SUBSTITUTE句型之認知釋解與訊息結構：以語料庫為本

Construals and information structure of SUBSTITUTE: A corpus-based study

蕭閔駿(Hsiao Min-Chun)

指導教授 ： 鍾曉芳

國立政治大學/外國語文學院/英國語文學系/碩士(2019年)

https://doi.org/10.6814/NCCU201900159

摘要

SUBSTITUTE的特殊語言現象讓英語學習者無法依賴句法結構來判斷其意義。首先，即便使用相同的句法結構，其被動句型（NPIN/OUT + be + Verb-pp）的主詞可理解為NPIN（取代其他的人事物）或NPOUT（被取代的人事物）。相同地，主動句型（NPAGENT + Verb + NPIN/OUT）中的直接受詞（Direct Object）亦可能為NPIN或NPOUT。本研究的目的為探討SUBSTITUTE的語意及句法結構，藉此幫助英語學習者判斷句中的NPIN及NPOUT，以減少理解的困難。
本研究的研究工具為英國國家語料庫（British National Corpus），從中蒐集SUBSTITUTE作為動詞的語料。語料分析分為三個面向：（一）探究SUBSTITUTE所表現出的句型種類（sentence pattern）及其在語料庫中的分布、（二）分析造成語意混淆句型的原因、（三）檢測句型的訊息結構（information structure）能否協助判斷該名詞片語為NPIN或NPOUT的語意。
本研究採用Fillmore（1982, 1992, 2006）所提出之框架語意學（Frame Semantics）為基礎，並融入Langacker（1991, 1999, 2008）在認知語法（Cognitive Grammar）中的研究模式所提出，如何以語言結構反映出人類對世界的認知釋解（construal）」，進行語料分析。
研究分析顯示SUBSTITUTE具備不同種類的句型，其中以 [NPAGENT + Verb + NPIN + for NPOUT] 最高頻，反映出SUBSTITUTE最常以‘TR (AGENT) + LM (IN)’之認知模式呈現，其中 ‘AGENT’ 與 ‘IN’ 的互動為該句型的焦點；而 ‘TR (AGENT) + LM (IN)’ 則反映出語言使用者經常將替換事件（event of substituting）概念化為動作鍊（‘AGENT-IN action chain’）的現象。另一方面，較為少用的句型，如NPAGENT + Verb + NPOUT，反映出截然不同的認知方式 ‘TR (AGENT) + LM (OUT)’，並顯示出替換事件（event of substitution）被概念化為另一種動作鍊 （‘AGENT-OUT action chain’）。研究發現，對於相同的替換事件，不同的動作鍊被語言使用者使用，進而造成SUBSTITUTE在句法結構中產生混淆的現象。當 ‘AGENT’ 或 ‘IN’ 被語言使用者聚焦，‘AGENT-IN action chain’ 動作鍊會被生成，而當 ‘OUT’ 被聚焦時，‘AGENT-OUT action chain’ 動作鍊會被生成。根據語料庫的分析結果顯示，在SUBSTITUTE的使用中，因為 ‘AGENT’ 或 ‘IN’ 最常被視為焦點，因此 ‘AGENT-IN action chain’ 動作鍊是為SUBSTITUTE中替代事件概念化的典型。
另一方面，研究發現在句型的訊息結構（information structure）中特定名詞片語的訊息狀態與NPIN及NPOUT有密切關聯。當名詞片語為新訊息（‘new’ information）的時候，該名詞經片語經常為NPIN；而當名詞片語為舊訊息（‘old’ information）的時候，該名詞片語為NPIN或NPOUT在語料庫中呈現接近的比例。因此英語學習者可以透過檢視特定名詞片語的訊息狀態來判斷是否為NPIN或NPOUT。
本研究透過分析SUBSTITUTE的句型及其反映出的認知方式，找出造成語義混淆的原因，另一方面，訊息結構中的新/舊訊息也可以幫助英語學習者理解SUBSTITUTE的使用與判斷。本研究提供英語學習者在SUBSTITUTE的理解以及使用上的建議，並提供英語教學者在SUBSTITUTE的教學上有更深入的了解。

關鍵字

語料庫 ； 框架語義學 ； 認知釋解 ； 訊息結構 ； 句法結構

並列摘要

This thesis carried out a corpus analysis of the verbal SUBSTITUTE aiming to investigate the reason for the ambiguous role of the NP in the post-verbal position of [NPAGENT + Verb + NPIN/OUT] and the pre-verbal position of [NPIN/OUT + be + Verb-pp]. To be more precise, the NP in question bore two opposite roles: the entity to replace others (NPIN) and the replaced entity (NPOUT). In addition, whether the information status of the NP could predict its role was also investigated. To investigate the ambiguous role of the NP, we analyzed the sentence patterns of SUBSTITUTE by adopting Fillmore’s (1982, 1985, 2006) Frame Semantics and Langacker’s (1991, 1999, 2008) Conceptual construal. Specifically, the {REPLACING} frame comprised of the ‘AGENT’, ‘IN’, and ‘OUT’ participants was evoked as the conceptual knowledge base of SUBSTITUTE. Then, the ‘profiling’ and the varying prominence conferred on the participants gave rise to different construals of SUBSTITUTE, which in turn were realized in different sentence patterns. For example, [NPAGENT + Verb + NPIN] reflects the ‘TR (AGENT) + LM (IN)’ construal in which the prominence was primarily conferred on the ‘AGENT’ and ‘IN’ participants.
In this thesis, we consulted the British National Corpus to extract the verbal SUBSTITUTE for analysis. The analysis focused on three aspects, including (a) the types and distribution of sentence patterns in the corpus; (b) the reason for the ambiguous roles in the NP in the corpus; (c) the information structure of the sentence patterns.
Some findings were suggested according to the corpus results. First, the different primary focus of the construals may give rise to two distinct conceptualizations of action chain: the ‘AGENT-IN action chain’ and the ‘AGENT-OUT action chain’. The distinct action chains were argued to be the cause for the ambiguous role of NP in the sentence patterns. While [NPAGENT + Verb + NPIN] represented the ‘TR (AGENT) + LM (IN)’ construal in the ‘AGENT-IN action chain’, [NPAGENT + Verb + NPOUT] represented the ‘TR (AGENT) + LM (OUT)’ construal in the ‘AGENT-OUT action chain’ instead.
Then, the corpus results suggested that the use of SUBSTITUTE predominantly conceptualizes the ‘AGENT-IN action chain’, in which the ‘TR (AGENT) + LM (IN)’ construal is the typical construal encoding the typical sentence pattern of SUBSTITUTE, [NPAGENT + Verb + NPIN + for NPOUT]. In contrast, [NPAGENT + Verb + NPOUT] reflecting the ‘TR (AGENT) + LM (OUT)’ construal in the ‘AGENT-OUT action chain’ is peripheral in SUBSTITUTE.
As for the information structure in sentence patterns, the ‘discourse-new’ NP prefers to be the NPIN. In contrast, the ‘discourse-old’ NP shows the neutral preference to either NPIN or NPOUT. In addition, conforming to the ‘old-before-new principle’, the ‘discourse-new’ NP prefers to occur in the direct object of [NPAGENT + Verb + NPIN] while the ‘discourse-old’ NP prefers the subject of [NPIN/OUT + be + Verb-pp].
This thesis concluded that SUBSTITUTE tends to conceptualize the ‘AGENT-IN action chain’, in which the ‘AGENT’ and ‘IN’ are focused. However, it is the availability of the other action chain that causes the ambiguous roles of the NP in the sentence patterns. The information status of being ‘discourse-new’ could help interpret the role of the NP in question. The pedagogical implications of teaching and learning SUBSTITUTE were suggested in this thesis.

並列關鍵字

Substitute ； Corpus ； Construal ； Information structure ； Frame Semantics

參考文獻

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