The Research On The Information Structure Of Mencius

Based on the research perspective of information structure theory,this paper studies the texts of Mencius.Mainly using Lambrecht’s(1994)definition of information structure theory,topic-explanation theory is also included in information structure theory,and as a key theoretical basis,from the discourse markers in marked texts,and the topics in unmarked texts back to From the perspectives of reference,topic introduction,topic chain,topic advancement,etc.,the discourse information structure of Mencius is studied.The investigation of marked discourses focuses on discourse functional discourse markers,which are divided into three categories: discourse markers of discourse organization function,functional discourse markers of discourse logical relationship,and discourse markers of source of discourse information.There are several sub-categories below.Generally speaking,pragmatic functional discourse markers have many types,wide uses,and various forms.There are also multi-functional discourse markers.Discourses lacking discourse markers often use topic anaphora to advance language expression when describing topics.The topical anaphora in the unmarked texts of Mencius mainly includes three types: zero-form anaphora,pronoun anaphora,and noun anaphora.Different topical anaphora also have different characteristics in the exposition part.At the level of topic introduction,taking the dialogue body text in Mencius as the research object,it divides the conversation start and the conversation into two stages,and divides the topic introduction into two types: direct introduction and indirect introduction.It is found that the situation of indirect introduction is complicated.In addition,the characteristics of topic introduction in three special sentence patterns of concurrent sentence,judgment sentence and existential sentence are analyzed,and it is affirmed that the special sentence pattern has topic introduction function.A systematic study of topic chains in the texts of Mencius will help to deeply grasp Mencius’ language style.This paper divides topic chains into four types: single topic single chain,degraded topic chain,multi-topic single chain,and main-sub topic chain.Except for a single topic and a single chain,the other three topic chains have hierarchical nesting.Regarding the research on topic advancement in Mencius,this paper summarizes a set of clear and easy-to-recognize classification methods,and only divides it into two categories: topic continuation and topic transfer.There are three sub-categories of reversal and reversal,and it is common to comprehensively promote the topic in various forms.Finally,the paper also discusses the application of the research on the information structure of Mencius,which involves the enlightenment to the research of the information structure of poems,the research on the logic of the discourse argumentation of Mencius,and the relationship between the information structure of sentences and the information structure of texts,as well as the enlightenment for the collation of ancient books,etc.,in order to apply the research methods and research results of this paper to a wider language research.