A Cognitive Study Of English Appositive Clause

Apposition, a linguistic structure existing in almost all the languages, is important beyond all doubt. As an important linguistic phenomenon, it has attracted a lot of attention from scholars at home and abroad. But these researches mainly focus on the description of its linguistic structure, and most of them are perfect for explaining the noun apposition rather than clause apposition, that is, appositive clause. Besides, Cognitive studies about appositive clause are rather few. Therefore, the cognitive process of appositive clause deserves our study.Appositive clause has its rich cognitive functions, so the thesis explores its cognitive functions by means of Shell Nouns Theory, holding that appositive clause serves as the following functions in our communication:providing cognitive background, providing the topic and focus for an interaction.What is more, the thesis explains the cognitive process of appositive clause. At first, it clarifies that appositive clause helps the antecedent go through a process from the abstract to the concrete from the perspective of the Virtuality Theory, so as to expound its special linguistic structure and cognitive functions of appositive clause; it further points out that the process from the abstract to the concrete involves establishing a new mental space.Then, the thesis continues to clarify the cognitive process from the perspective of Cognitive Reference Point Theory to deepen the research, holding that the conceptualizer treats antecedent as a cognitive reference point, follows a certain mental path and reaches the target in the end. What is special and different for appositive clause is that the target and the reference point are coreferencial, referring to the same referent.This Study of cognitive process of appositive clause by means of Virtuality and Cognitive Reference Point not only provides the cognitive Study of English appositive clause with other new theoretical perspectives, but also strengthens the explanatory power of these theories.