The Cognitive Grammar Approach To Chinese V-R Constructions

The Verb-result constructions (VRC) have been a hot topic in linguistic analysis.Due to its complexity, the Chinese VRCs have drawn much attention both at home andabroad. Though there abounds in the previous studies of Chinese VRCs, someproblems still remain. Under the guidance of Cognitive Grammar, this thesis providesa new perspective for the study of Chinese VRCs.The previous studies on Chinese VRCs have been conducted from valencegrammar, the generative approach and the Construction Grammar approach. Thevalence grammar and generative approach adopt a bottom-up analysis and argue theargument structures of VRCs must be compositionally determined by V and R.However, this is not always the case. The Construction Grammar approach byGoldberg has its advantages in that it recognizes the importance of the constructionwhich as a whole can attribute to the argument, yet it does not explicate why theconstruction can provide the patient argument when the verb fails to do so. In view ofthe problems in the previous studies, this thesis mainly attempts to solve four researchquestions:1. how are the verb and the construction fused to provide the patientargument in the transitive VRCs;2. how to give a schematic characterization of thevaried causer roles in the transitive VRCs;3. what are the cognitive motivations for thedifferent VRCs in Chinese such as the inverted and the intransitive VRCs;4. what arethe licensing conditions for the components in the Chinese VRCs.According to the canonical event model in Cognitive Grammar, the thesis sets upthe prototypical transitive VRC and draws the following conclusions:1. Although inthe prototypical transitive VRCs the action designated by V is directly forced upon theobject, the verb and the construction can be fused to provide the object argument whenthe action designated by V has an indirect effect on the object.2. The schematiccharacterization of the varied causer roles which serve as the subject can be grasped astrajector.3. Construal plays an essential role in the different Chinese VRCs. In theinverted VRC, the non-agent role which is construed as the prominent causer producesan indirect effect on the real agent. The intransitive VRC in which the non-agent roleserves as the subject focuses on the change of state of the subject, with the real agentand the causation implied in the expression. In addition, the reflexive transitive and thecorresponding intransitives reflect two different ways of construal.4. Thegrammaticality of the Chinese VRCs depends on two main factors: the causative relationship between V and R as well as the causative relationship between the subjectand the object.This thesis denies the semantic compositionality in the generative approach andprovides the cognitive motivations for different VRCs in Chinese. This study alsocontributes to the comparison of the Chinese and English resultatives.