Articles | 更新时间:2024-08-13
The causal coordinate construction in English: Formation conditions, cognitive and pragmatic motivations
张克定    作者信息&出版信息
Foreign Language Teaching and Research   ·   2024年8月13日   ·   2023年 55卷 第6期  
0 5(CNKI)
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1. Introduction

Introduced the usage of the conjunction 'and' in English, particularly its role in constructing parallel constructions that express causal relationships. Parallel constructions can express 8 different semantic relationships, with causal relationships being the focus. The author points out that although many scholars believe that the causal parallel construction expresses pragmatic meaning, its constituent conditions and the source of pragmatic meaning have not yet been clarified. This article will use a combination of cognitive and pragmatic methods to explore the conditions for the formation of causal parallel constructions and the cognitive and pragmatic justifications for the construction meanings expressed.

2. Causal parallel construction and its constituent conditions

Explored in depth the conditions for the formation of causal parallel constructions in English and the cognitive pragmatic rationale behind them. The causal parallel construction is formally connected by the parallel conjunction "and" between two clauses, and semantically expresses an implicit causal relationship rather than a simple parallel. This construction has a semantic distinction between primary and secondary, with causal events and outcome events interrelated to form a causal scenario. To form a causal parallel construction, four conditions need to be met: the whole sentence condition, the semantic relevance condition, the temporal condition, and the authenticity condition. The whole sentence condition requires that the two connected components must be complete sentences; The semantic correlation condition requires two components to form a causal scene semantically; The temporal condition requires that the causal event occurs before and the causal event occurs after; The condition of authenticity requires two sub propositions to be true at the same time. These four conditions must be met simultaneously to form a qualified causal parallel construction. In addition, the chapter also compared the differences in the constitutive conditions between causal parallel construction and causal master-slave construction, pointing out that causal master-slave construction only needs to satisfy the three conditions of whole sentence, semantic relevance, and authenticity, and temporal condition is an optional condition. This difference arises from the fact that causal conjunctions such as "because" have explicit causal indication functions.

3. The construction meaning, cognitive and pragmatic basis of causal parallel construction

In depth exploration of the constitutive conditions, structural meanings, cognitive and pragmatic justifications of causal parallel constructions in English. Causal parallel construction is a language encoding method for expressing causal relationships, whose core lies in the interdependence of two clauses, connected by the parallel conjunction "and" to form a causal event chain. This structure is parallel in form, but semantically manifests as a master-slave relationship, where causal events lead to the occurrence of causal events.

4. Conclusion

Summarized the conditions for constructing causal parallel constructions in English, including sentence integrity, semantic relevance, temporal coherence, and authenticity conditions. These conditions ensure that the declarative clause can form a construction expressing implicit causal meaning through the conjunction and. Causal parallel construction is an indirect speech act, whose implicit causal meaning is jointly facilitated by cognitive and pragmatic reasons. Cognitive reasons involve the overall control of clauses, while pragmatic reasons involve the mutual enrichment between clauses.

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