A Contrastive Study Of Information Structure Of Existential Sentence In English And Chinese

As a common linguistic phenomenon and a complex and unique syntactic structure,English and Chinese existential sentences have been the focus in the academic circle for a long time.The traditional grammar approach focuses on the concept,the classification and verb valence of existential sentences;the cognitive grammar approach focuses on the existential construction and the “Trajector-Landmark”;the generative grammar approach focuses on the syntactic status of NPs at the beginning of sentences,and the case assignment of NPs after verbs;the systemic functional grammar focuses on the theme and syntactic-semantic analysis of different types of English-Chinese existential sentences;the typology approach focuses on the encoding types of existential sentences cross languages and interpretation of implicational universal and the typological study of the subject in existential constructions.On this basis,this thesis takes English and Chinese existential sentences as the research object.From the perspective of information structure,the thesis uses the literature review method and the contrastive research method to conduct the analysis,aiming to explore the following two questions:(1)What are the differences in the information structure of English and Chinese existential sentences?(2)What are the factors accounting of the differences of information structure in English and Chinese existential sentences?In order to solve the above two problems,the thesis carries out specific research from the following three steps.First of all,the relevant corpora are collected.The corpora are collected from COCA and CCL,and then are classified,analyzed.Secondly,the characteristics of EnglishChinese existential sentences are introduced,and a contrastive study of their information structures is conducted to discuss difference.Finally,the motivations accounts of the differences between English and Chinese information structures are analyzed from ethnic thinking and ethnic culture.Based on the academic division of existential sentences into three segments(Fan Fanglian,1963)and the collected corpora,a contrastive analysis of English and Chinese existential sentences is made.The following findings can be drawn:Firstly,there is no definite marker in preverb components(part A),which is easy to cause a vague impression on the definiteness.If the analysis is combined with the specific context provided by the discourse,the Chinese existential sentences can be further determined that part A tends to be definite.The word “there” is a logical affix and does not have definiteness.It occupies the subject position and has the characteristic qualification of syntactic subject.Besides,it also carries the old information of sentences.Its responsibility is to introduce real subjects and the topic of the sentences by constructing transitional components that are the background of sentences.Secondly,Chinese existential sentences are not based on the argument relationship of verbs,but focus on the statement of events.The argument of transitive verbs becomes the carrier of state presentation and occupies space.Chinese existential sentences are a kind of language with prominent verbs.As the category of prominent verbs,the verb is very expansive.While the verbs involved in the English existential sentences emphasize the argument relationship and ignore the information structure.Thirdly,NP in Chinese existential sentences appear in the form of indefiniteness,while NP in English is divided into responsive definite NP and extractive definite NP,which are further divided into noncontextualized English existential sentences and contextualized English existential sentences.In non-contextualized English existential sentences,the object NP,as new information,does not presuppose its signified;in contextualized English existential sentences,the object NP presupposes its signified and must exist in conjunction with the specific context XP,which serves as a supplementary component of NP.The differences in the information structure of English-Chinese sentences are explained from two perspectives: ethnic thinking and ethnic culture.From the perspective of ethnic thinking,1)the relatively stable rational thinking of the Western and the relatively active enlightened thinking of the Chinese;2)the objective thinking of the Western and the subjective thinking of the Chinese;3)the abstract thinking of the Western and the concrete thinking of the Chinese.From the perspective of ethnic culture,1)the Western classical and Christian culture and the Chinese native Confucian and Taoist culture;2)the Western maritime commercial culture and the Chinese continental agricultural culture.