Tough-구문과 외치구문의 기능적 의미차이에 대한 코퍼스 바탕 연구

A Pragmatic Meaning of the Tough-Subject in English: A Corpus-based Analysis

  Most previous studies dealing with the tough-construction in English have spoken of possible general patterns of the construction mainly from a theoretical standpoint and thereby ignored and/or neglected the problems concerning the use of the construction. This study, intended to be an effort to remedy such a situation, is a corpus-based analysis of the tough-construction and its it-analog construction in English, and its main goal is to show how a pragmatic meaning assignable to the tough-subject, along with other linguistic factors (such as End-weight Principle and Information Principle) already known to be in operation, affects the language user’s choice between the two constructions. The discussion of this study is mainly based on the search results of the tough-sentences and it-analog sentences from both the spoken and written parts of the ICE-GB (British Component of the International Corpus of English).