Summary: | 碩士 === 國立臺灣師範大學 === 英語學系 === 84 === This thesis investigates the Taiwanese adverbs toh and chiah
from a pragmatic-discoursal perspective. The analysis is
based on four hours' recording ofnatural spoken data, including
a daily conversation, three TV drama series,and a radio call-in
program. Unlike the previous studies on these two adverbsin
Taiwanese which concern themselves mainly with the
enumeration of thevarious meanings and functions that each of
them is said to have, this studyfinds that toh and chiah
can be used as linking and limiting elements atdifferent
levels of discourse, manifesting distinct characteristics
inpresuppositionality, strategies for limiting, and
expectational orientations.Toh has two-tone variants
functioning at different discourse levels: thethird-tone
variant at a local level and the seventh-tone one at a
globallevel. As a l inking element, the third-tone toh is used
locally to link twopropositions with dependency relationship
at the same level, while theseventh-tone toh is used more
globally in relating the current proposition toa higher level
of discourse, e.g. the shared world knowledge of
theparticipants. As a limiting element, the third-tone toh
effects an emphasisby directly singling out the focused
(expected) constituent; the seventh-tonetoh, on the other
hand, achieves the purpose by marking the
unexpectedcandidate (the strongest claim) to highlight the
really focused one (theweaker statement). In its linking uses,
chiah is used to link a propositionto its preceding
proposition(s) and mark it as the consequent or conclusion ofthe
preceding discourse: locally, chiah is used to counter an
expectation,while in its global use it is not
presuppositional. In the limiting usage,chiah serves to
signal a scalar contrast by asserting an unexpected,
extremevalue on the opposite end of a scalar domain. The
analyses also show that thedistinct discourse-pragmatic
functions of the two adverbs are correlatedwith three
parameters: presuppositionality, strategies for limiting,
andexpectational orientations. With respect to
presuppositionality, local chiahand global toh are more
presuppositional or counter-expectational, whileglobal chiah
and local toh are weaker in their presuppositionality. In
termsof the strategies for limiting, the third-tone toh limits
the scope of choicesby singling out one candidate, while chiah
modifying the subsequent predicatesignals a scalar contrast
by asserting an unexpected, extreme value on theopposite end of
the scale. The seventh-tone toh, on the other hand, is usedto
make the expected candidate stand out by including the most
unexpected oneinto the modifying domain of the predicate,
while chiah modifying itspreceding NP is used to deny an
expectation by asserting another alternative.In terms of
expectational orientations, the seventh-tone toh and chiah
markthe antecedent as 'more demanding or harder to obtain',
while the third-tonetoh marks a 'less demanding or easy-to-
obtain' antecedent. The distinctionbetween the seventh-tone
toh and chiah lies in the fact that the seventh-tonetoh usually
functions more globally.
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