Complex sentence as a structure for representing knowledge--论文代写范文精选

不同的理论框架内生成文法,语法,这似乎并不是一个普遍的理解，对于语法是如何工作来说。自然语言作为一个符号系统,作用于两个级别的知识表示,生成一个文本。由此产生的信息文本的价值很大程度上取决于其成分的信息价值。下面的essay代写范文进行详述。

Abstract 
Structural variations involving both morphological and syntactic features of the complex sentence of the type “When S, S” and their relevance for the interpretation of sentence meaning are analyzed. It is hypothesized that the constraints on certain sequences intuitively felt by native speakers are due to semantic contradictions that arise between the indexical content of the verbal tense and aspect and the syntactic structure of the sentence which iconically reflects the cognitive processing of perceptual data. The cognitive value of different syntactically acceptable sequences is assessed from the point of view of the relationship between the morphosyntactic categories of tense and aspect and sentence iconicity.

INTRODUCTION 
The problem of discourse interpretation, despite a long history of studies and a variety of related theories, is still looming large and defiant on the linguistic horizon. Although the basic constituent of discourse, the sentence/utterance, seems to have been exhaustively analyzed and described within different theoretical frameworks such as generative grammar (Chomsky 1965), functional grammar (Halliday, 1985; Dik, 1989; Givón, 1993), typology (Greenberg, 1978; Hawkins, 1983; Givón, 1990), semantics (Ullmann, 1962; Lyons, 1977), pragmatics (Verschueren, 1999), etc., there does not seem to be a universal understanding of how sentential grammar works in discourse. 

As a sign system, natural language operates on two levels of knowledge representation: the level of text (discourse), and the level of linguistic units that add up to produce a text. The resulting informative value of a text largely depends on the informative value of its constituents. The traditional approach to language grammar attempts to provide an explicit set of features of meaning allegedly associated with a given form. In contemporary linguistic science these features are viewed as an assembly of concepts we have about the world, which are acquired via natural language and with the help of language. 

The outcome of this acquisition process is the sum total of our linguistic experiences; thus, grammar is viewed as a system of categorized patterned cognitive experience (Bod, 1998). With this in view, the principal objective of a grammatical theory (that is, morphology and syntax) should be the explication of the relationship between linguistic structures and cognitive concepts behind them (cf. Taylor & MacLaury, 1995; Shibatani & Thompson, 1996; Heine, 1997; Kravchenko, 2001). In other words, grammar is called upon to provide a means for encoding cognitive experience via conceptualization and categorization (cf. Svorou, 1994; Kravchenko, 2002a).

A similar semantic gap is found in (Ia1). If we compare (Ia2) and (IIa2), we will see that because of the different aspects used in S2 in these examples its informative value differs: Ann was cooking dinner represents phenomenological knowledge, it describes the situation as ‘here-and-now’, that is, at the time of John’s observation, so there is no causal relationship between the two propositions. By contrast, Ann cooked dinner represents structural knowledge, it describes the situation as a structural part of the world known to the speaker as a result of accumulated experience of similar situations, and a functional structure is characterized by causal relationships of its components, so in (Ia2) the proposition in S1 stands in a causal relationship to the proposition in S2 yielding the following meaning: ‘Ann cooked dinner every time John came home so he could eat’. 

The omission of the complement in (Ia1) creates a slight semantic anomaly because of the causal relationship between the two parts, as in the absence of the complement it is not quite clear why Ann should start cooking at all every time John came home. Sentences (IIc1) and (IId1) are perceived as anomalous for the simple reason that by pre-posing S2 with when the speaker indicates that Ann is the observer of the event ‘Ann’s cooking’, yet the absence of the complement creates a similar semantic lacuna which is also obvious in (IIIc1) and (IIId1) when compared with (IIIc2) and (IIId2) as to the degree of acceptability. At the same time, all the (c) and (d) sequences in Sets I and III have been marked as anomalous. 

According to our hypothesis, in sequence (d) when identifies Ann as the observer of the event ‘John’s coming home’, while the indefinite aspect of the verb used in S1 indicates that the information about this event is part of the speaker’s background knowledge obtained in an unspecified manner (the speaker knows for a fact that John came home, but the source of this knowledge is unspecified). Thus, the specific relative positioning of the two indexicals in the complex sentence of the type When S2, S1 results in cognitive discord with sentence iconicity inasmuch as the identification of the perceptual processor of the information flow is involved. Consequently, there is no sufficient cognitive link between the two clauses that would allow to view the whole sentence as a linguistic structure representing a quantum of knowledge (a complete thought) in a coherent way.

CONCLUSION 
As we have tried to show, the cognitive value of different acceptable sequences of clauses in a complex sentence of the type When S, S may be assessed from the point of view of the relationship between their indexical and iconic properties. The suggested hypothesis may provide a useful tool for the analysis of sentential and, by extension, discourse grammar by making recourse to the concept of cognitive processor of the information flow iconically represented by the syntactic structure of the sentence. 

We have argued that the order of clause combining is influenced, on the one hand, by the interplay of such cognitive factors as the speaker and the observer identified as possible sources of information (knowledge) about the described events and, on the other hand, by the indexical meaning of the pronominal when and the markedness of definite aspect verbs for event observability. The discussion of rather specific data about one particular type of complex sentence offered in this paper is by no means exhaustive and does not allow at this point to make broader generalizations encompassing other types of sentences. However, we be- lieve that such generalizations may, in fact, be quite possible — but of course, only continued research into the matter may show if our assumptions are valid.(论文代写)

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