| 摘要 | 第1-5页 |
| Abstract | 第5-10页 |
| Chapter 1 Introduction | 第10-18页 |
| 1．1 Purposes | 第10-12页 |
| 1．2 Three hypotheses and three associated questions | 第12-13页 |
| 1．3 Significance | 第13-14页 |
| 1．4 The organization of this dissertation | 第14-18页 |
| Chapter 2 Existential sentences and its unique feature-definiteness effect | 第18-29页 |
| 2．1 ES and its unique feature | 第18-20页 |
| 2．2 Definiteness effect (DE) | 第20-25页 |
| 2．2．1 Introduction | 第20-21页 |
| 2．2．2 An overview of the previous studies and their inadequacies | 第21-24页 |
| 2．2．3 Researches on DE in Chinese ES | 第24-25页 |
| 2．3 The adopted approach in this dissertation | 第25页 |
| 2．4 Some methodological principles | 第25-29页 |
| 2．4．1 Conceptual unification | 第26页 |
| 2．4．2 Restrictiveness | 第26-27页 |
| 2．4．3 Converging evidence | 第27-29页 |
| Chapter 3 Investigation on DE from cognitive-grammatical Perspective | 第29-47页 |
| 3．1 The foundations and organizing assumptions of cognitive grammar | 第29-32页 |
| 3．1．1 Foundations of cognitive grammar | 第29-30页 |
| 3．1．2 Organizing assumptions of cognitive grammar | 第30-32页 |
| 3．2 Three constructs relevant to our current study | 第32-35页 |
| 3．2．1 Profiling | 第32-33页 |
| 3．2．2Trajector and landmark | 第33-34页 |
| 3．2．3 Search domain | 第34-35页 |
| 3．3 ES as search domain | 第35-36页 |
| 3．4 Investigation on the indefiniteness of the NPs in ES | 第36-46页 |
| 3．4．1 Conceptual basis of NP in cognitive grammar | 第36-39页 |
| 3．4．2 Conceptual basis for definiteness | 第39-43页 |
| 3．4．2．1 Mental contact and mental space | 第40-42页 |
| 3．4．2．2 The definite article and indefinite article | 第42-43页 |
| 3．4．3 Cognitive analysis on the definiteness effect | 第43-46页 |
| 3．5 Summaries | 第46-47页 |
| Chapter 4 Investigation on the motivation of DE from iconic perspective | 第47-56页 |
| 4．1 Introduction | 第47页 |
| 4．2 Iconicity and cognition and cognitive linguistics | 第47-49页 |
| 4．3 Iconicity of order | 第49-50页 |
| 4．4 The cognitive significance of iconicity of order in ES | 第50-52页 |
| 4．5 The analysis of the motivation from the principles of order iconicity | 第52-54页 |
| 4．5．1 Semantic characteristics of the verbs in (dis)appearance sentences | 第52-54页 |
| 4．5．2 Investigation on the motivation from iconic perspective | 第54页 |
| 4．6 Summaries | 第54-56页 |
| Chapter 5 A case study-the motivations of the appearance of definite NPs in existential sentences | 第56-66页 |
| 5．1 Introduction | 第56-58页 |
| 5．2 Concrete examples and explanations of the motivations | 第58-64页 |
| 5．2．1 The function of ES and what is new | 第58-60页 |
| 5．2．2 Pragmatic motivation | 第60-61页 |
| 5．2．3 Syntactic motivation | 第61-62页 |
| 5．2．4The requirements of verbs in ES | 第62-64页 |
| 5．3 Summaries | 第64-66页 |
| Chapter 6 Conclusion | 第66-71页 |
| Acknowledgements | 第71-72页 |
| Bibliography | 第72-75页 |
| Publications while registered with the MA program | 第75页 |
