Semantics of Attendant Circumstance : A Cognitive Study on Circumstantial Constructions and its relation to Subjectivity

在标准英语书面语中，悬垂分词被认为是不正确的用法。尽管如此，悬垂分词还是有着广泛的使用，特别是在英语口语中。本研究认为悬垂分词的使用是有语义和认知理据的。本研究采用基于用法的观点，通过对英国国家语料库的实证数据分析，发现悬垂分词构式描述了连贯的“认知情景”作为构式意义。悬垂分词结构使概念化者联想到主句中描述的情景。由于其构式语义，悬垂分词在注重与听话人互动的语篇体裁中尤为常见。悬垂分词构式与背景（说话人、听话人和说话时间）密切相关。因此，它的构式意义是高度主观的，或者说，包括听话人在内，是主体间的。尽管存在“控制者主语的不一致性”，但该构式作为一个主观联想的实例，其动机是充分的。本研究的另一个理论意义是主观联想在言语时间中的重要性。悬垂分词结构非常适合表达说话人对正在进行的话语中的事态的主观看法。我们似乎不太客观地谈论事件或行动，而是谈论“从我们的角度来看事情是如何的”。尽管一代又一代的语法学家和教师努力消除悬垂分词的使用，但这种交际因素还是促使人们在谈话中使用这种“臭名昭著的”悬垂分词。

Dangling participles are considered incorrect usage in written Standard English. Nonetheless, dangling participles enjoy widespread usage, particularly in spoken English. This study argues that the use of dangling participles is semantically and cognitively motivated. In adopting a usage-based view and analyzing attested data from the British National Corpus, this study shows that constructions with a dangling participle describe a coherent "cognizance scenario" as their constructional meaning. The dangling participial construction evokes a conceptualizer who conceives the situation described in the main clause. Thanks to its constructional semantics, the dangling participle is especially common in text genres which focus on the interaction with the hearer.The dangling participial construction is closely related to the Ground, i.e. to the speaker and the hearer and the time of speech. Its constructional meaning is therefore highly subjective or, in including the hearer, intersubjective. In spite of the notorious "inconsistency of the controller subject", the construction as a whole is fully motivated as an instance of subjective construal.Another theoretical implication of the present study is the importance of a subjective construal at speech time. The dangling participial construction is ideally suited to express the speaker's subjective view of a state of affairs in an ongoing discourse. We do not seem to talk much about events or actions objectively, but rather about "how things are from our perspective." This communicative factor has motivated the "notorious" dangling participles and their entrenched use in conversation in spite of efforts of generations of prescriptive grammarians and teacher to dispel its use.