A Corpus-based Analysis On Evaluative Orientation Of It+Be+Adj+To-Clause Structure

As the common structure of English,"it be adj. to-clause"is considered to possess evaluation function which is mainly reflected in the adjectives and mutual projection between the adjectives and the verbs in to-clause. The survey of the typical adjectives in the pattern and the typical verbs in to-clause helps English learners use this pattern, choose appropriate adjectives and verbs to express evaluation. The analysis of the evaluation orientation can deepen the English learners'understanding of this pattern and arouse their attention to the impact of speech content by the objective and subjective evaluation.This investigation is based on the real data BNC provided, using the statistical methods, and aims to explore the typical adjectives, typical verbs and their co-occurrence, to analyze the evaluation orientation of the pattern. This pattern is processed, analyzed and induced by BYU-BNC website interface and Antconc software. Through the survey, we find that the typical adjectives appeared in the pattern are very various and the evaluation of this pattern is reflected generally through the projection between the adjectives and the verbs. As action event, the small clause to-clause acquired the evaluation orientation under the evaluation significance of the adjectives. Specifically, the projection between the adjectives and the verbs in to-clause of'it be adj. to-clause'has the objective orientated evaluation while the projection between the adjectives and the verbs in to-clause of'it be adj. for pron. to-clause'and'it be adj. of pron. to-clause'has the subjective orientated evaluationThis research has certain theoretical and methodological significance to this structure, and is helpful to the English teaching practice. This dissertation recognizes the evaluation function of the pattern as the basis and analyses the evaluation orientation on the data support of the typical adjectives and typical verbs found of this pattern and its variants. In research methods, this dissertation investigates the evaluation orientation of this pattern employing corpus with practicality and repeatability. In the teaching practice, it is helpful for English learners to understand the structure of adjectives and verbs, pay attention to their mutual choice and collocation between specific adjectives and specific verbs, for teachers to guide its learning with the evaluation orientation.In short, the present research provides an informative description of the typical adjectives, typical verbs and their co-occurrence, analyzes its evaluation orientation, and has deepened our understanding of the evaluation orientation.