A Contrastive Study Of Grammaticalization Of Chinese And English Causal Conjunctions

This thesis fully describes and analyzes the grammaticalization processes of Chinese and English conjunctions on the basis of grammaticalization theory and corpus collected from different times.It also demonstrates respectively similarities and differences among syntactic,semantic and pragmatic features of Chinese and English causal conjunctions and their grammaticalization motivations.It has enriched and specified the application of grammaticalization theory to causal conjunctions,and also helps people to comprehend Chinese-English conjunctions and their related causal clauses.The aims of this thesis is providing significant enlightenment to English teaching and the teaching of Chinese as a foreign language.It has made some conclusions as follows:(1)There are some similarities in the grammaticalization processes of Chinese and English conjunctions.At the aspect of grammaticalization features,Chinese and English conjunctions are grammaticalized from content words,their binding forces of syntax are enhanced,and they all have phonetic weakening.On the aspect of grammaticalization mechanisms,both of them reflect obvious reanalysis and analogy,and they both have experienced grammaticalization slope ingrammaticalization processes,coexistence principle and alternative principle.On the aspect of grammaticalization motivations,metaphor and metonymy are the cognitive motivations of the similarities of Chinese and English conjunctions' grammaticalization.Besides language itself,the outer application of it can also stimulate Chinese and English conjunctions' grammaticalization,especially the economy rules of grammaticalization of pragmatic principles.(2)The biggest differences between Chinese and English conjunctions are the features in their different evolution processes.Compared with yin wei,the grammaticalization of because is much easier.Secondly,Chinese and English conjunctions emphasize diverse grammaticalization mechanisms.yin wei is influenced more by analogy in grammaticalization process,and metaphor is its significant cognitive Motivation,which extends its metaphorical scope a lot.because,however,is influenced more by reanalysis.Metonymy is its important cognitive motivation,and motivates the occurrence of new grammar principles.What's more,the autonomy rule,which can also be called subjectivization,is the reason to cause the differences of Chinese and English conjunctions' structures and syntax in their grammaticalization processes.For example,the logical thinking---“English is hypotaxis—prominent,while Chinese parataxis — prominent”,diversifies conjunctions' usages on syntactic structures and functions.This study is built on the grammaticalization theory and contrasts Chinese and English causal conjunctions' grammaticalization.Firstly,it finds the deficiencies of past researches and gets its own research perspective through reading and learning past literature.And then,it utilizes a qualitative and quantitative analysis,collects a plenty of data in various periods,and contrast Chinese and English causal conjunctions' diachronic developments of syntactic features,semantic features and pragmatic features.Finally,the thesis gets similarities and differences in grammaticalization and explains their grammaticalization mechanisms and motivations deeply.