基于语料库的英语独立主格结构之系统功能语言学研究
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摘要
独立主格结构是一个特殊的英语句法现象。传统语法对独立主格结构的讨论涉及形式类别、功能类别、历史分布、文体分布和格等方面。一般认为,独立主格结构是有自己主语的非限定分句,表示时间、条件、原因、让步或伴随等关系,通常用于正式文体中,并且有逐渐减少的趋势,独立主格结构的主语是零格名词或主格代词。传统语法对独立主格结构功能类型的划分主观性较强,类型边界比较模糊。关于格,实际语言应用中也有许多以宾格代词为主语的独立主格结构。传统语法关于独立主格结构历时分布和文体分布的讨论也明显带有主观性。这些问题说明,独立主格结构受到语法学家的充分关注,但传统语法描写仍有诸多不足。
系统功能语言学以意义为中心,把语言看作是一个意义系统,其研究重心在于意义在词汇语法层的体现形式,研究对象是使用中的语言,主张采用基于语料库的研究方法。近年来,功能句法研究越来越引起系统功能语言学界的重视,许多传统语法中的句法现象在系统功能语言学框架下得以讨论,但是独立主格结构却没有受到系统功能语言学的关注,甚至系统功能语言学没有提到这样一个术语。在这种形势下,有必要对独立主格结构进行基于语料库的系统功能语言学研究。
本研究采用定性研究与基于语料库的量化研究方法,使用的语料来源是布朗家族语料库Brown Family Corpora (Brown, Frown, Crown, LOB, FLOB and CLOB)、英国国家语料库BNC (British National Corpus)、当代美国英语语料库COCA (Corpus of Contemporary American English)以及历时美国英语语料库COHA(Corpus of Historical American English)。研究问题包括独立主格结构的功能类别、历时分布、文体分布和格等。
传统语法区分的独立主格结构的功能类型可以归纳为伴随关系和从属关系,然而实际语言应用显示,有些独立主格结构并不属于这两种关系类型,而是表示解释关系,而传统语法没有解释这类独立主格结构的语法归属。系统功能语言学的小句复合体关系系统包括相互依赖关系和逻辑语义关系,前者包括并列和从属,后者包括扩展和投射。传统语法中的解释关系、伴随关系和从属关系分别对应于小句复合体中体现详述、延伸和增强的从属型扩展关系。在相互依赖关系方面,作为非限定小句的独立主格结构只能体现从属关系,不能体现并列关系,但在逻辑语义关系方面,既然非限定小句可以体现扩展关系和投射关系,那么独立主格结构也具有体现投射关系的意义潜势。根据双重及物性分析标准,小句复合体中的从属关系都可以被称为嵌入关系,体现扩展关系的独立主格结构可以看作是小句的环境成分,体现投射关系的独立主格结构可以看作是参与者。被投射小句在句法上是投射动词的补语,如果充当补语的被投射小句可以形成独立主格结构,那么充当主语的小句也可以形成独立主格结构。
除了小句复合体中的从属小句可以形成独立主格结构之外,单独使用的小句也可以形成独立主格结构。这类独立主格结构与其前或后的句子也形成详述、延伸或增强关系,只是这种关系是语篇衔接上的,而不是结构上的。独立使用的小句倾向于并列关系,既然独立主格结构可以独立使用,那么它也有体现并列关系的意义潜势。形成并列关系的条件有两个：主要句和次要句不能易位；次要句可以单独使用。有些独立主格结构可以满足这两个条件,因此可以体现并列关系。这样,独立主格结构就具有和限定小句相同的意义潜势。根据我们提出的独立主格结构的三条识别标准,独立主格结构既可以体现从属关系,又可以体现并列关系,既可以体现详述、延伸和增强等扩展关系,又可以体现事实和行动等投射关系,既可以充当附加语,又可以充当主语或补语,也可以充当同位语等。
因此,独立主格结构从句法功能上可以分为独立主格附加语结构、独立主格同位语结构、独立主格补语结构和独立主格主语结构。这几种类型的独立主格结构在独立性上是不同的,对独立性的区分可以从作为次要句的独立主格结构和主要句两个维度上进行。从独立主格结构维度上来看,独立主格附加语结构和独立主格主语结构独立性最强,从主要句维度上来看,主要句对独立主格附加语结构和独立主格同位语结构约束最小,因此独立性最强。独立主格附加语结构体现延伸和增强关系,独立主格同位语结构体现详述关系,这三种关系在传统语法中分别表示伴随关系、从属关系和解释关系。
应用自动词性赋码工具TreeTagger2.0,语料检索工具AntConc3.2.4w,正则表达式辅助编写工具PatternBuilder和语料库分析工具UAM CorpusTool2.8.12,我们从布朗家族语料库、BNC语料库和COHA语料库中共提取出独立主格结构12153例,其中体现详述关系的1732例,体现延伸关系的6875例,体现增强关系的1298例,独立使用的2187例。
结果表明,基于布朗家族语料库的历时性研究没有表现出独立主格结构的历时性变化,这主要是因为布朗家族语料库语料较少,时间跨度较短。基于COHA语料库的研究表明,体现延伸关系和增强关系的独立主格结构在200年的历史阶段中并没有呈现出减少的趋势,反而有增多的趋势,主要表现在体现延伸关系的数量明显增加,而体现增强关系的数量则逐渐减少,但并没有消失不用的趋势。事实上,近五十年的数据显示,体现增强关系的独立主格结构历时分布趋于平稳。这是因为,独立主格结构在历史演变过程中逐渐语法化,一部分体现增强关系的独立主格结构被语法化为固定的表达形式,体现某种特定的逻辑语义关系。
基于布朗家族语料库和BNC语料库的研究表明,独立主格结构有显著的文体分布差异,在非正式的口语文体中很少应用,但在正式的学术文体中也很少应用。这明显与传统语法的观点不符。独立主格结构主要集中在小说文体中,而小说文体并不能代表正式文体。因此,独立主格结构的文体分布差异不是以文体的正式程度来区分的。之所以独立主格结构多用于小说文体,是因为小说文体中多出现对事件的叙述和对景物的描写,而独立主格结构恰好能够体现这些功能。
基于布朗家族语料库的独立主格结构人称代词主语的格研究显示,49例具有格标记的独立主格结构人称代词主语中,主格人称代词和宾格人称代词分别是28例和21例,而且呈现出明显的文体分布差异。总体来看,四种文体中主格人称代词比宾格人称代词出现得多,但换算成标准化频率以后,相对而言主格人称代词则少于宾格人称代词,其中通用文体中主格人称代词与宾格人称代词的差距最大,小说文体中二者的比例基本与总平均水平持平,只有新闻文体中主格人称代词多于宾格人称代词,并且新闻文体中的主格人称代词也超过了小说文体。学术文体较少使用人称代词,一般也不使用人称代词为主语的独立主格结构。研究结果表明,在必须使用人称代词为独立主格结构的主语时,人们不是更倾向于选择主格人称代词,反而是更倾向于选择宾格人称代词。
The absolute clause is a special syntactical structure in English. The discussion of absolute clauses in traditional grammar concerns the form, function, case, diachronic distribution and stylistic characteristics. Traditionally, it is believed that absolute clauses are nonfinite clauses with explicit subjects, implying temporal, conditional, causal, concessive or circumstantial relationships, that apart from a few stereotyped phrases, absolute clauses are formal and infrequent in English and are gradually decreasing in number, and that the subjects of absolute clauses are zero case nouns or nominative pronouns. The classifications of function types of absolute clauses are to some extent subjective, and the boundaries between different functions vague. As for case, actual language use shows there are many absolute clauses with accusative pronouns as subjects. Discussions on the diachronic and stylistic distributions in traditional grammar also contain many strong subjective conclusions. These problems show that absolute clauses are given sufficient consideration by traditional grammarians on the one hand, and on the other hand, many deficiencies occur to traditional grammar descriptions.
Systemic functional linguistics (SFL) is meaning-centered. It considers language as a meaning system, and focuses on the realization of meaning at the lexico-grammatical stratum. The object of SFL research is language in use, and it supports corpus-based approaches. In recent years, functional syntactical research has been drawing increasing attention of systemic functional linguists, and many syntactic structures in traditional grammar have been discussed in the framework of SFL. However, the traditional syntactic structure of absolute clauses has not been touched by SFL researchers. There is no such a term as absolute clauses in SFL. except that in the discussion of logico-semantic relations realized by nonfinite clauses, it is pointed out that nonfinite clauses may have their own subjects. In this situation, it is necessary to carry out a corpus-based SFL study of absolute clauses.
This research is corpus-based and the data are collected from such corpora as the Brown Family Corpora (Brown. Frown, Crown, LOB, FLOB and CLOB), BNC (British National Corpus), COCA (Corpus of Contemporary American English) and COHA (Corpus of Historical American English). With the data collected from these corpora, we investigated into the function types of absolute clauses and their diachronic, stylistic and case distributions.
Functions of absolute clauses in traditional grammar can be classified into two general relations:accompanying and subordinating. However, in actual language use, absolute clauses carry a third relation:explaining, which does not function as adverbial adjunct. However, this type of absolute clauses has not been explained in traditional grammar. In SFL, the relationships between clauses in a clause complex include two dimensions:interdependency and logico-semantic relation. The former consists of two relations, i.e. parataxis and hypotaxis, and the latter, expansion and projection. The three types of function of absolute clauses, i.e., explaining, accompanying and subordinating in traditional grammar correspond to the three subordinating expansions, i.e., elaboration, extension and enhancement, in SFL. In interdependency relations, absolute clauses are nonfinite clauses, hence only realizing hypotactic but not paratactic relationships. However, in logico-semantic relations, since nonfinite clauses can realize both expansion and projection, absolute clauses also have the potential to realize projection. According to double transitivity analyses, the hypotactic relationships in clause complexes can also be embedding relationships. Absolute clauses realizing expansion also realize circumstances, and those realizing projection realize participants. The projected clauses are the syntactic complement of the projecting verbs. Since the projected complement clauses can form into absolute clauses, the subject clauses can also form into absolute clauses.
In addition to hypotactic clauses in clause complexes, independently used clauses can also form into absolute clauses, elaborating, extending or enhancing the preceding or following clauses. However, these relationships are textually cohesive, rather than structural. Independently used clauses tend to be paratactic, and since absolute clauses can be used independently, they also have the potential to realize paratactic relationships. There are two factors determining the formation of paratactic relationships:the primary clauses and the secondary clauses can not be transposed; the secondary clauses can be used independently. Some absolute clauses fulfilling the two requirements can realize paratactic relationships. Therefore, absolute clauses have the same meaning potential as finite clauses. According to the identification criteria of absolute clauses we proposed, absolute clauses can realize both hypotactic and paratactic relationships, both expansion (i.e., elaboration, extension and enhancement) and projection (i.e., fact and act). Absolute clause can be used as adjunct realizing Circumstance, subject and complement realizing Participant, and appositive realizing embedding relationships.
Therefore, absolute clauses can be syntactically classified into four types:absolute adjunct clauses, absolute appositive clauses, absolute complement clauses and absolute subject clauses. These types of absolute clauses are different in independence. The independence of absolute clauses can be distinguished from two dimensions:absolute clauses and primary clauses. From the dimension of absolute clauses, absolute adjunct clauses and absolute subject clauses are the most independent, while from the dimension of primary clauses, absolute adjunct clauses and absolute appositive clauses are the least constrained by primary clauses, hence the most independent. Absolute adjunct clauses realize extension and enhancement, and absolute appositive clauses realize elaboration. The three relationships correspond respectively to accompanying, subordinating and explaining relationships in traditional grammar.
Applying corpus retrieval tools and analysis softwares such as TreeTagger2.0, AntConc3.2.4w and UAM CorpusTool2.8.12, we extracted12153absolute clauses from the Brown Corpora, BNC and COHA, among which there are1732realizing elaboration,6875extension,1298enhancement, and2187independent instances.
The results show that research based on the Brown corpora does not demonstrate diachronic changes. It is mainly because of the small scale of the corpora, totaling6millions of words, and the short span of time (less than50years). The COHA corpus based research of the extending and enhancing absolute clauses shows that, during a span of200years of language evolution, the number of absolute clauses has not been decreasing, but been increasing, especially the extending type. The number of enhancing type of absolute clauses has been gradually decreasing, but it does not show any tendency of disappearing. In fact, the data of the nearly50years in the Brown Corpora show that diachronic distribution of the enhancing type tends to be stable because of the grammaticalization of absolute clauses in the process of language evolution. In this process, some absolute clauses of the enhancing type have been grammaticalized into stereotyped phrases, realizing certain logico-semantic relations.
Research based on the Brown Corpora and BNC shows that the difference of stylistic distribution of absolute clauses is quite significant. Absolute clauses are rarely used in both informal spoken texts and formal academic texts. This is clearly inconsistent with the view of traditional grammarians. Absolute clauses appear mainly in Fiction, but Fiction is not formal in style. Therefore, this difference is not relevant to the degree of formality although the stylistic distributions of absolute clauses are different. The reason why absolute clauses are mainly used in Fiction is that there are more narrations and descriptions in Fiction, and absolute clauses are characterized to realize these functions.
Research based on the Brown Corpora on case of the pronoun subjects of absolute clauses shows that in the49case-marked absolute clauses with pronoun subjects, there are28nominative personal pronouns and21accusative personal pronouns. The case distributions are also different in style. There are more nominative personal pronouns than accusative personal pronouns in general. However, after being changed into standardized frequency, nominative personal pronouns are relatively less than accusative personal pronouns. The difference of the two is the most significant in General Prose, and least in Fiction. It is only in Press that there are more nominative personal pronouns than accusative personal pronouns, and there are more nominative personal pronouns in Press than in Fiction. Personal pronouns are rarely used in Learned texts, and the absolute clauses with personal pronoun subjects are ever rarer. The results show that, when absolute clauses require personal pronoun subjects, people tend to choose accusative rather than nominative personal pronouns.
系统功能语言学以意义为中心,把语言看作是一个意义系统,其研究重心在于意义在词汇语法层的体现形式,研究对象是使用中的语言,主张采用基于语料库的研究方法。近年来,功能句法研究越来越引起系统功能语言学界的重视,许多传统语法中的句法现象在系统功能语言学框架下得以讨论,但是独立主格结构却没有受到系统功能语言学的关注,甚至系统功能语言学没有提到这样一个术语。在这种形势下,有必要对独立主格结构进行基于语料库的系统功能语言学研究。
本研究采用定性研究与基于语料库的量化研究方法,使用的语料来源是布朗家族语料库Brown Family Corpora (Brown, Frown, Crown, LOB, FLOB and CLOB)、英国国家语料库BNC (British National Corpus)、当代美国英语语料库COCA (Corpus of Contemporary American English)以及历时美国英语语料库COHA(Corpus of Historical American English)。研究问题包括独立主格结构的功能类别、历时分布、文体分布和格等。
传统语法区分的独立主格结构的功能类型可以归纳为伴随关系和从属关系,然而实际语言应用显示,有些独立主格结构并不属于这两种关系类型,而是表示解释关系,而传统语法没有解释这类独立主格结构的语法归属。系统功能语言学的小句复合体关系系统包括相互依赖关系和逻辑语义关系,前者包括并列和从属,后者包括扩展和投射。传统语法中的解释关系、伴随关系和从属关系分别对应于小句复合体中体现详述、延伸和增强的从属型扩展关系。在相互依赖关系方面,作为非限定小句的独立主格结构只能体现从属关系,不能体现并列关系,但在逻辑语义关系方面,既然非限定小句可以体现扩展关系和投射关系,那么独立主格结构也具有体现投射关系的意义潜势。根据双重及物性分析标准,小句复合体中的从属关系都可以被称为嵌入关系,体现扩展关系的独立主格结构可以看作是小句的环境成分,体现投射关系的独立主格结构可以看作是参与者。被投射小句在句法上是投射动词的补语,如果充当补语的被投射小句可以形成独立主格结构,那么充当主语的小句也可以形成独立主格结构。
除了小句复合体中的从属小句可以形成独立主格结构之外,单独使用的小句也可以形成独立主格结构。这类独立主格结构与其前或后的句子也形成详述、延伸或增强关系,只是这种关系是语篇衔接上的,而不是结构上的。独立使用的小句倾向于并列关系,既然独立主格结构可以独立使用,那么它也有体现并列关系的意义潜势。形成并列关系的条件有两个：主要句和次要句不能易位；次要句可以单独使用。有些独立主格结构可以满足这两个条件,因此可以体现并列关系。这样,独立主格结构就具有和限定小句相同的意义潜势。根据我们提出的独立主格结构的三条识别标准,独立主格结构既可以体现从属关系,又可以体现并列关系,既可以体现详述、延伸和增强等扩展关系,又可以体现事实和行动等投射关系,既可以充当附加语,又可以充当主语或补语,也可以充当同位语等。
因此,独立主格结构从句法功能上可以分为独立主格附加语结构、独立主格同位语结构、独立主格补语结构和独立主格主语结构。这几种类型的独立主格结构在独立性上是不同的,对独立性的区分可以从作为次要句的独立主格结构和主要句两个维度上进行。从独立主格结构维度上来看,独立主格附加语结构和独立主格主语结构独立性最强,从主要句维度上来看,主要句对独立主格附加语结构和独立主格同位语结构约束最小,因此独立性最强。独立主格附加语结构体现延伸和增强关系,独立主格同位语结构体现详述关系,这三种关系在传统语法中分别表示伴随关系、从属关系和解释关系。
应用自动词性赋码工具TreeTagger2.0,语料检索工具AntConc3.2.4w,正则表达式辅助编写工具PatternBuilder和语料库分析工具UAM CorpusTool2.8.12,我们从布朗家族语料库、BNC语料库和COHA语料库中共提取出独立主格结构12153例,其中体现详述关系的1732例,体现延伸关系的6875例,体现增强关系的1298例,独立使用的2187例。
结果表明,基于布朗家族语料库的历时性研究没有表现出独立主格结构的历时性变化,这主要是因为布朗家族语料库语料较少,时间跨度较短。基于COHA语料库的研究表明,体现延伸关系和增强关系的独立主格结构在200年的历史阶段中并没有呈现出减少的趋势,反而有增多的趋势,主要表现在体现延伸关系的数量明显增加,而体现增强关系的数量则逐渐减少,但并没有消失不用的趋势。事实上,近五十年的数据显示,体现增强关系的独立主格结构历时分布趋于平稳。这是因为,独立主格结构在历史演变过程中逐渐语法化,一部分体现增强关系的独立主格结构被语法化为固定的表达形式,体现某种特定的逻辑语义关系。
基于布朗家族语料库和BNC语料库的研究表明,独立主格结构有显著的文体分布差异,在非正式的口语文体中很少应用,但在正式的学术文体中也很少应用。这明显与传统语法的观点不符。独立主格结构主要集中在小说文体中,而小说文体并不能代表正式文体。因此,独立主格结构的文体分布差异不是以文体的正式程度来区分的。之所以独立主格结构多用于小说文体,是因为小说文体中多出现对事件的叙述和对景物的描写,而独立主格结构恰好能够体现这些功能。
基于布朗家族语料库的独立主格结构人称代词主语的格研究显示,49例具有格标记的独立主格结构人称代词主语中,主格人称代词和宾格人称代词分别是28例和21例,而且呈现出明显的文体分布差异。总体来看,四种文体中主格人称代词比宾格人称代词出现得多,但换算成标准化频率以后,相对而言主格人称代词则少于宾格人称代词,其中通用文体中主格人称代词与宾格人称代词的差距最大,小说文体中二者的比例基本与总平均水平持平,只有新闻文体中主格人称代词多于宾格人称代词,并且新闻文体中的主格人称代词也超过了小说文体。学术文体较少使用人称代词,一般也不使用人称代词为主语的独立主格结构。研究结果表明,在必须使用人称代词为独立主格结构的主语时,人们不是更倾向于选择主格人称代词,反而是更倾向于选择宾格人称代词。
The absolute clause is a special syntactical structure in English. The discussion of absolute clauses in traditional grammar concerns the form, function, case, diachronic distribution and stylistic characteristics. Traditionally, it is believed that absolute clauses are nonfinite clauses with explicit subjects, implying temporal, conditional, causal, concessive or circumstantial relationships, that apart from a few stereotyped phrases, absolute clauses are formal and infrequent in English and are gradually decreasing in number, and that the subjects of absolute clauses are zero case nouns or nominative pronouns. The classifications of function types of absolute clauses are to some extent subjective, and the boundaries between different functions vague. As for case, actual language use shows there are many absolute clauses with accusative pronouns as subjects. Discussions on the diachronic and stylistic distributions in traditional grammar also contain many strong subjective conclusions. These problems show that absolute clauses are given sufficient consideration by traditional grammarians on the one hand, and on the other hand, many deficiencies occur to traditional grammar descriptions.
Systemic functional linguistics (SFL) is meaning-centered. It considers language as a meaning system, and focuses on the realization of meaning at the lexico-grammatical stratum. The object of SFL research is language in use, and it supports corpus-based approaches. In recent years, functional syntactical research has been drawing increasing attention of systemic functional linguists, and many syntactic structures in traditional grammar have been discussed in the framework of SFL. However, the traditional syntactic structure of absolute clauses has not been touched by SFL researchers. There is no such a term as absolute clauses in SFL. except that in the discussion of logico-semantic relations realized by nonfinite clauses, it is pointed out that nonfinite clauses may have their own subjects. In this situation, it is necessary to carry out a corpus-based SFL study of absolute clauses.
This research is corpus-based and the data are collected from such corpora as the Brown Family Corpora (Brown. Frown, Crown, LOB, FLOB and CLOB), BNC (British National Corpus), COCA (Corpus of Contemporary American English) and COHA (Corpus of Historical American English). With the data collected from these corpora, we investigated into the function types of absolute clauses and their diachronic, stylistic and case distributions.
Functions of absolute clauses in traditional grammar can be classified into two general relations:accompanying and subordinating. However, in actual language use, absolute clauses carry a third relation:explaining, which does not function as adverbial adjunct. However, this type of absolute clauses has not been explained in traditional grammar. In SFL, the relationships between clauses in a clause complex include two dimensions:interdependency and logico-semantic relation. The former consists of two relations, i.e. parataxis and hypotaxis, and the latter, expansion and projection. The three types of function of absolute clauses, i.e., explaining, accompanying and subordinating in traditional grammar correspond to the three subordinating expansions, i.e., elaboration, extension and enhancement, in SFL. In interdependency relations, absolute clauses are nonfinite clauses, hence only realizing hypotactic but not paratactic relationships. However, in logico-semantic relations, since nonfinite clauses can realize both expansion and projection, absolute clauses also have the potential to realize projection. According to double transitivity analyses, the hypotactic relationships in clause complexes can also be embedding relationships. Absolute clauses realizing expansion also realize circumstances, and those realizing projection realize participants. The projected clauses are the syntactic complement of the projecting verbs. Since the projected complement clauses can form into absolute clauses, the subject clauses can also form into absolute clauses.
In addition to hypotactic clauses in clause complexes, independently used clauses can also form into absolute clauses, elaborating, extending or enhancing the preceding or following clauses. However, these relationships are textually cohesive, rather than structural. Independently used clauses tend to be paratactic, and since absolute clauses can be used independently, they also have the potential to realize paratactic relationships. There are two factors determining the formation of paratactic relationships:the primary clauses and the secondary clauses can not be transposed; the secondary clauses can be used independently. Some absolute clauses fulfilling the two requirements can realize paratactic relationships. Therefore, absolute clauses have the same meaning potential as finite clauses. According to the identification criteria of absolute clauses we proposed, absolute clauses can realize both hypotactic and paratactic relationships, both expansion (i.e., elaboration, extension and enhancement) and projection (i.e., fact and act). Absolute clause can be used as adjunct realizing Circumstance, subject and complement realizing Participant, and appositive realizing embedding relationships.
Therefore, absolute clauses can be syntactically classified into four types:absolute adjunct clauses, absolute appositive clauses, absolute complement clauses and absolute subject clauses. These types of absolute clauses are different in independence. The independence of absolute clauses can be distinguished from two dimensions:absolute clauses and primary clauses. From the dimension of absolute clauses, absolute adjunct clauses and absolute subject clauses are the most independent, while from the dimension of primary clauses, absolute adjunct clauses and absolute appositive clauses are the least constrained by primary clauses, hence the most independent. Absolute adjunct clauses realize extension and enhancement, and absolute appositive clauses realize elaboration. The three relationships correspond respectively to accompanying, subordinating and explaining relationships in traditional grammar.
Applying corpus retrieval tools and analysis softwares such as TreeTagger2.0, AntConc3.2.4w and UAM CorpusTool2.8.12, we extracted12153absolute clauses from the Brown Corpora, BNC and COHA, among which there are1732realizing elaboration,6875extension,1298enhancement, and2187independent instances.
The results show that research based on the Brown corpora does not demonstrate diachronic changes. It is mainly because of the small scale of the corpora, totaling6millions of words, and the short span of time (less than50years). The COHA corpus based research of the extending and enhancing absolute clauses shows that, during a span of200years of language evolution, the number of absolute clauses has not been decreasing, but been increasing, especially the extending type. The number of enhancing type of absolute clauses has been gradually decreasing, but it does not show any tendency of disappearing. In fact, the data of the nearly50years in the Brown Corpora show that diachronic distribution of the enhancing type tends to be stable because of the grammaticalization of absolute clauses in the process of language evolution. In this process, some absolute clauses of the enhancing type have been grammaticalized into stereotyped phrases, realizing certain logico-semantic relations.
Research based on the Brown Corpora and BNC shows that the difference of stylistic distribution of absolute clauses is quite significant. Absolute clauses are rarely used in both informal spoken texts and formal academic texts. This is clearly inconsistent with the view of traditional grammarians. Absolute clauses appear mainly in Fiction, but Fiction is not formal in style. Therefore, this difference is not relevant to the degree of formality although the stylistic distributions of absolute clauses are different. The reason why absolute clauses are mainly used in Fiction is that there are more narrations and descriptions in Fiction, and absolute clauses are characterized to realize these functions.
Research based on the Brown Corpora on case of the pronoun subjects of absolute clauses shows that in the49case-marked absolute clauses with pronoun subjects, there are28nominative personal pronouns and21accusative personal pronouns. The case distributions are also different in style. There are more nominative personal pronouns than accusative personal pronouns in general. However, after being changed into standardized frequency, nominative personal pronouns are relatively less than accusative personal pronouns. The difference of the two is the most significant in General Prose, and least in Fiction. It is only in Press that there are more nominative personal pronouns than accusative personal pronouns, and there are more nominative personal pronouns in Press than in Fiction. Personal pronouns are rarely used in Learned texts, and the absolute clauses with personal pronoun subjects are ever rarer. The results show that, when absolute clauses require personal pronoun subjects, people tend to choose accusative rather than nominative personal pronouns.
引文
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