Contemporary Foreign Languages Studies ›› 2023, Vol. 23 ›› Issue (1): 85-102.doi: 10.3969/j.issn.1674-8921.2023.01.007

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The Textual Function of the Double Predicate—The Creation of Texture

REN Shaozeng()   

  • Online:2023-02-28 Published:2023-02-24

Abstract:

This paper aims to look into the functions the double-predicate clause performs in the creation of texture. Text has texture. Texture distinguishes text from non-text. The quality of text depends partly on cohesion and partly on structure. For a text to be coherent it must be cohesive, but it must be more besides. It must be semantically appropriate and it must make sense. The DP clause contributes to the creation of texture as a semantic resource in three ways: the result the DP clause embodies anticipates an explanation that follows, thus moving forward the text; the DP or DP2 forms a cohesive link with words in a corresponding subtext, thus making the two sub-texts hang together; and it may serve to relate what goes before and after the point of time indicated by DP1 in the text with explicit form of comparison. Furthermore,a holistic view of the text and its context will bring out a deeper semantic relationship of contrast between the two subtexts, which makes them not only cohesive, but also coherent. Text is a rich and many-faceted phenomenon, so it calls for all kinds of meaning-making resources to create its texture. The DP clause performs its own function to the creation of texture with its unique semantic and structural features.Text is the instantiation of system, or, alternatively, system is text potential. In the final analysis, all the resonances and semantic relationships resulting from them happen in instantial system, which we should not lose sight of in our dynamic study of text.

Key words: English, double predicate, clause, creation, texture

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