Research On The Linkage Structure Of "Rituals"

We take the serial-verb structure of The ceremony of etiquette as the research object in this paper and redefine the serial-verb structure: The serial-verb structure is a kind of structures which contains two or more serial verbs or verb phrases,sharing a same subject.The verbs or verb phrases emerge successively or simultaneously and the order of them can not be changed.The serial-verb sentence is a sentence of two or more clauses essentially.Between the serial verbs or verb phrases,we can have a speech pause.In other words,in current versions of The ceremony of etiquette which contain the punctuation marks,we can not take "comma" or "period" as the standards to judge whether the structure of a sentence is the serial-verb structure or not.And the serial-verb structure sentences without punctuation should be viewed as compressed composite sentences.Between the serial verbs or verb phrases,we can insert conjunctions sometimes.At the same time,I don’t think the structure which contains a adverbial modifier and a verb successively can become a kind of component parts in the serial-verb structure.And we only recognize some "adjectives" and "nouns" as component parts of the serial-verb structure when they transform their characteristics of the words into "verbs".In this paper,we discuss the serial-verb structures of The ceremony of etiquette from two aspects: syntax and semantics.From the syntax aspect,wediscuss three sides: the styles of "the serial-verb structure",the styles of the "verbs" of "the serial-verb structure" and the styles of the gradation of "the serial-verb structure" in The ceremony of etiquette.From the semantics aspect,we discuss four sides: subject,object,verb,adverbial from the angle of semantic direction and relationships in the serial-verb structure of The ceremony of etiquette.This article also discusses some controversial issues,such as the "large-scale" serial-verb structure and the "small size" serial-verb structure,how to choose the examples of "a series of actions which two or more people do at the same time" and so on.And we also put forward some views and standards dealing with the serial-verb structure in this paper.