A Cognitive Study Of Chinese Counterfactuals From The Perspective Of Conceptual Integration Theory

Counterfactuality is a universal human thinking activity.It can convey contrary-to-fact meanings and show the art of language.Overseas studies of counterfactuality have a long history.Scholars in various fields,including philosophy,logic,psychology and linguistics,have been studying counterfactual conditionals from different perspectives.However,they pay little attention to the cognitive process of the meaning construction.Moreover,there are recognizable differences in the expression of contrary-to-fact meanings between English and Chinese.There are obvious inflectional changes in English while in Chinese there are complicated relations in parts of speech.For this reason,there are even few studies of Chinese counterfactuals.This study focuses on the meaning construction of Chinese counterfactuals from the perspective of cognitive semantics.To some degree,the study can provide a more comprehensive exploration to Chinese counterfactuals,that is,a dynamic conceptual integration in the process of understanding.Under the framework of Conceptual Integration Theory,the study pays close attention to the unique characteristics of Chinese counterfactuals and the online construction of counterfactual meanings.The study tries to answer the following three questions:First,are there counterfactual conditionals in the Chinese language?If yes,are there typical linguistic markers for Chinese counterfactuals?Second,what are the characteristics of Chinese counterfactuals at the level of syntax,grammar and pragmatics?Third,how do the involved characteristics interact with each other in the online construction of Chinese counterfactuals under the framework of Conceptual Integration Theory?How to interpret their pragmatic functions in specific contexts?This is an introspective study based on Peking University CCL(Center for Chinese Linguistics)Corpus.With introspective method,the study explores the cognitive process of Chinese counterfactuals under the framework of Conceptual Integration Theory.It can profoundly reveal the creation of mental spaces,mutual operations and online construction.The results indicate that there are counterfactual conditionals in the Chinese language without typical linguistic markers.Based on the framework of Conceptual Integration Theory,the generation mechanism of counterfactual meanings is a complex online construction process.It involves syntax,grammar,context and many other factors.There are no essential differences between Chinese and Indo-European languages on this issue.The study contends that the thinking process and the conceptual combination of counterfactuals can be revealed in the cognitive analysis of counterfactual conditionals.In this way,people can partially discover the essence of phenomena existing in the usage of human languages and the process of understanding.Thus,the study can help people to fully perceive the nature of human thinking.