认知理论对三种英语倒装结构的统一阐释

三种英语倒装结构

Inversion in this series of lectures is defined as English constructions in which either part of a verb or the entire verb phrase — full verb —is placed before the subject of the sentence. Broadly speaking, there are three types of inversion in the language. The first type is one in which the full verb is fronted to the pre-subject position, as is exemplified by (1), below.

(1) In the room stood a unicorn.

This type will be referred to as full-verb inversion, FVI for short. The second type is the well-known there-existential construction, as is seen in (2):

(2) There was a unicorn in the room.

The third type of inversion is the subject-auxiliary inversion —which I will refer to as SAI — whereby the (first) auxiliary of a verb is placed before the subject:

(3) Was there a unicorn in the room?

(4) Never was a unicorn seen in the room.

In the following ten lectures, I will provide a cognitive linguistics account of English inversion that is capable of explaining all three types: the FVI, the there-existential construction, and the SAI. As will be seen shortly, every one of the three types of inversion has shown to be immensely complex and has hence captured the imagination of linguists of all stripes. To my knowledge, however, there has been no attempt at a coherent approach to tackle all three types of inversion in the language.

(pp.1-2)

一种统一阐释

If previous accounts of FVI, particularly the information packaging account that was possibly the best received account before the 2000s, are found wanting in their explanatory power, what can be proposed instead? I proposed the Ground before Figure cognitive model in 2003 and I will talk about that model now.

The GbF model rests on the figure/ground gestalt in cognitive psychology (Koffka 1935; Miller and Johnson-Laired 1976; Rock 1975; Zusne 1970). Figure refers to the part of a differentiated visual field which “stands out distinctively” from other parts in that field. Ground refers to these “other parts” (Krech, Crutchfield, and Livson 1974: 264; see also Rock 1975; Zusne 1970). Although it is one of the principles of perceptual organization (Wallace 1982: 217), the gestalt of figure/ground has been widely used to account for linguistic structures such as complex sentences (Talmy 1978; Townsend and Bever 1977), aspect, and logical connectors (Chen 1991).

The GbF model

There are times when a speaker wants her hearer to locate and/or pay attention to an entity (figure) in a location (ground), but the hearer does not know the existence of that figure in the ground. So the speaker presents the ground first by anchoring it with a landmark that is established most often in the previous linguistic context and sometimes in the discourse context. This order of figure/ground presentation invites the hearer to search the ground in order to locate and/or to focus on the figure.

GbF与其他理论的联系

The spirit of the GbF model is also in line with other cognitive linguistics approaches. 

First, I used the term “landmark” in its strictly denotative sense: the lighthouse is a landmark in my description of the imagined scene. But, not coincidentally, the concept of landmark (and trajector) figures prominently in cognitive linguistics and will prove important in subsequent discussions.

Second, the GbF model is supposed to be a “good gestalt” (Lakoff 1987: 539). This is because, in the kind of situations such as the imagined unicorn-like cloud scenario described earlier, to present the ground before the figure is easier and more efficient than the other way around.

Third, the GbF model is in line with the notion of search domain (Miller and Johnson-Laird 1976: 384; B. Hawkins 1984).

Fourth, the GbF model is similar to Lakoff's Pointing-Out Idealized Cognitive Model. It is also in line with Langacker's (1991) stage model.

(pp.34-36)

Contents

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Rong Chen （陈融）是国际认知语言学领域的知名学者，西安外国语大学特聘教授，美国加利福尼亚州立大学名誉教授。从事语言学研究30余载，涉足广泛，发表甚丰，影响深远。

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