The Studies Of The Fact-Presupposition Verbs In Modern Chinese

In modern Chinese, there is a class of verbs that can stimulate a fact presupposition in semantic level. It mainly presents in the form of Subject or Subject Clause and Object or Object Clause which demonstrates a definite commitment that the proposition is true. That is to say, only the proposition is true, the sentences with such verbs make sense. This kind of verbs, named fact-Presupposition verb, is the subject of our study. The main contents of the dissertation are as follows.1. We make a brief introduction of the origin of presupposition, the concept of semantic presupposition, pragmatic presupposition and Presupposition-triggers. The previous studies on fact-presupposition and the value of this research are further introduced.2.We give the definition of our research objects, including fact, presupposition, fact-presupposition, potential fact-presupposition, factual fact-presupposition, and fact-Presupposition verb. The criteria for research objects are revealed, as well as the source of our corpus.3.Using the method of deduction, we classify the fact-Presupposition verbs from the perspective of semantic. As the fact is only operated by us or has effects on us, our language expresses the operation and effect correspondingly. Thus, the fact-Presupposition verbs can be first divided into two categories: operative ones and effective ones. Operative fact-Presupposition verbs include three sub- categories: psychological act category, speech act category and compound act category. The psychological act category in which can be divided into senses act category, cognitive act category, thinking act category ,attention act category and emotional act category five sub-categories; speech act category can be divided into representative act category, expressive act category and question-and-answer act category three sub-categories; compound act category can be divided into survey act category, registration act category and processing act category three sub-categories.Effective fact-Presupposition verbs include three sub-types: emotional effect category, compound effect category and demonstrative effect category. For each category, we give concrete descriptions and explanations.4. We summarize the language performance of the fact Presupposition and point out three language forms that can express the fact Presupposition, which are clauses, phrases and words. Further more, we give analysis of the difference between fact-presupposition verbs and other presupposition-triggers (the VP to NP as an example) and point out that the fact presupposition is not brought by the presupposition-trigger verbs. According to the condition of whether the verb requires the co-occurrence of the fact presupposition, the fact-presupposition verbs are divided into three categories. We also present our views of the value of the study on fact-presupposition verbs in grammar, in dictionary edition and in teaching Chinese as a foreign language in the end.