영어 As 구문 연구

Abstract

This study aims to characterize and categorize the as-constructions through the syntactic, semantic and pragmatic analyses of the as-constructions. For the purpose, this thesis begins with a brief examination of the origin of as and presents the syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic analyses in turns. For the syntactic analysis of as constructions, this thesis basically follows Potts(2002)'s, who divides parenthetical as-clauses into the CP-as type and the Predicate-as type. These terms indicate whether the gap inside the as-clauses is, respectively, proposition-sized or predicate-sized. The syntactic analysis concentrates on showing the differences in terms of the internal structures and the syntactic properties by means of the movement and the inversion of as-constructions. This thesis semantically analyzes the as constructions on the basis of Potts(2002), Lee-Goldman(2007, 2008). The as constructions are regarded as adverbial modifiers in this thesis. Finally this thesis provides an pragmatic analysis of the as constructions, which argues that the emergence of functional marking of as is attributable to metonymy, pragmatic inference, frame of focus variation. Furthermore, detailed investigation of the idiomatic and practical usages of as is also provided. To understand the usages of as clearly, this thesis examines more than 10 points which regularly case difficulty to learners of English.