Cataphoric Pronouns------ A Comparison between English and Chinese [3]
论文作者:佚名论文属性:短文 essay登出时间:2009-04-15编辑:刘宝玲点击率:9047
论文字数:5000论文编号:org200904151849433199语种:中文 Chinese地区:中国价格:免费论文
关键词:ComparisonEnglishChinesecataphorsrhetoric device
en two NPs. On the contrary, the NP “his” of example (7) c-commands nothing but its neighboring node N. In other words, “his” does not c-command “John”; this relationship of non-commanding brings “his” and “John” to a same refrence.
The criterion of c-commanding provides an easy interpretation for complex sentences in which the subordinate clause is regarded as an adverbial, because adverial, as shown below, does not c-command the node of the lexical NP.
2.1.2 NP tags ------ a functional analysis
While the binding conditons account for the cataphoric reading from a syntactic perspective, they fail to interprete the cataphoric use of pronouns in some syntactically informal circumstances.
(8) Theyi are good, these peachesi.
(9) I know themi, meni.
(10) I wouldn’t trust himi for a moment, that ladi.
It is easy to claim co-refrence between pronouns and lexical NPs in these cases, where “an amplificatory NP tag is added to the end of a sentence, repeating and clarifying the meaning of a pronoun within it”. This construction, occurring frequently, is considered as sub-standard. Even more familiar are cases where the operator is included in the NP tag.
(11) Shei’s a lovely girl, is Anni.
(12) Hei likes a drink now and then, Jimi does.
Then, what is the motivation behind? Halliday and Hasan (1976) labelled the pronoun here as “substitute theme”.
To illuastrate this point, first a brief review of the Theme-Rheme construction is in demand. As we all know, the usual discourse takes a linear order of theme-rheme pattern. Theme, of course, is the element, which serves as the point of departure of the message with which the clause is concerned. The remainder of the message, the part in which Theme is developed, is called in Prague school terminology Rheme. It is believed that the movement from Theme (or Given Information) to Rheme (or New Information) reveals the pattern of human thinking. And, in terms of tone unit, the new information that is reserved to the end is regarded as enf-focus where the nucleus lies.
However, the direction from theme to rheme is not always be followed in our daily communication, especially when in a haste, in which utterances like “They are good, these peaches.” are common. This kind of reverse has its two-fold reasons. On the part of addressors, they tend to say first the newer information, which is more important, for the sake of communicative economy. While on the part of addressees, studies have shown that their attention is mostly focused on the beginning part of an utterance. This is why we tend to “place initially what is more important”.
Coming back to cataphor, we may wonder what role it plays in the reverse process. As a substitute theme, as Halliday names it, the pronoun is required more by grammar than by refrence need, for it does not take any effort for us to recognize it as co-refrential with the NP tag placed finally. For this reason I propose that cataphors in such context be called “grammaticalized cataphors”. The previously cited example is labelled below with its formal version recovered.
They’re good, these peaches.
Rheme theme
Grammaticalized cataphor
New given
2.2 Cataphoric pronouns in Chinese
2.2.1 Cataphors in written Chinese
Like English, Chinese has a large number of pronouns either anaphoric or cataphoric. Examples are picked up from both modern and classical Chinese.
(13) 窈窕淑 i, 寤寐求之i. (<<诗经.关雎>>)
(14) 在一个美好的春
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