A Contrastive Study Of Third-person Zero Anaphora In Naturally-Occurring And Planned Chinese Conversation

As an important aspect of anaphora studies, the contrastive study between NC and PC could complement our researches on ZA as well as deepen the understanding of how discourse is constructed.The current study aims to reveal the similarities and the differences in terms of the discoursal aspects of third-person ZA between NC and PC.The thesis consists of 6 chapters.Chapter 1 briefly introduces the aim, scope, methodology of the study and the organization of the thesis.Chapter 2 makes a survey of related studies. After the principal theories of anaphora are introduced, we review anaphora studies of Chinese discourse. What's more, we glimpse the anaphora studies in other languages.Chapter 3 introduces the data collection and the annotation scheme.Chapter 4 makes a contrastive study between NC and PC in the following aspects: the overall distribution of T-ZA; the distribution of T-ZA compared with the distribution of NP anaphora as well as PA; the distribution of T-ZA in various grammatical positions; the RD of T-ZA; the reference ambiguity of T-ZA; and the RP of T-ZA.Chapter 5 elaborates on the similarities and the differences of T-ZA between NC and PC, and attempts to seek out the potential reasons.Chapter 6 makes a conclusion of the research findings before pointing out the potential significance, the limitations of the study and studies to be done in the future.This study demonstrates that:(1) With regard to the discoursal distribution of third-person ZA, no obvious difference is found between the two kinds of conversation.(2) The third-person ZA is widespread in subject position and rare in object position in both NC and PC.(3) The study once again proves the inverse relation between the frequency of ZA and RD as well as PI.(4) The linear constraint of third-person ZA is more obvious in PC than in NC; third-person ZA in NC has a stronger tolerance towards PI; third-person ZA in NC has a stronger persistence value than in PC.(5) The variations of T-ZA between NC and PC are directly related to style and the mechanism of cognitive psychology.