| 英文摘要 | 第1-4页 |
| 中文摘要 | 第4-5页 |
| ABBREVIATIONS | 第5-9页 |
| CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION | 第9-15页 |
| 1．1 Preliminary | 第9-10页 |
| 1．2 The significance of studying copular verbs in T4 | 第10-11页 |
| 1．3 Historical development of copular verbs | 第11-13页 |
| 1．4 Corpora and software used | 第13页 |
| 1．5 The layout of the thesis | 第13-15页 |
| CHAPTER 2 VIEWS ON COPULAR VERBS | 第15-45页 |
| 2．1 Definitions of copular verbs | 第15-20页 |
| 2．1．1 Subject complement | 第16-19页 |
| 2．1．2 Obligatory adverbials | 第19-20页 |
| 2．2 Semantic roles of copular verbs in combination with subject complement | 第20-22页 |
| 2．2．1 Identification vs characterization | 第20-21页 |
| 2．2．2 Current vs resulting | 第21-22页 |
| 2．3 Classification of copular verbs | 第22-26页 |
| 2．3．1 Quirk et al．'s classification of copular verbs | 第23-25页 |
| 2．3．2 Lyons' classification of copula be | 第25-26页 |
| 2．4 Identification of copular construction | 第26-30页 |
| 2．4．1 Copular construction vs transitive construction | 第26-29页 |
| 2．4．2 Copular construction vs passive construction | 第29-30页 |
| 2．5 Copular complementation | 第30-37页 |
| 2．5．1 Adjective phrase as subject complement | 第31页 |
| 2．5．2 Noun phrase as subject complement | 第31-33页 |
| 2．5．3 Pronoun as subject complement | 第33-34页 |
| 2．5．4 Prepositional phrase and adverb as subject complement | 第34-35页 |
| 2．5．5 Other forms as subject complement | 第35-36页 |
| 2．5．6 Complementation by obligatory adverbials | 第36-37页 |
| 2．6 The use of copular verbs | 第37-45页 |
| 2．6．1 Copula be | 第37-39页 |
| 2．6．2 Get and become | 第39-40页 |
| 2．6．3 Seem and appear | 第40-41页 |
| 2．6．4 Perception verbs | 第41-42页 |
| 2．6．5 Verbs of remaining | 第42页 |
| 2．6．6 Resulting verbs come and go | 第42-43页 |
| 2．6．7 Other resulting copular verbs | 第43-45页 |
| CHAPTER 3 CORPUS-BASED STUDY OF COPULAR VERBS IN T4 | 第45-95页 |
| 3．1 The distribution of copular verbs across the six corpora | 第45-48页 |
| 3．2 The study of copula be in T4 | 第48-57页 |
| 3．2．1 The distribution of copula be in T4 and the other corpora | 第48-49页 |
| 3．2．2 Quantitative and textual analysis of copula be in T4 | 第49-57页 |
| 3．3 The study of verbs of seeming in T4 | 第57-72页 |
| 3．3．1 The distribution of verbs of seeming in T4 and the other corpora | 第57-59页 |
| 3．3．2 Quantitative and textual analysis of verbs of seeming in T4 | 第59-72页 |
| 3．4 The Study of resulting verbs in T4 | 第72-88页 |
| 3．4．1 The distribution of resulting verbs in T4 and the other corpora | 第72-74页 |
| 3．4．2 Quantitative and textual analysis of resulting verbs in T4 | 第74-88页 |
| 3．5 The study of verbs of remaining in T4 | 第88-95页 |
| 3．5．1 The distribution of verbs of remaining in T4 and the other corpora | 第88-89页 |
| 3．5．2 Quantitative and textual analysis of verbs of remaining in T4 | 第89-95页 |
| CHAPTER 4 CONCLUSION | 第95-97页 |
| ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS | 第97-98页 |
| REFERENCES | 第98-100页 |
| APPENDIXES | 第100-104页 |
