| 英文摘要 |
Unlike logicians, linguists approach conditionals from the perspective of how human beings document meanings carried by linguistic conversations, and furthermore, the working of mental spaces for the processing of conditionals. This paper aims to investigate, via the examination of Chinese conditionals as used in conversation, the claim offered in previous studies─the hypotheticality and optionality associated with if-clauses make them likely vehicles for interpersonal functions in conversation where issues of “face” must also be attended to. Our basic assumption is that linguistic structures become identifiable because they serve fundamental communicative needs for speakers in natural context, whereas communicative needs are the recurrent actions humans perform through the medium of language (Du Bois 1985). We would argue for the invalidity of Sweetser’s (1990) classification of conditionals in the analysis of data collected from face-to-face conversation. In other words, it will be shown that natural discourse yields significant findings not observed in previous proposals based largely on recalled or constructed examples taken out of context, because they provide the most valid evidence opening a window onto the mystery of the human mind. Grammar should thus be viewed as the sediments of interactional and cognitive operations in human conceptualization. The various uses of conditionals identified in this study also reflect that newly-recruited meaning may be related to the prototypical meaning when the speaker’s subjective evaluation on the current speech context comes into play. It is therefore suggested that grammar does “guide our elaborate conceptual work with an admirable economy of overt indications.” (Fauconnier 2003:251) |
本站僅提供期刊文獻檢索。
