A Prototype Study Of If-conditionals In English

The if-conditional in English is one of the most important and difficult areas of linguistic research. Traditional grammar deals with if-conditionals by analyzing the types of conditionals and the verb forms in the two clauses; logicians study if-conditionals from the perspective of the truth value of the conditions in them. So far few people have made any comprehensive study of if-conditionals as a prototype category. Prototype effect exists not only in the non-linguistic concepts, but also in linguistic concepts at different levels, including conditionals. This thesis studies if-conditionals as a prototype category in the framework of the prototype theory, intending to provide some new vision to the if-conditional by extending the study from the traditional model to the domain of cognitive linguistics, promote the integration of the prototype theory with the study of conditionals, and enrich the content of syntactic study from the perspective of the prototype theory.Based on the prototype theory and with the cognitive process of the categorization of if-conditionals as the cut-in-point, this thesis concentrates on elaborating the delimitation of the prototypes and the non-prototypes of the if-conditional category, the relation between the prototypes and the non-prototypes, the fuzziness of the if-conditional category, and the motivation and mechanism of the extension of the if-conditional category. This thesis argues that the categorization of linguistic objects should be based on their semantic characterization, and that the categorization of if-conditionals is of no exception. The study shows that the relation between the apodosis and the protasis is the main factor to delimit the prototypes and the non-prototypes of the if-conditional category; the relation between the prototypes and the non-prototypes is embodied in the weakening and the strengthening of the conditions in if-conditionals; fuzziness, as one of the cognitive attributes of the if-conditional category, results in the continued construction of the category; and the category extends from prototypes to non-prototypes as a chain-like construction, with direct conditionals as the reference point and metonymy as the extension mechanism.This thesis, from the perspective of form and meaning, provides a natural and holistic account of the relations between the members of the if-conditional category and elaborates the cognitive properties of the if-conditional category, expecting to provide some reference for the study of similar linguistic phenomena.