A Study Of The Cognitive Mechanism In Chinese Zero Anaphora Under Autonomy-dependence Relation

Originating from Sino-Tibetan languages,Chinese,a theme-centered language,is of parataxis and its textual structure is discrete,which makes it distinguishes from Indo-European ones,whose textual structure is continuous and attaches importance to hypotaxis.Since zero anaphora employs a zero form in the flow of speech when refers to a conceptual entity again,it is much more common in Chinese.As a device of cohesion,zero anaphora not only appears in typical verb-predicate clauses,but also in noun-predicate clauses including the noun-predicate,adjective-predicate and subject-predicate predicate ones.Reviewing the previous researches,they are large and multi-angle,ranging from syntax to discourse analysis.With the development of cognitive linguistics,the researches of zero anaphora have changed from description to interpretation,and the focus has shifted to the cognitive mechanism behind it.This thesis attempts to explore the motivation of zero anaphora within the framework of autonomy and dependence relation in Valence Theory.And based on this motivation,the cognitive path of identifying the antecedent is put forward.Valence Theory explicitly describes the internal structures of constructions and explores how they are integrated in more detail,consisting of four basic factors:correspondence,profile determinacy,conceptual autonomy and dependence,and constituency.Among which autonomous components refer to structures being able to stand alone,and their own manifestation is not in need of others' support in conceptualization.Whereas dependent components are converse.From the perspective of this,the cognitive motivation of zero anaphora is the open elaboration-site within dependent component.In the vast majority of cases,the predicate in the anaphora-existed clause is the dependent component.And the antecedent is an autonomous component.Based on the cognitive motivation mentioned above,here are questions: how the hearer construes the conceptual entity referred by zero anaphora,identifies the antecedent through interaction with the speaker,and finally achieves coordinated mental contact with interlocutors to the zero anaphora.In this thesis,the identifying of antecedent is considered as a process of grounding to it.The antecedent is located or grounded in the speech event anchored by the anaphora-existed clause,because thespeech event is conceptually dependent in nature which needs the support of its participants.In this sense,the anaphora-existed clause is considered as a kind of grounding strategy to identify the antecedent of zero anaphora.As a result,the cognitive path of zero anaphora is presented.The conceptual entity referred by zero anaphora is located in the speech event anchored by anaphora-existed clause.The adjusted and profiled meaning of antecedent must correspond to the open elaboration-site of dependent component within the immediate scope,and then it is qualified to enter the attention scope.Here the attention of interlocutors is directed to the antecedent,therefore the antecedent of zero anaphora is identified successfully.