Research on the Pragmatic Frequency Effect

Author: Zou Shaohua
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2001-12-01
Features: Through the study of pragmatic frequency effects, we further recognize that many problems in language cannot be solved through hard thinking or armchair discussions; they must be addressed through investigation and analysis to reach pragmatic conclusions. The more facts one grasps, the more truth they master, and thus the more they enjoy the right to speak. "Pragmatics" refers to the use of words and sentence patterns (sometimes including morphemes) in language, "pragmatic frequency" refers to the number of times words and sentence patterns are used in a certain linguistic material, and "pragmatic frequency effect" refers to the different impacts that the frequency of words and sentence patterns in pragmatic usage has on the meaning, structure, and other aspects of language. This book is the final outcome of the National Philosophy and Social Sciences "Nineth Five-Year Plan" project "The Relationship Between Modern Chinese Pragmatic Frequency and Semantics." The study of pragmatic frequency effects in this book is based on modern Chinese, and it is not a comprehensive, systematic, or exhaustive research on this effect but rather has a sampling nature. The book is divided into four sections, each of which is relatively independent.