A Cognitive Grammar Approach To Because-Clause

Cause-result relation commonly exists in natural world and human society,as well as in language.Because-clause in this thesis refers to the complex sentence with the main clause representing the result and subordinate clause leading by �because� representing the cause.The clause is constructed either in �P,because Q� or in �Because Q,P�.The meaning expressed in because-clause is diversified and complex,which has been studied by scholars home and abroad from various perspectives for many years.Logically,the cause precedes the result in the objective world.Experientially,there are three different sequences when people experience cause-result relation.First,they can experience the cause,then the result;second,they can experience the cause and the result at the same time;third,they can experience the result,then the cause.Linguistically,there are two kinds of because-clause in terms of the sequence between main clause and subordinate clause.One is that the main clause precedes the subordinate clause,the other is that the subordinate clause precedes the main clause.According to Quirk(1985),the reason clauses introduced by �because� tends to be in final position,the proportion this sequence takes is more than 95%.Why does the sequence of because-clause not correspond to the temporal sequence?In order to conduct a scientific study,the author combines qualitative and quantitative research method.200 items of because-clause are extracted from British National Corpus randomly.According to the syntactic structure classification,it is found that in the 200 items of the sample clauses,there are 184 cases that the main clause precedes the subordinate clause,the proportion that this sequence takes is 92%,there are 16 cases that the subordinate clause precedes the main clause,the proportion is 8%.According to the classification of the sequence of events,in the 200 items,there are 172 cases that the cause event precedes the result event,the proportion is 86%;28 items are that the cause event and result event happen at the same time,which occupies 14% of the whole.Furthermore,when we try to exchange the sequence between main clause and subordinate clause of the 200 items of because-clause,it shows that 20 items are not grammatical after the exchange.Based on the classification and observation,the research questions in this thesis can be summarized as follows: first,how is the meaning of because-clause conceptualized? Two,what are the restrictive conditions on the sequence between main clause and subordinate clause of because-clause?Based on Langacker's cognitive grammar,this thesis tries to explore the way of conceptualization and restrictive conditions on the sequence between main clause and subordinate clause of because-clause.Langacker(1991)claims that meaning is equated with conceptualization.The semantics of a grammatical construction not only contains the concept information of objective reality,but also language user's construal of the situation as well as his attitude and emotion.In this way,subjectivity exists in language.Language is not only related to the objective reality,but related to language user's construal or perception dimension of the objective reality.According to language user's construal or perception dimension,because-clause can be classified into objective because-clause and subjective because-clause.In objective because-clause,language user is just the perceiver.He conceptualizes the inner logic connection between the events expressed in main clause and subordinate clause as cause-result relation.In subjective because-clause,language user is both the perceiver and the object of perception.Language user conceptualizes the inner connection between his subjective knowledge or between the implementary speech acts and events expressed in the main clause and subordinate clause as cause-result relation.The basic function of objective because-clause is the description of the cause and result,there is no certain arrangement of the focus.Language user can either make the result precede the cause or make the cause precede the result.The basic function of subjective because-clause is to trace the cause from the result.Language user conceptualizes the cause as the focus,the result as the known information.The sequence of subjective because-clause is that the result precedes the cause,the main clause precedes the subordinate clause.Whether in objective because-clause or subjective because-clause,language user's construal or perception needs to be taken into consideration.Because of the involvement of subjective element in conceptualization,the sequence of because-clause does not always correspond to the temporal sequence,it is the result of language user's conceptualization and the way he conceptualizes it.The construal or perception by language user demonstrates the common feature: it is from the known to the unknown.The known can be the cause or the result.This thesis also makes an exploration of the restrictive conditions on the sequence between main clause and subordinate clause of because-clause from syntactic,semantic and pragmatic aspects.It is found that in a because-clause,there are some overlapping among the restrictive conditions.That is to say,the restrictive conditions on the sequence between main clause and subordinate clause can be explained from syntactic and semantic aspects,semantic and pragmatic aspects or syntactic and pragmatic aspects.It is also found that the sequence between main clause and subordinate clause can not exchange in inferential because-clause.This thesis falls into six chapters.Chapter one is the introduction,which includes the research background and significance,the objectives and research questions,the research methodology and source of data and the organization of the thesis.Chapter two introduces the concept causality from philosophical and logical perspectives,and provides a overview of the previous relevant studies on because-clause from traditional grammar approach,contrastive approach,functional-pragmatic approach and cognitive approach.Chapter three introduces the theoretical foundation of the study.A rough introduction of Langacker's cognitive grammar is made.Chapter four conducts a detailed classification of because-clause from syntactic and semantic aspects,it also analyzes the linguistic features of because-clause.In the part of syntactic feature,interchangeability between main clause and subordinate clause of because-clause is introduced.Chapter five makes a thorough cognitive analysis of because-clause.Firstly,the sequence of events of because-clause is presented,then the author analyzes that how is the meaning of because-clause conceptualized.Restrictive conditions on the sequence between main clause and subordinate clause are presented in the end.Chapter six is the conclusion of the study,it summarizes the thesis,presents the major findings,points out the limitation and contribution and makes some recommendation for further research.