A Comparative Study Of English And Chinese Unreal If/Ruguo-Conditional Constructions

if p,then q and ru’guo p,na’me q are typical structures that express unreal conditions in English and Chinese.In the past,the study of these structures mostly focused on their logic and sentence structures from traditional linguistic aspect.In recent years,the analyses of them from cognitive perspectives arise,namely Mental Space,Prototype and epistemic domains.Based on Goldberg’s Construction Grammar,this paper compares the similarities and differences of both constructions that are contrary to the past,present and future events from the syntactic,semantic and pragmatic aspects.The results show that,syntactically,the clause order of English and Chinese unreal if/ru’guo-conditional constructions is flexible,that is,the protases precede the apodoses or the apodoses precede the protases.In the protases,generally,the conjunction if cannot be exchanged with the subject,while ru’guo can.Besides,with the presence of some particles in Chinese,such as de hua,ne and le,ru’guo can be omitted.There are also auxiliary verbs in English,namely should,had and linking verb were.With these verbs,if can be omitted and the position of the subject and should,had,were can be exchanged.The general sequence of Chinese conditional clauses can be “Conjunction + Subject + Verb” and “Conjunction + Verb + Object”,while in English it can only be “Conjunction + Subject + Verb”.However,“Conjunction + Pronoun/Noun” structures fail to be applied in both constructions.In the apodoses,the clause types can be declaratives,questions and exclamations in both constructions.In addition,imperatives are also suitable for Chinese unreal conditional apodoses.In the markers of the protases and the apodoses,then and na’me can be omitted without changing the unreal meaning of both constructions.English mainly expresses unreal conditional meaning by back-shifted verbs,while Chinese mainly uses time words and aspects.Semantically,the main semantic relation is causality.In English,there are some other relations like contrast,explanatory and selection,of which only explanatory and contrast can be found in Chinese.Pragmatically,this paper compares pragmatic functions of English andChinese unreal if/ru’guo-conditional constructions in terms of suggestion,refusal,blame,gratitude and regret,which finds that their pragmatic effects are basically the same.Through comparative study,this paper reveals the commonalities and differences of English and Chinese unreal if/ru’guo-conditional constructions in syntactic,semantic and pragmatic perspectives,which is helpful for the further study of English-Chinese comparison and is a beneficial supplement to Chinese construction theory.It helps the learners to correctly understand and use unreal conditional constructions of both languages.Besides,this paper can also provide certain reference value for foreign language teaching and teaching Chinese as a foreign language.In addition,it will be also useful for translation.