A Contrastive Study of Presupposition Trigger in English and Chinese论文

Abstract：Presupposition triggers are generally associated with specific lexical items or grammatical feature utterance. Presupposition trigger is a construction or item that marks the existence of a presupposition in utterance， which is generally known by the speakers. For some words and sentences structures， both English and Chinese he the similar presupposition triggers. the examples in this study is carefully selected in Pride and Prejudice and 《红楼梦》， two same-period novel.
　　Key words：Presupposition trigger； Chinese；English；lexical presupposition；syntactic presupposition
　　Chapter

1. Introduction

　　1.1 Background of the Research
　　People use presupposition in daily life and literature to express the speakers’ deep intension. While studying presupposition trigger， one should not only notice the similarity， but also the difference and the rich cultural background information lying beneath them so as to correctly grasp the information and illustrate different features of both English and Chinese.
　　Presupposition is one of the most discussed issues in the field of linguistics， not only in semantics but also in pragmatics： the 1970s in particular saw lively debates in the literature. It has become an intersubject. Researches conducted in this sector so far are mostly focused on English， and very few studies he been made in depth with respect to Chinese， especially constrastive study on presupposition trigger in English and Chinese.
　　1.2 Purpose of Writing the Paper
　　The importance of presupposition lies in the fact that it is impossible to convey complete explicitness in verbal communication， and presupposition is actually a part of implicit meaning. Through analysis of the contrastive study on presupposition of the two languages， we can better understand presupposition and presupposition trigger as well as the purpose and intent of the speaker. This study is of some important value for theoretical research and practical application.
　　Chapter2. Presupposition trigger in English ——based on Pride and Prejudice
　　Pride and Prejudice is one of Jane Austen’s representative works. The dialogues in this novel are held between people of different relationships. There are dialogues between husband and wife， aristocrates and civilians， etc. the characters in this novel achieve their conversational aims through their utterances. The characters speak very skillfully to achieve their aims.
　　Based on Levinson’s classification， comparisons between the two languages are made in two aspects： lexical level and syntactic level. Lexical presupposition trigger refer to the words or phrases which can trigger presupposition， and the presupposed information is embedded in the meaning of such word or phrases. Syntactic presuppostion trigger include the sentence structures which can induce presupposition.