A Semantic Analysis Of "Nong" From The Perspective Of Conceptual Semantics

Verbs, which determine the basic sentence structures, are treated asone of the core topics in the study on grammar. Being a sub-category ofverbs, general verbs have been attracting much attention from academiain recent years. Partly due to the principle of economy in humancognition, the generalized phenomenon pervades in human languages.With the development of Cognitive Linguistics, it provides new insightsinto semantic studies. Hence the thesis conducts a semantic analysiswithin the scope of cognitive grammar from the perspective ofConceptual Semantics which holds the philosophy that “the meaning of alinguistic expression consists of both conceptual content and a particularway of construing or viewing that content.” Conceptual content focusesmore on objectivity. Oppositely, construal operations are more orientedtowards subjectivity. It is the combination of conceptual content andconstrual operations that makes the meaning of linguistic expressions.Usually,“nong（弄）”,“gao（搞）”,“gan（干）”,“zuo（做）”,“zuo（作）”,“zheng (整)” and so on are considered asprototypical general verbs. Previous studies mainly concerned about“gao（搞）”and “zheng (整)”, whereas“nong（弄）”was not largely dealtwith. Based on previous studies, it is a bold attempt to present acomparatively complete semantic description of the Chinese character“nong” from the angle of Conceptual Semantics. In describing theconceptual content, the thesis adopts the network model put forward byLangacker to construct the senses of “nong”, unfolding the extensionroutes and its working mechanisms. Two steps are taken in the process.The first step is to confirm the activated cognitive domains on which theconceptual content is established by taking dictionary as reference andhuman experience. The second step is to combine synchronic and diachronic analysis to determine the prototypical sense and peripheralsenses of “nong”, which are in the relationship of elaboration andextension. Metaphor and metonymy function essentially in the process ofsemantic evolvement. Additionally, the paper also analyzes therelationship between cognitive domain and conceptual content,attempting to reveal the influence of the selection of different cognitivedomains on the extension of senses.The section of construal operation concentrates on the usage of“nong” in context to reveal its semantic features as generalization,replacement, vagueness in line with its four aspects as focusing,perspective, prominence and specificity. Besides, the study also discoversthat “nong” is highly schematic both at linguistic and mental processinglevel.The study not only provides some reference for the research of theChinese character “nong”, but also is applicable for other general verbs,such as “zheng”,“gao”,“ban” and the like. In addition, the results of thisdissertation also have certain practical values for research on Chineselanguage information processing, dictionary compilation and languageteaching, etc.