| ABSTRACT | 第3-4页 |
| 摘要 | 第5-7页 |
| List of Tables | 第7-10页 |
| Chapter One Introduction | 第10-14页 |
| 1.1 background of study | 第10-11页 |
| 1.1.1 The importance of prepositional phrases | 第10页 |
| 1.1.2 The difficulties of prepositional phrases in learning English | 第10-11页 |
| 1.2 Research questions | 第11-12页 |
| 1.3 Methodologies and data collection | 第12页 |
| 1.4 Organization of the thesis | 第12-14页 |
| Chapter Two Literature Review | 第14-32页 |
| 2.1 Fundamental concepts of prepositions and prepositional phrases | 第14-25页 |
| 2.1.1 From the view of traditional grammar | 第14-18页 |
| 2.1.2 From the view of functional grammar:the prepositional view ofHalliday | 第18-21页 |
| 2.1.3 From functional grammar:The view of Huddleston | 第21-25页 |
| 2.2 Previous empirical studies on prepositional phrases | 第25-32页 |
| 2.2.1 Prepositional phrases in second language acquisition | 第25-27页 |
| 2.2.2 Prepositional phrases in cognitive linguistics | 第27-30页 |
| 2.2.3 Prepositional phrases in discourse analysis and functional grammar | 第30-32页 |
| Chapter Three Research Methodology | 第32-40页 |
| 3.1 Data collection | 第32页 |
| 3.2 Research instruments | 第32-33页 |
| 3.2.1 Antconc software | 第32页 |
| 3.2.2 SPSS software | 第32-33页 |
| 3.3 Research methods | 第33-34页 |
| 3.3.1 Antconc software and concordance | 第33页 |
| 3.3.2 Statistic software-ANOVA | 第33-34页 |
| 3.3.3 Independent T-score | 第34页 |
| 3.4 Research process | 第34-40页 |
| 3.4.1 Coding and tagging | 第35-36页 |
| 3.4.2 Searching for variety types | 第36-37页 |
| 3.4.3 Calculating the frequencies in three groups and other data | 第37页 |
| 3.4.4 Comparison and Contrast between the High-Score Group andanother Expert Group | 第37-40页 |
| Chapter Four Results and Discussions | 第40-64页 |
| 4.1 The general discussion about prepositional phrases | 第40-42页 |
| 4.2 Comparison and contrast between three groups on frequencies of PP | 第42-51页 |
| 4.2.1 General discussion | 第42-44页 |
| 4.2.2 Comparison and contrast on syntactic functions of prepositionalphrases | 第44-51页 |
| 4.3 Comparison and contrast of the usage and frequencies of PP between high-score group and English scholar group | 第51-60页 |
| 4.3.1 The structures and syntactic functions of prepositional phrases | 第52-58页 |
| 4.3.2 The overuse,underuse and nonuse of prepositional phrases | 第58-60页 |
| 4.4 An analysis of the use of prepositional phrases | 第60-64页 |
| 4.4.1 The influence of teaching method | 第60-61页 |
| 4.4.2 The guide of teaching content | 第61-62页 |
| 4.4.3 The effect of mother tongue inference | 第62-64页 |
| Chapter Five Conclusions and Implications | 第64-68页 |
| 5.1 Major findings of this study | 第64-65页 |
| 5.2 Implications of the study | 第65-66页 |
| 5.3 Limitation and suggestion for further studies | 第66-68页 |
| BIBLIOGRAPHY | 第68-72页 |
| APPENDIX 1 | 第72-74页 |
| APPENDIX 2 | 第74-76页 |
| ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS | 第76-78页 |
| PUBLISHED PAPERS | 第78页 |
