A Temporal-aspectual Composition Model For The Chinese Perfective Le Structures

Le is one of the widely used aspect markers in Chinese, and has been one of the major concerns of grammarians and other researchers in linguistics. However, because of its semantic and pragmatic diversity, a number of issues remain to be resolved.This thesis intends to answer the following five questions.1) What are the major temporal components of the le structures, i.e. the different kinds of sentences that have one or two le’s in them? How are the components interrelated to one another and what role do they play in the temporal composition of a le sentence? 2) What is the nature of le as a perfective marker? And what functions does it perform in the construction of the temporality of the le structure? 3) In what specific ways is the time of a le structure composed out of its multiple components? 4) Some sentences with a final le are claimed to have a implicature of "sufficiency", how is this implicature inferred? 5) What other factors also contribute to the temporal composition of a le sentence?This thesis aims to build a time-aspect composition model for the analysis of the temporal meaning of the Chinese perfective marker le structures within the framework of tense-aspect studies. For that purpose, this paper first introduces the tense-aspect composition model built up for analyzing the interaction between tenses and aspects in languages other than Chinese. Based on these findings, this paper builds up a tentative time-aspect composition model for the le structures in Chinese, and then applies it to the analysis of the temporal composition of them. In the application of the model, it is found that the model is not effective enough to tackle the new problems and issues it meets. More factors such as the placement of le in a sentence and some special le structures are found to play a part in constructing the overall time of a sentence. Taking the new findings in consideration, this paper finally revises the model, and the revised model is proved effective through its application to the analysis of some other le structures.The main ideas and findings of this thesis are as follows.1. It argues that the discourse time is not composed linearly. A number of elements contribute to the construction of the overall discourse time of a sentence. The major contributing factors are the speaker time (also "utterance time", referred to as TU in what follows), the reference time (RT), the aspect markers, and the situations described by the verbs. The verb situation belongs to the semantic part of a sentence; the TU and RT constitute the temporal skeleton of the sentence and are related to the concrete situation of utterance; the aspect marker embodies the speaker’s view of the situation. The overall temporal meaning of a le structure is thus the composite of these multiple factors.2. In this paper, le is regarded as a perfective marker, which signifies the occurrence of an event (E) with a consequent state (S). E enters the discourse temporal structure, finds it place and then constructs the overall time of the sentence with the other times in it. Meanwhile, S also finds its way into the structure, and sis profiled at the point of an explicit RT. The profiled part of the state is referred to as le-s.Therefore, le-s is grammatically not a proper part of the meaning of le, but a kind of conversational implicature.3. The placement of le in a sentence affects the way of viewing the situation. When le is in the middle of a sentence and after the verb, the situation is viewed sequentially. In this process the viewer follows the development of the situation and observes its progress step by step, thus producing a series of Es and Ss. When le appears at the sentence final, the situation is viewed holistically. By this way of viewing, the viewer makes a summary of the whole process, and is focused on the ending of the situation, highlighting the consequent state of the whole event. These findings can explain the varied meanings of the same le in different places.4. In the construction of the discourse time of a sentence, le combines with the verb situation in different ways. When the situation is an Accomplishment or an Achievement, the situation is viewed as whole, but when it is an Activity or a State, le activates an implicit initiating process which leads to the start of the durative situation.5. Besides these, some more factors are found to affect the view of situation.1) Vantage point. A vantage point is the place from which the viewer observes the situation. There are two major kinds of view points. The first kind of view point lies out side of the situation. The viewer is either behind or in front of it. When the speaker is behind a situation, he is likely to take a holistic view. When he is in front of the situation, the viewer usually activates an initiating process for the situation by using the perfective marker. The other kind of view points lie inside the situation. The viewer views the situation sequentially along theses points. When there is a time adverbial signifying an interval, the viewer is likely to take the sequential kind of viewing, for the reason that the interval offers the viewer a series of psychological view points along which he proceeds with the development of the situation.2) The interaction between the two le’s. In some le structures, there are two le’s. One is in the middle of it, the other appears at the end. While each le functions in its own way, final le may coerce the result of the le in the middle,and the consequent state of summary view shows more strongly.3) The way of the situation viewing is also influenced by some special sentence structures. The first kind of them are the existential sentences, which give prominence to the existence of a state, the consequence of a previous event. In such cases, no sequential view is taken. Another kind of them are sentences with state adjectives that are shown in the middle of le structures. State adjectives describe the consequent state of an event and their appearance in the middle of the sentence implies the prominence of the consequence. In such cases, the viewer views the initiating process holistically, despite the fact that le is in the middle of the sentence. The third kind of sentences are a special kind of "V le QP le" structures, in which le appears in the middle of the sentence, but the situation is also summarized by the viewer.4) In the overall temporal composition, a kind of time adverbial like "yesterday" plays a part. In most cases, an event brings about a consequent state that may last until the time of utterance, but when there is an adverbial of this kind, the state dose not last and is limited within the temporal framework provided by the adverbial. The le sentences of this kind report on the occurrence of the event, implying no correlation between the past event and the time of speaking.5) The influence of pragmatics. Discourse is the use of linguistic expressions in concrete situations. What a speaker says is not without intentions. His intensions are shown by stressing on the different elements of a sentence. As far as le constructions are concerned, the shift in stress may result in a minute change of the part of a situation that is viewed. The "V le QP le" serves a good example. When the stress is on the QP, as is the usual case, the situation of the verb is viewed as a matter of fact: What the speaker views is the actual occurrence of the situation. Such a sentence signifies that the quantity of QP is reached. But when the stress is on the verb, the viewer does not view the actual progress of the situation, but regard it as a kind of abstract happening, implying that something DID happen, while the quantity of QP is ignored.6) For some le constructions with a QP in it, the time of speaking is also the time when the different kinds of quantities add up. It is for this reason that such le constructions are often found to have an implicature of "sufficiency".The model is revised at the end of this thesis and is proved to be effective through its application to some other le constructions not yet discussed in the previous chapters.