Causation vs.Reasoning in Chinese Cause-effect Complex Sentences:A Syntactic-semantic Approach
A dichotomy of causation and reasoning with respect to the cause-effect complex sentences,flagged by a series of semantic and syntactic differences,should be observed with more attention.The causation subtype can be formularized as the double-clause construction of"Ceffect,yinwei Ccause",observing the rule of causality and temporal sequence following which events occur in the real world,eg.Yinwei zuowan xiayu-le,jinzao malu shi shi-de'The street turns wet this morning because it rained last night'.The causes of this subtype can be divided into:1)explanatory causes,which are objective,e.g.Yinwei tian lerig,gang-li-de shui dou jiebing-le'Water in the tank froze because it was cold',and 2)normative causes,which are subjectively selected,formulated,attributed,or prescribed by the speakers so as to justify the happening and ought-to-have-been-done nature of Ceffat.For example,Yinwei mao you touchi-le yugang-li-de yu,suoyi wo mingtian xiaban hui duche'I'm bound to be stuck in traffic tomorrow after work because the cat has stolen the fish from the tank again'.In the reasoning subtype of"Ccause,yinwei Ceffect",however,the very effect at the eventive level is employed as the firstly-cognized information,thus as the cause for finding out the cognitive result which is actually the prima facie cause at the event level,e.g.Zuowan xiayu-le,yinwei jinzao malu shi shi-de'It rained last night because the street is all wet this morning'.The paper proposes that the causation subtype constitutes a single speech act unit while the reasoning subtype,two separate units.This contrast has a handful of syntactic consequences.For instance,only in the causation subtype can the pre-disambiguated common construction"yinwei-C"which is usually in emphatic use be downgraded to noun complements so as to modify the co-designated noun of yuanyin/yuangu;"yinwei-C"of the causation subtype can also be negated or rendered as a polar question or alternative question inquiring about the certainty of propositional attitude;and notably enough,only the causation-denoted"yinwei-C"can be focalized by using the exclusives and particularizers,and C can be constituted by a nominal phrase.All these syntactic operations and variations are inapplicable to that of the reasoning subtype.
万方数据
维普
