"i Say" Class Meta-language Study

This is a dissertation about the meta-language "I say", "I think", "you see" etc.( "I say" type for short ) in modern mandarin. It mainly consists of three parts including the preface, the main part and the conclusion.The preface is mainly about the background and the purpose of our research.The main part is divided into four chapters:Chapter 1 gives the introduction of the theory and the general knowledge of the "I say"-type meta-language. On the basis of the theory, we put forth the issue we hope to discuss: how can we define I say in modern mandarin? We consider it a kind of meta-language for the reason that it serves at a second semantic level in an utterance, which is quite different from those serving as syntactic constituents.Chapter 2 focuses respectively on the textual and interpersonal functions of "I say"-type meta-language. This part should be considered as the soul of the whole article, because its unique function is the most conspicuous feature of "I say"-type meta-language. The following chapters can be regarded as the further research and explanation of the functions.Chapter 3 describes its certain selection of sentence types and its co-occurrence with different modalities. Through the description of this part, we can get more detailed knowledge of the function of "I say"-type meta-language.Chapter 4 expounds the formation of "I say"-type meta-language and its mechanism.The concluding part generalizes the ideas of this dissertation.