A Study On The Adversative Relation Category In Modern Chinese

As a relational semantic category,the adversative relation is a basic semantic one among language expressions;therefore,the adversative category becomes the focus of more and more experts and scholars.Much attention is attached to the study on the detailed elements,such as adversative complex sentences,adverbs or conjunctions which have the great function of adversative correlation,leads to the prosperous achievements on the study and lays a solid foundation for the further study.However,there is a great lack of an overall study and many solutions to problems still keep on the surface,especially about the adversative semantic relation,which is centered on the ―contrast or contrary‖ between the preceding and the consequent.Even though it has touched the logical study and regards the logical semantic relation as the foundation for the semantic relation study,there is neither an exact research on the attribute of the adversative relation nor an overall knowledge of the adversative category.Therefore,the thesis attempts to identify the semantic attributes of adversative relation and study the logical semantic basis in order to summarize the semantic features on the essence of logic.The expressions and features of the adversative semantic relation is the target of study on the basis of the adversative semantic category in addition to the methods to carry out the discourse expression so as to offer an overall perspective.The main contents of the thesis are as follows:The first chapter is the introduction to the adversative category,which contains the background information,research contents,research significance,research methods and material resources,etc.The second chapter lists and gives a summary to the current research on the adversative relation both home and abroad,as well as the researches on the adversative relation from the different perspectives,such as the expressions,logic and cognitive aspects,to find out the previous insufficient explanations to the adversative relation.Accordingly,the study on the adversative relation is about to start with the relational semantic category and learn about the reasons and expressions of the category from different perspectives in terms of the foundamental implications to lay a foundation for the further research.From the third to the sixth chapter,it is the main body of the thesis,which gives an overall research on the adversative relation as a relational semantic category on the perspectives of logical basis as well as a summary to the semantic features,similarities and differences of typical adversative conjunctions.It is followed by the description of linguistic representations and cognitive-pragmatic procession of the adversative relation to further explain its discourse expressions in order to learn the relation.The specific contents of each chapter are as follows:The third chapter focuses on the logical semantic essence of the adversative relation.In order to get a good knowledge of the adversative relation,it is needed to start with the semantic relational category to find out the logical essence of the relation to further have an understanding of attributes and features of the adversative relation.It is found from the previous researches that ―the contrast or contrary‖ relation is the semantic basis of the adversative relation.However,through the analysis of examples,the preceding and the consequent of adversative relation sometimes cannot be contrasted directly.What leads to the adversative relation? Through the further study,it is known that it is the implication negation instead of the simple contrast or contrary between the preceding and consequent of adversative relation that lays the logical foundation for the adversative relation.From the angle of propositional logic,the preceding and the consequent of adversative relation belong to the conjoint proposition because of their co-existence in the utterance.Therefore,the logical essence of adversative relation is the negation of implicational proposion: p∧﹁q.The fourth chapter states the semantic features of adversative category,which comes from the study of the logical basis of adversative relation,to find out the semantic attribute and summarize the semantic features with the negative proposition of logic as the basic core.Around the core,the adversative relational semantics shows the attributes as the relativity,the the reason-defying and the complementarity.The fifth chapter summarizes the language expressions of adversative category on the basis of semantic essences.The adversative relation shows the semantic contents through the specific language expressions,and the conjunctive words with the adversative meanings are the direct markers of its semantic relation.The common semantic feature of adversative conjunctive words is the ―adversative meaning‖.On the logical basis of the adversative logical essence of the adversative relation,the conjunctive words symbol the adversative relation through the attributes of the words as conjunctions or adverbs and typical usages from the common characters into the specific ones.The sixth chapter is the discourse representation of adversative relation.In the discourse communication,both sides perceive the logical semantic attribute,which is the negation of implication,and process the language according to the cognitive experiences.After the language transformation,the discourse events are integrated with the least relevant characters.The ultimate communicative purpose is achieved with the full use of linguistic representation on the basis of grammatical rules,as well as discourse markers,and reception of discourse meaning system.The last section is the summary to the whole thesis which identifies the semantic attributes of the adversative relation as well as the semantic features and representations.After the summarization,study of geneality and individuality as well as the analysis of cognitive-pragmatic procession,the discourse is uttered.Finally the limitations and the problems to be solved are listed.All in all,the thesis starts with the inquiry of semantic attributes of the adversative relation and aims to find the answers to a series of questions in the adversative relation: What is the adversative relation? What leads to the adversative relation? How to express the adversative relation? The answers to these questions lie in the exposure of the semantic logical essence: the negation of implication proposion: p∧﹁q.