topic, we believe that the strength of topicality of the two noun phrases of existential sentences is mainly affected by two parameters:semantic expectation of noun phrase as the main parameters, syntactic position for the secondary parameter. Semantic expectation is closely related to of the significant degree and confirmation of noun phrases:the higher of the significant degree is, the lower of confirmation is, then the higher of semantic expectation is. Otherwise, the lower it is. After detailed analysis and comparison, we can conclude that sentence-initial noun phrases have advantages in the syntactic position, there is a certain topicality. But the sentence-final noun phrases have advantage on the semantic expectation, but also a certain topicality. However, the weight of the two factors is different, and semantic expectation is the main feature, while the syntactic position is a secondary feature. In general, as for a typical existential sentences, the possibility of being extracted as a topic of the sentence-final noun phrases is higher than that of sentence-initial noun phrases, which is consistent with our study results. However, the marginal type of existential sentences are not always the case, and the discourse comparative focus and adjunct of noun can also adjust the semantic expectation, so we can find in the study results that a considerable portion of the sentence-final noun phrases are not extracted as the topic.Chapterâ…¦studies nine transitive parameters of finite-verb of the existential sentences in the syntactic semantic level, and finds that there are 7 parameters among them taking on typical low-transitivity, the more typical low-transitivity in the syntax-semantic performance indicates more typical background. However, owing to the different existential manner among the subcategories of existential sentences, the background performance is also different. By analyzing four subcategories with different existential manner, we can come to a conclusion that the transitivity is on the increase, while the background is on the decrease from center to edge. And at the pragmatic level, a detailed discussion of the four parameters of incident clue, scene setting, reducing the weight and dimensions of the topic chain is done, although the topic chain level, the existential sentences after the King of sexual orientation in high-performance under a certain degree of varied, in a small sentence level, it presents itself as a high. Finally, we conclude that:whether from the syntactic-semantic feature or the discourse pragmatic, existential sentences have shown high background.