The IF-Hypothetical Sentences In Pride And Prejudice

In any English grammar textbooks, there are certain chapters analyzing complex sentences and its subordinate clause and main clause. And there are definitions for the subjunctive mood and hypothetical meanings. More generally, the verbs in the hypothetical conditional clauses are backshifted, the past tense form being used for present and future time reference and the past perfective form for past time reference. The general rule for verbs in both clauses of hypothetical conditions may be expressed thus: for the hypothesis which is contrary to the present and future facts--- verb used in conditional clause would be the past tense, and past modal would be used in matrix clause; for the hypothesis which is contrary to the past facts--- verb used in conditional clause would be the past perfective form, and past perfective modal would be used in matrix clause. And the conditional clause begins with the subordinator, such as if, in case, and in the event that etc. Similarly, in the Chinese grammar textbooks, there are certain chapters analyzing the complex sentence. However, the sections about the hypothetical conditions are not as explicit as those in the English grammar textbooks; moreover, not all the Chinese grammar textbooks have the systematic analysis of this issue. This essay has chosen the broadly popular modern English novel "Pride and Prejudice" as the language attributes and has compared the "if-hypothetical sentences" in both the English version and the Chinese translation version. After careful selections and attributes comparison, we can conclude: 1. the hypothetical conditions in English (or "if-hypothetical sentences") has explicit grammar definition, yet has blurred area, thus needs the comparison with present, future and past facts and consideration of scenes at the time to accurately judge the hypothetical meanings. 2. in English, more general, conditional clause indicating the hypothetical meanings should be put before the matrix clause; however, the cases when matrix clause is before the conditional clause are not few. Yet in Chinese, conditional clause indicating the hypothetical meanings is usually before the matrix clause, exceptions are not pervasive. 3. the conditional clauses indicating hypothetical meanings in Chinese which are corresponding to the subordinator "if" that begins with the conditional clause include 12 words like "Ru Guo"; among them, "Yao Bu Shi" indicates a negative meaning. 4. the sentence structure indicating the hypothetical meanings in Chinese include: "Yao Shi …, …", "Yao Shi …, Ye …", "Yao Shi …, Cai …", "Yao Shi …, Na (Me) …" etc. , totally 35 kinds. 5. in the attributes to this essay, the words proven to indicate hypothetical meanings include: "De Hua" to be put at the end of the conditional clause, "Zhen, Zhen De, Zhen Zheng, Zhen De", "Zao, Zao Jiu, Zao Yi". Just hope these efforts would be realized in the process of teaching Chinese as the foreign language.