Abstract
Firstly we briefly review the three conceptual domains of Sweetser (1990/2002), “content domain”, “epistemic domain”, and “speech-act domain” (Sweetserian trichotomy), and Shen (2003), the corresponding A(cting), K(nowing), U(ttering) (Shenian trichotomy)—our KAU, finding that they and their followers ignored largely the necessity to distinguish between these three domains in terms of the speaker, the listener and the other. Then, we clarify this issue and on this basis, analyze disadvantages of the study of three conceptual domains at the lexical level, thinking that previous studies failed to highlight the importance of syntactic and pragmatic factors to lexical level and thus did not rise to the pragma-syntactic level. On account of this, we put forward the “Lexico-Pragma-Syntactic Hypothesis” on the three conceptual domains, holding that the three of them should be studied by encompassing the three linguistic levels with pragmatics playing a prevailing role.
Highlights
Sweetser (1990/2002) discussed three different semantic functions of modal verbs like must, can, may etc., uponHow to cite this paper: Chen, H., & Hou, G
Hou which he distinguished between three conceptual domains of human cognitive system, namely content domain, epistemic domain and speech-act domain and thereupon further explored how these three domains were realized in conjunctions as well as conditionals
We propose the “Lexico-Pragma-Syntactic Hypothesis” on the three conceptual domains, hoping to bridge up the gap left by previous studies
Summary
Sweetser (1990/2002) discussed three different semantic functions of modal verbs like must, can, may etc., upon. In the framework of Shen and Sweetser, as we understand it, A (content domain) corresponds to the state of the real world, K (epistemic domain) denotes the speaker’s inference, and U is the speaker’s act through/by his utterance. In this way, their A is not (meant) for the speaker himself or the hearer but anyone else that is relevant—which is hereafter “(the) other”, whilst the terms K and U are (meant) for the speaker proper. Most studies about these three conceptual domains in China adopted Shen’s (2003) definitions/trichotomy without asking any wh-questions They invariably could be accused of the shortcoming of confusing the speaker, the listener and the other, as Sweetser (1990/2002) and Shen (2003) previously had done. We propose the “Lexico-Pragma-Syntactic Hypothesis” on the three conceptual domains, hoping to bridge up the gap left by previous studies
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