A Study Of Triggers And Constraints For Vp Ellipsis In English: A Clause Relation Approach

There are many ways to realize clause relations,which function as a way to achieve coherence.One very common but special type of these relations is Ellipsis,which is frequently discussed as a cohesive device to realize coherence among clause complexes.However,cohesion does not necessarily lead to coherence.Coherence sometimes can evoke cohesion;cohesion and coherence are mutually interactive.This dissertation is concerned with English verb phrase ellipsis(VPE for short)in written material.The goal is to explore how clause relations,or a discourse based approach can applicable to the discussion of ellipsis as a cohesive device,especially in terms of its constraints by clause relation and its triggers by connectives or other words of cohesive function.Thus,we set out the following research questions for investigation.1.What evokes VP ellipsis in a coherent discourse?How are these triggers distributed?2.In what linguistic circumstances or clause relations can VP ellipsis occur?What constraints can be found in the elidability of constituents?3.What are the motivations for the use of VPE in written discourse?In search for the answer to above questions,the integration of qualitative and quantitative method is adopted to VPE studies.Quantitatively,we exhibit the statistical features of VPE,like the frequency of triggers,distribution of three clause relations in triggering VPE,the distribution of polarity in VPE and the distribution of triggers in different genres.Qualitatively,with the help of corpus examples,we can depict the characteristics and observe the rules of VPE constra_ints and triggers in light of the theory of clause relation,and establish the prototypicality of VPE.Actually,most previous VPE researchers adopted qualitative analyses to scaffold their assumptions and inferences and fewer have ever had tested their assumptions with solid data.Based on the theoretical model of the current research,the interaction between clause relation and VP ellipsis can be better interpreted.Clause relation,as an instantiation of cohesion,achieves coherence by virtue of VPE.In the text-texture movement achieved by the relation between cohesion and coherence,cohesion with the assistance of clause relation,makes a coherent text whereby texture can be recognized by the application of VPE.This study selected the written material from the Open American National Corpus(OANC,for short),which contains a core corpus of at least 15 million words,including both written(14,623,927 tokens,72%)and spoken(transcripts)(3,217,772tokens,18%)data comparable across genres to the BNC,in which the genres in the OANC cover a variety of tasks and topics.In written data,there are more than 6424 texts,including719,636 sentences,big enough to select target VP ellipsis.Obtaining the frequencies of VPE triggers involved the following steps:separate the written and spoken materials;clear the format;cut-off sentences with the predefined criteria written by a computer program;download the raw corpora;then manually select the VPE with connective triggers;and finally,calculate the frequency with the aid of Excel.VP ellipsis found in written texts seldom intrigues the researcher’s enthusiasm to take a statistical study because of the difficulty and subtlety of data selection;this is just the merit of the present study.By extracting the written part and cleaning up the format with the computerized program,there are 719,636 sentences left,in which 67,274 suspected sentences of VPE with both connective triggers and verb triggers were selected automatically by the employment of written program in computer.The identification of VPE entails human judgments,which makes computerized analysis less viable.In manual process,364 clause complexes are selected from 67,274 sentences,which are taken 0.5 percentage of computer selection result.VP ellipsis in written text occurs not as frequent as in oral discourse,the data amount thereby far smaller than oral discourse.It also causes negligence of written-text VPE study in linguistic research.Due to the difficulty in using VPE,we think that VPE is worthy of paying attention to.Even we can grab the limited amount of the typical data;the contrast of the proportion of VPE in the given material and the comparison of different triggers also matters,and it can provide the statistical proof of characteristics of VPE occurrence.With the analysis of the data we found that the establishment of some clause relations tends to constrain VP ellipsis;they are Cause-Effective relation,Resemblance relation and Contiguity relation.Based on the interaction between VPE and the above three clause relations,we discovered the connectives and the auxiliary/modal verbs retained besides the source and the target evoke VP ellipsis,according to their frequency of occurrence.Coordinate words and,but in the parallel structure combined with auxiliary verbs do,be,have are prototypical of VP ellipsis.With further exploration,the motivation of VPE comes from five aspects.Textual context which the clause relations existed offers textual surroundings for VPE occurrence,and context-dependency promotes the interpretation of VPE.Semantic parallelism provides a new to way to judge the identification of VPE,especially for those of voice-mismatch.According to the scale of Ellipsis Force,we can evaluate the possibility of VPE occurrence.Statistical priority lays a solid foundation for the prototype of VPE.The Principle of Least Effort is applied to claim the motivation of VPE production and interpretation.Of the above five motivations,textual context and semantic parallelism are inclined to be the motivation of VPE constraints,while the other three are inclined to be the motivation of VPE triggers.Surly,the five motivations are possible to function in both triggers and constraints,for the two are not contradictory,however,mutually complementary from lexical level and clausal level.No matter what factors VPE involves,they all motivate the process of VPE to make a coherent discourse.VPE is a cohesive device based on Halliday(1976),who clarifies the relation between VPE and coherence,whereby VPE facilitates the coherence.However in the present study,we demonstrate that VPE is constrained by clause relation,it can occur based on the coherent discourse relations,that is,coherence facilitates generation of VPE.Based on the present research,we stretched the relation between VPE and coherence;they interact with each other.It is not a unidirectional action,but a bidirectional action.It is a mutual interaction of them.We also make a comparison with another corpus study of VPE by Johan Bos&Jennifer Spenader,whereby the frequency of auxiliary verb/modal verb triggers of these two researches,are similar in ranking,especially the first top five and last three triggers are exactly the same.This achievement entrenched the credibility of present research.With the analysis of VPE,we expected to improve the correct interpretation of VPE,and decrease misunderstanding and misuse of VPE.It can enhance second language learner’s categorization of VPE,inspire them to use VPE properly,improve their reading comprehension ability,upgrade their writing skill and intensify their confidence of language learning.From the present study,we presented the characteristics and prototype of VPE,which offers model to natural language processing,and thus enlighten computer translation.We finally demonstrated the evocative motivations of VPE,among these motivations,some new terms are coined,such as Ellipsis Force,statistical priority.The scale of Ellipsis Force expounded the occurrence of ellipsis intuitively.Statistical priority is a cognitive process of VPE formation,by which the motivation of VPE gains comprehension easily.In light of these new terms,we can keep originality of the dissertation,and highlight the creativity of current study.We can also broaden the scope of VPE,explore linguistic rules of it,and eventually discover the nature of language.The dissertation proposed new and original solutions to some key questions in the study of VP Ellipsis.Drawing on a variety of authentic data from OANC,we found that VP ellipsis in a coherent text is constrained by clause relation and evoked by coherence.Making significant progress towards VPE analysis,it will be of key interest to anyone working on VPE in cross-discipline,such as comparative study of VPE,second language acquisition,machine translation,and so on.