A Study On The Collocation Of Heterogeneous Moods In Two-clause Chinese Composite Sentences

This dissertation studies the collocation of different moods in two-clause Chinese composite sentences. Every clause has one of the four moods, that is, indicative, interrogative, imperative and exclamative, and any two of them may coexist in a sentence, which is called collocation of different moods. The paper, adopting the method of examining tendency after diversity, of mutual authentication of language form and meaning, of combination of qualitative and quantitative research, concludes the frequency of the collocation of two different moods, analyzes the influence on the frequency by such factors as:the prototypical degree of clausal moods, the main specific devices of clausal moods, semantic relations and connectives between clauses, and some pragmatic aspects, and compares the similarities and differences of the frequency of different mood collocations in two-clause sentences between Chinese and English.The dissertation is divided into8chapters and the main content of each chapter is as follows.Chapter One is the introduction. It introduces the object, significance, method, outline and corpus of the present study.Chapter Two concludes the frequent patterns of the collocation of two different moods, serving as the basis for the following chapters. Based on the large-scale statistical examination of the corpus, it is found that that the collocations in question are largely preferred to be used in oral materials rather than written materials, that the collocations with an indicative mood are more advantageous in number than those without an indicative mood, and that the collocations with an indicative mood in the front of the composite sentence are more numerous than those with an indicative mood at the back. It is also observed that the use of clause-end particles, modal adverbs and auxiliaries influences the collocations of different moods. To be more specific, the mood expressed by clause-end particles "ma"(吗) or "ne"(呢) tends to appear at the end of the sentence, the mood by "ba"(吧) tends to be in the front, the mood by "a"(啊),"le"(了) or "de"(的) has no preferred place, while the mood expressed by any modal adverb or auxiliary tends to appear at the end. In addition, clauses with the semantic relation of coordination and cause-effect demonstrates more types of collocations of different moods and higher frequency of each type than those with transition, and the use of connectives in the clauses disagrees to the collocation of different moods except very few collocations with an indicative mood as a must.Chapter Three illustrates the influences on the collocations of different moods played by the prototypical degree of clausal moods. According to the distinctive features and syntactical realization of the four moods, some of the clausal moods are more prototypical and some are less. High-degree prototypical moods share almost no common features and are more difficult to be co-existent, thus having low frequency. On the contrary, low-degree prototypical moods share some or more common features to be easily collocated, thus enjoying high frequency.Chapter Four analyzes the influences on the collocations of different moods palyed by the use of devices of clausal moods. The devices include clause-end particles, modal adverbs and auxiliaries, and their semantic and syntactic features play a role in the order and frequency of the collocations in question. As for clause-end particles, the more convincing and mood-weakening meaning a particle indicates, the more frequently the expressing mood comes to be in the collocations; and clause-end particles make their moods follow the order of "weaker mood in the front wheras stronger mood at the back". As for modal adverbs, the larger scope a modal adverb governs, or the more forceful mood it strengthens, or the stronger focus of the sentence it makes the clause, the more possibly the clause with it comes at the end of the sentence. The bigger role a modal adverb plays in realizing a mood, the more frequently the clause with it is used in the collocation. As for auxiliaries, they only influence the collocation between the indicative, interrogative and imperative moods, and the more forceful mood an auxiliary strengthens, the more possibly the mood apperas the end of a sentence.Chapter Five probes the influence of the semantic relations the clauses and the use of connectives on the collocations of different moods. After examining the co locations of the different mood within the environment of one type of clausal relation after another, one connective after another, it is proved that the more frequent use of the sentences(compound sentences and clausal sentences are more frequently used than transitional sentences), the more freedom the sentences have in selection of collocations of different clausal moods, but that the more demanding of connectives in sentences, the less restriction the sentences have in selection of collocations of different clausal moods. Individual connectives really influences the concerned collocation in that some connectives exclude the collocation of different moods, some choose more types of collocation than others, and the same connective if used in different places may have different types and frequency of the collocations.Chapter Six analyzes influence of the pragmatical factors on the collocations of different moods. The pragmatical factors mainly refer to the genre, the cohesion and interpersonal relation, which are linked to where, how and why the user use. Oral environment are more suitable for the collocation of different moods than written one since the former allows more attitudes and feelings. The cohesion requires the front place of a clause with an interrogative, imperative or exclamative mood, otherwise they usually fall at the back place of the collocations. The purpose of the mood user decides on the type and place of the mood in the collocations, thus influencing the pattern and frequency of mood collocations; the social status of the mood user also influences the collocations in that the superior prefer "indicative+exclamative","imperative+indicative","imperative+interrogative" and "exclamative+interrogative", while the inferior prefer "exclamative+indicative" and "exclamtive+imperative". Chapter Seven compares the use frequency of the collocations of different moods in two-clause sentences between Chinese and English. Every clause of both Chinese and English sentences has a mood of being indicative, interrogative, imperative or exclamative. In general, Chinese collocations are more in number and frequency than English ones. The more frequently used collocations of different moods are those with one of them being an indicative mood, and among them the collocation of "indicative+interrogative" and "indicative+imperative" are the most used. Whatever mood collocates an interrogative mood, the interrogative mood tends to be at the end of a sentence.Chapter Eight is the conclusion. It concludes the major points of the whole paper and states the limitation and the topic for the follow-up research.