A Cognitive Approach To The Semantics Of The SVOC Structure

Being one of the basic sentence patterns in English, SVOC structure deserves our academic attention and study. However, no conclusion has been reached among grammarians and linguists even on some fundamental issues such as the extension of this structure. The divergence in the grammatical field has also caused some problems and difficulties in English teaching. Based on some notions of cognitive linguistics and cognitive grammar, this thesis conducts a study on the semantic features of SVOC structure as well as the correlation between SVOC and its neighboring patterns by taking advantage of three theories, i.e. the valence grammar, the case grammar and the construction grammar.An analysis of the semantic features of the main verbs in SVOC structure shows that these verbs all imply the meaning of "change of state". Adopting the study results of Chinese scholars in the field of valence grammar, we hold that the valences of the verb are not confined to noun phrases; that the criterion to judge a valence is to see whether the sentence becomes ungrammatical or the basic sentence meaning changes as a result of the omission of the constituent in question and that valence should be regarded as an attribute of the construction instead of the verb. With these ideas in mind, I analyzed the valence feature of the verbs entering into SVOC structure and found that they demonstrate the three-place attribute in this structure.Based on Fillmore's case grammar and the development and adaptation by other scholars, we found that in SVOC structure the semantic roles of the constituents are agent, patient and abstract goal respectively. Involved in the process of analysis are issues like an embedded clause functioning as a case and adjectives regarded as verbs in a broad sense.In the study of the construction meaning of SVOC structure, we found that prototypical members of SVOC category all bear the meaning of "NP1 causes NP2 to change or to initiate a new action". In detail, the changes involved can be further divided into overt changes, covert changes and potential changes. The non-typical member, which means the accompanying action of NP2, semantically overlaps with the SVO category. The typical construction meaning of "cause-change" implies the existence of two action chains, and an important and differentiating feature of SVOC is that it focuses on the second action chain, namely, the effect or result on NP2 brought about by the action of the verb, instead of the occurrence and completeness of the action itself.The study of the correlation between SVOC and the neighboring patterns shows that in the categories of sentence patterns, there is a distinction between prototypical members and non-typical members. The boundary between different categories is not clear-cut and the semantic differences between sentence patterns can be illustrated in terms of different images they embody.