| Chapter 1 Introduction | 第1-11页 |
| 1．1 General introduction | 第8-9页 |
| 1．2 The significance of research on concessive adverbial clauses in MEE | 第9页 |
| 1．3 Research procedures and methods | 第9-10页 |
| 1．4 The layout of the thesis | 第10-11页 |
| Chapter 2 An overview of concessive adverbial clauses | 第11-42页 |
| 2．1 grammarians' views on concessive adverbial clauses | 第11-18页 |
| 2．1．1 The definition of concessive adverbial clauses | 第11-13页 |
| 2．1．2 Classifications and terminology presented by grammarians | 第13-18页 |
| 2．2 Semantic roles of concessive adverbial clauses | 第18页 |
| 2．3 syntactic functions of concessive adverbial clauses | 第18-19页 |
| 2．4 comparison with other clauses | 第19-23页 |
| 2．4．1 Comparison with adverbial clauses of condition and contrast | 第20-22页 |
| 2．4．2 Comparison with adverbial clauses of time | 第22页 |
| 2．4．3 Comparison between alternative conditional-concessive clauses and alternative interrogative clauses | 第22-23页 |
| 2．5 The use of may and might in concessive clauses | 第23页 |
| 2．6 Subordinators for concessive adverbial clauses | 第23-39页 |
| 2．6．1 Subordinators for finite, nonfinite and verbless clauses | 第24-27页 |
| 2．6．2 Subordinators used in different concessive adverbial clauses | 第27-38页 |
| 2．6．3 Subordinators used together with correlative conjuncts | 第38-39页 |
| 2．7 Abridgement of concessive adverbial clauses | 第39-42页 |
| 2．7．1 Abridgement in adverbial clauses of concession | 第40页 |
| 2．7．2 Abridgement in alternative conditional-concessive clauses | 第40-41页 |
| 2．7．3 Abridgement in universal conditional-concessive clauses | 第41-42页 |
| Chapter 3 Quantitative analyses of concessive adverbial clauses in MEE | 第42-78页 |
| 3．1 Quantitative analyses of concessive adverbial clauses in MEE | 第42-60页 |
| 3．1．1 The distribution of concessive adverbial clauses in MEE | 第42-44页 |
| 3．1．2 The distributions of different concessive adverbial clauses | 第44-48页 |
| 3．1．3 The distribution of subordinators in MEE | 第48-60页 |
| 3．2 Analyses of Concessive adverbial clauses in MEE | 第60-78页 |
| 3．2．1 Concessive adverbial clauses in MEE | 第60-67页 |
| 3．2．2 Subordinators for concessive adverbial clauses in MEE | 第67-78页 |
| Chapter 4 Conclusion | 第78-81页 |
| References | 第81-83页 |
| Appendix 1-2 | 第83-84页 |
