| This paper is a study of the Chinese concessive-contrastive structure:X shi X, a special structure with the same subject and complement in form. In fact, it has been a hot topic among linguists since the 1980s due to its profound pragmatic functions despite of its literally meaningless form. The structure has been studied from the perspectives of logic, rhetoric, syntax and semantics under the topic of tautology which is claimed to have three subcategories:structures for emphasis like "War is war", parallel pairs like "East is east, and west is west" and Chinese concessive-contrastive structures like "Piaoliang shi piaoliang". However, the author claims that the third type is a construction instead of a kind of tautology. Moreover, it is found that though the third type has been included into tautology, preferences are given to the other two types in detailed analyses. There is still a need for a further study of Chinese concessive-contrastive construction X shi X. In particular, three questions about it remain unsolved:What are the restrictions on lexicons entering the construction? What are its pragmatic functions? How is it produced and interpreted? (Specifically speaking, why does the speaker choose such a structure to express his idea? Why is the hearer able to predict a contrastive idea in the following part?)Firstly, a corpus-based observation helps the study on lexicons which can enter the construction. Nouns (noun phrases), verbs (verb phrases) and attributive adjectives are allowed in the construction. Moreover, the two "X" words are asymmetrical in word-choices (for the sake of convenience, the author names them as X1 and X2 respectively). When X1 is a referential noun, X2will be an adjective or a quantifier plus a noun (i.e. a noun phrase); when X1 is a descriptive noun, X2 will be identical in form. Moreover, monosyllabic instead of disyllabic verbs or adjectives which are frequently used in daily life are more likely to work as X1. In this situation, X2 often contains modifiers to show the state of an action or degree of a property.Secondly, the construction is a topic-comment structure which is endowed with profound pragmatic functions. The relation between the two "X" words gives a satisfactory explanation to their different preferences for lexicons. In addition, a further analysis shows that the construction has three pragmatic effects in communication: concessive agreement or affirmation, intersubjectivity and contrastive prediction.Finally, the production and interpretation of the construction have been explained in the light of Yang Ping’s R-A model together with Grice’s maxim of Quantity. On the production side, the speaker first makes relevant presumptions by constructing a cognitive context about not only the outside world but also the hearer’s cognitive context. Then he begins to adapt his various linguistic forms to contextual correlates: physical environment, social world and psychological worlds. Consequently, he would like to express his contrastive idea in an indirect way. Finally, in order to put forward his contrastive idea naturally, he decides to begin with a positive judgment for his partner’s idea or expectation. Therefore, "X shi X" comes into being. On the interpretation side, on hearing the construction, the hearer first realizes the ostensive stimulus involves an implicit meaning (because of the violation of the Quantity maxim). As a result, he won’t take its meaning as it literally is. He begins to construct a cognitive context about his partner and makes presumptions of relevance. Then inter-adaption between the linguistic form and the contextual correlates takes place. After that, he realizes that by uttering such a structure, the speaker is pretending or reluctant to agree with him. Therefore, he knows there will be something negative. |
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