| Encapsulating Anaphora(EA)is a special type of anaphora.As far as the referential content is concerned,EA can be classified as the subcategory of abstract concept reference.The antecedents of EA are usually phrases,clauses and sentences,even sentence groups and other large units,which refer to situations such as facts,events and mental activities expressed by these linguistic forms.The anaphora activates and encapsulates the situation represented by the antecedent as a whole,mainly in the form of “demonstrative pronoun + general noun phrase”.The general noun usually does not appear in the antecedent,and can carry quantifiers and modifiers;EA is usually long-distance anaphora.The general noun can also be omitted,that is,the demonstrative pronoun alone acts as the anaphor.Based on the Multifactorial Contextual Co-selection Theory(MCCT),this study built a specialized corpus,focused on Nominal Encapsulating Anaphora(NEA)and Demonstrative Pronoun Encapsulating Anaphora(DPEA),and aimed to investigate the structural features and discourse functions of EA in modern Chinese.According to the MCCT,a thorough study of contextual information can reveal the behavioral profile of a linguistic phenomenon.Therefore,this study performed a detailed analysis of the antecedent length,the antecedent structure type,the antecedent situation type,the anaphor quantifier,the anaphor modifier and the anaphora distance.Furthermore,this study followed the principle of describing the category features first and then discussing the discourse functions.In view of the differences in forms and functions between NEA and DPEA,this study examined these two types respectively.NEA can be divided into six categories or groupings based on the semantic types of general nouns.The category features of each grouping were discussed from three aspects: cluster analysis;referential relationship analysis;and structural feature analysis.First of all,a cluster analysis was conducted based on the use of predicate verbs,conjunctions,and interrogatives in antecedents.The results demonstrate that the higher the general nouns in the cluster analysis,the stronger the semantic inclusiveness.The referential relationship analysis serves as a further verification and supplement to the cluster analysis.More specifically,on the basis of cluster analysis,this research performed a group study on general nouns,describing the structure,length,and situation types of antecedents with examples.By focusing on the richness of predicate verbs,conjunctions,and interrogatives in antecedents,the study compared the semantic inclusiveness and the ability of encapsulating different general nouns.The analysis of structural features in each category included antecedent features and anaphor features.The former investigated the distribution of general nouns,antecedent length and antecedent situation types according to the structural types of antecedents,while the latter focused on the co-occurrence of general nouns,quantifiers,and modifiers.Based on the analysis of the category features,this study explored the discourse functions of NEA from semantic,pragmatic,evaluative,and cognitive perspectives.DPEA can be divided into “zhe” as the subject,“zheyang(zheme)” and “zhe+...+sentence-final noun” based on the form of anaphor.The category features of each grouping included a referential relationship analysis and structural feature analysis.The analyses of “zhe” as the subject and “zheyang(zheme)” followed the same procedure;the referential relationship analysis mainly examined the antecedent situation type and the expressive functions of the new information,while the structural feature analysis focused on the structure of the antecedent.The analysis of the referential relationship of “zhe +...+sentence-final noun” focused on the antecedent situation types and the utilization of modifiers before sentence-final nouns,with the aim to compare the discourse functions with those of NEA;the structural feature analysis included antecedent features and anaphor features.Based on the analysis of category features,this study explored the discourse functions of DPEA from semantic,evaluative,and cognitive perspectives.The main findings of this study can be summarized as follows:Firstly,there are category differences and internal differences in terms of the semantic inclusiveness for general nouns.Factual,eventive and mental general nouns exhibit a stronger inclusiveness than environmental,linguistic and modal general nouns.Within each category,some general nouns are more inclusive and more frequently used,which are usually in the high and middle level of cluster analysis.Secondly,when it comes to discourse functions,both NEA and DPEA have semantic,evaluative and cognitive functions.Semantic functions include “defining function” and “characterizing function”.Evaluative functions are mainly realized through concept defining,the semantic prosody,and premodifiers of general nouns.Cognitive functions include conceptual integration and cognitive scaffolding.NEA has richer pragmatic functions,which mainly include three aspects: topicalization,presupposition,and context construction.Thirdly,the average anaphora distance of DPEA is smaller than that of NEA,which is believed to be related to the semantic absence of the demonstrative pronoun“zhe” in DPEA.Long-distance anaphoras are more common in eventive NEA,which is related to the temporal and spatial attributes of event situations.The research summarizes four discourse strategies of long-distance anaphora in NEA: the bridging anaphora strategy;the determiner strategy;the conjunction strategy;and the simple and brief antecedent strategy.Fourthly,compared with NEA,DPEA possesses stronger evaluative functions and a stronger conceptual integration capacity,which is manifested in the higher proportion of various pre-modifiers,longer average length and more complex information of antecedents in DPEA.Fifthly,as for the cognitive motivation of EA,this study holds that encapsulation is a discourse processing strategy,which enables the speaker to extract information from the longer text and to construct a new discourse referent,thus establishing the situation in the antecedent as an argument for further discussion.This process involves conceptual integration and processing,and the advantage is to chunk complex information,to reduce the cognitive load of processing larger pieces of information and to relieve the pressure of short-term memory.It is in line with the principle of language economy and is the embodiment of language adaptability.The main values of this study are as follows: 1)The study proposes to investigate the situation types of antecedents according to the use of predicate verbs,conjunctions and interrogatives in antecedents,together with the context information,which provides new insights for the study of EA.2)Based on the result of the cluster analysis and the richness of predicate verbs,conjunctions and interrogatives in antecedents,this paper compares the semantic inclusiveness of different general nouns in an anaphora context,and investigates the semantic features of general nouns from the discourse level,which is a supplement and improvement to the previous semantic research on a semantic collocation level.3)This study analyzes the conceptualization process from the perspective of EA,and illustrates the constraints of human short-term memory capacity on this process through empirical data.4)Based on the Multifactorial Contextual Coselection theory,the study presents a more systematic and in-depth overview of EA.At the same time,it extends the application of this theory from a lexical level to discourse level.5)The results of the study can be useful for text analysis,information extraction,lexicography and teaching Chinese as a foreign language. |
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