Metonymy and Cross-reference Anaphora in the Chinese Ba-construction

• Main Authors: Yi-jing Chen, 陳怡靜
• Other Authors: Jung-hsing Chang
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2010
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/85774481225084568054

碩士 === 國立中正大學 === 語言所 === 98 === This thesis discusses the Ba-construction in Chinese. It has focused on the anaphoric relation between the ba-NP and its antecedent. In the Ba-construction, the word ba can be used to mark the referent explicitly or implicitly introduced in the preceding discourse. When the ba-NP refers back to a previous referent in the preceding discourse, the anaphoric reference between the ba-NP and the antecedent is known as direct anaphora. However, when ba-NP is interpreted through a previous referent which denotes a different referent with the ba-NP, the anaphoric reference between the ba-NP and the antecedent is known as indirect anaphora or bridging cross-reference anaphora. This thesis discusses both direct and indirect anaphora in the Ba-construction from a cognitive perspective. There are two main issues in this thesis. The first issue discusses what linguistic forms are used for the ba-NP in direct anaphora. It has been shown that the choice of linguistic forms for the ba-NP depends on whether it refers to the same individuative instance with its antecedent, or the same type with its antecedent. The second issue is concerned with the bridging cross-reference anaphora, focusing on how the indirect anaphoric relation between the ba-NP and its antecedent is constructed. I have demonstrated that the interpretation of bridging cross-reference anaphora must resort to metonymy, which is defined as a grounded contiguity relation between domain elements in the same domain and a cognitive mapping process between a source concept and a target concept. I have presented eight metonymic relations on which the indirect anaphoric relation is constructed. They are WHOLE FOR PART, CONTAINED FOR CONTAINER, LOCATION FOR LOCATED, ACTION FOR PARTICIPANT, CAUSE FOR EFFECT, PARTICIPANT FOR PARTICIPANT, HYPERNYM FOR HYPONYM, and HYPONYM FOR HYPERNYM metonymies.