A Cognitive Approach To Chinese Perfect Aspectuality Constructions

This dissertation tends to analyze some typical Chinese perfect aspectualityconstructions such as “le” construction, r-VCs and “you+VP” from the cognitiveperspective, with the focus on their inherent aspectual properties, their commonfeatures and differences. In this paper, prototype theory, grammaticalization theoryand cognitive metaphor theory are applied; at the same time, the correspondingcognitive models are established. It is worthwhile mentioning that, different from theformer relative researches, this paper places emphasis on the cognitive resources andcognitive features of these constructions instead of their semantic nuances, hopingthat this theoretic analysis will provide new evidences, and its implications are helpfulto the future relative researches.The structure of the thesis is organized as follows:Chapter one illustrates the motivations, objectives, methodology and datacollection of the study; chapter two gives a brief introduction to the history, currentsituation of the researches on aspect problems home and abroad, why and how do wemake a cognitive research on Chinese perfect aspectuality problems. Chapter threethinks that a cognitive approach can shed much fresh light on the study of Chineseperfect aspectuality constructions, and it gives a comprehensive picture of sometheoretical foundations. Based on this framework, the following chapters study theperfect aspectuality constructions from grammaticalization, subjectification,metaphorical extension, and prototypical features. Chapter four explores Chineseperfect aspectual types, such as “le” construction, resultative verb complements,“you+VP” construction. The writer tries to analyze the origins of all perfect aspectualmarkers and the inherent cognitive properties of above-mentioned perfectconstructions, the cognitive models are built accordingly. Chapter five discusses theimplications of these theoretic findings.