The Information Sequences of Adverbial Clauses in Mandarin Chinese Conversation
中文口语会话中副词子句的讯息顺序
Yu-Fang Wang 王萸芳

Abstract 摘要
The research reported here is intended as a contribution to an understanding of the adverbial clauses, used by speakers in spontaneous communication. This study aims at exploring adverbial clauses in spoken Mandarin conversations on the basis of quantitative analysis. There are four-hour conversation corpus in this research. The adverbial clauses in the data were divided into (i) preposed clauses to their modified material across continuing intonation, (ii) postposed clauses to their modified material across continuing intonation, and (iii) postposed clauses to their modified material with final intonation (rising question intonation or final falling intonation). After an inspection of the data, the results suggest that the temporal and conditional clauses are favored to occur before their modified material; and the causal clauses, after their modified material. The data also show that causal clauses are fundamentally different from temporal and conditional clauses in their use. In conversation, they are well-situated for appearing after the material they modify to introduce more information for understanding. Generally, the prototypical use of an adverbial clause is to prepose it before the material they link in Chinese spoken discourse, except the causal clause.

近来一些中外学者如 Du Bois (1985, 1987) 及Huang (1994, 1995, 1996) 等的研究说明言谈中不断而多样的语用需要促成了语法的规律化，即语法的形成是基于语言使用的规律化(routinization)。基于此信念，本研究旨在探讨汉语副词子句的语用功能及其常见的讯息顺序结构 (preferred information sequence)。论文前半部份着重于口语会话中表时间、条件、原因等副词子句的分布及用法。论文后半部份将口语语料的研究结果与书面语中的副词子句的分布做一比较。本研究中所使用的口语会话语料共有四小时，其中包含三小时不正式的日常生活会话及一小时的收音机广播节目的访谈(interviews)及叩应(call-ins)对话。以 Sacks, Schegloff, and Jefferson (1974) 的会话分析 (conversation analysis)，即发言机会转接模式 (turn-taking system)为理论架构。并依照Ford (1993)分类英语会话中副词子句的方法将此中文语料库中的副词子句依其主要修饰子句的相对位置及其语调调型 (intonation contour)分为以下三类：(i)出现在主要子句前的副词子句；(ii)出现在主要子句后的副词子句，其主要子句是一继续的语调 (continuing intonation)；(iii)出现在主要子句后的副词子句，而其主要子句是一结束的语调 (ending intonation)，以观察在不同位置与不同语调的副词子句的言谈功能。大致上，本研究所显示的结果与研究英语言谈与篇章的结果(如Ramsay, 1987; Ford, 1993)相同：出现在主要子句前的副词子句为引述下文之功用，然出现在主要子句后的副词子句则为补充解释前面的句子。另一方面，研究结果发现：表时间、条件与让步子句倾向于出现在主要（被修饰）子句之前，但表原因的子句在一般日常会话中大多出现于主要子句后，在收音机广播的访谈及叩应语料则出现于主要子句前后各占一半。此外，绝大部份出现在主要子句后的表原因子句，其所修饰的子句是一结束语调；此表示说话者在说此类子句之前，已经把本来意识焦点中想说的话说完了。换言之，大部份的表原因子句与其主要子句之间的关系极为松散，几乎是独立存在的子句。这表示在语法上表原因的连接词其实是个对等连接词 (coordinate conjunction)。可见表原因的子句之用法与其它类的副词子句极为不同，它们在会话中常出现于带有结束语调之主要子句后，此乃口语的特色。说话者偏好于使用表原因子句来补充说明其前句话，或是回答对方的问题，以消除听话者的疑惑，具有沟通的功能。论文最后从说话者的语言认知因素及各类副词子句如表时间、条件、原因子句的语意特色来解释中文会话中各类副词子句常见的讯息顺序结构。

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