Conceptualization Of The Passive Event

The GIVE-verbs describe the change of the possession of an object from A to B,while A causes the change and B is the recipient of the object.The gramaticalization from GIVE-verbs to passive markers is a rare phenomenon in the human languages,because the semantic features endow Give-verbs with a relatively strong agentivity and directionality,while the passive expressions emphasize the patient.Therefore,the GIVE-verbs are semantically incompatible with passive expressions.However,this kind of grammaticalization has taken place in the West-Central-German Dialects and in Standard-Chinese as well as in Chinese dialects.Although the linguists both in Germany and China have already studied the grammaticalization of the GIVE-verbs to passive-markers,the researches on both sides still remain focused on only German or Chinese itself,lacking an interlingual as well as intercultural perspective.Therefore,it's very important to relate the two similar phenomena in different language families to each other and make a comparison between them,which is of great relevance to the research of the universalities and particularities of languages and cultures.This thesis attempts to make an intercultural comparison between the processes of grammaticalization of the GIVE-verbs to passive markers in the West-Central-German Dialects and in Standard-Chinese by creating a Tertium comparationis through the combination of the following two semantic parameters:"the conceptualization of the passive event" and "the grammaticalization of the GIVE-verbs to passive markers".On the bases of the previous studies on the grammaticalization of the GIVE-verbs to passive markers in the West-Central-German Dialects and in Chinese,this thesis will firstly try to explain the processes of the grammaticalization from the perspective of the cognitive linguistics.In the West-Central-German Dialects,the verb geben grammaticalizes itself firstly to the inchoative copula,which offers the basis for its further grammaticalization to passive auxiliar.In Standard-Chinese,the grammaticalization of ??gei?develops in the construction "NP₁+ ??gei?+ NP₂ + VP",after the Patiens-NP is topicalized in the construction,,NP Agens + ??gei?+ NP₂Rezipient +NP₁Patiens + VP" which is expanded from the ditransitive active sentence by adding another VP.On the basis of these grammaticalization processes,this thesis will use the"Image Schema" to describe and compare the conceptualization of the passive events in the West-Central-German Dialects and in Chinese.Besides,the two concepts in the theories of grammaticalization,namely "reanalysis" and "analgy",will also be applied to the explanation of the grammaticalization.Secondly,this thesis will discuss the functions of the GIVE-semantics and relevant syntactic constructions during the processes of the grammaticalization.From the semantic perspective,this thesis will make a "semantic map" based on the grammaticalization of the GIVE-verbs to passive markers in order to represent the different ways of semantic extension of the basic GIVE-semantics in German and Chinese.From the syntactic perspective,this thesis will make a bidirectional comparison between the syntactic constructions in German and Chinese which are closely related to the grammaticalization.Through the observation of German from the perspective of Chinese as well as the observation of Chinese from the perspective of German,this thesis intends to explain the existence and the absence of the relevant syntactic constructions in German and Chinese from the perspective of linguistic typology based on the differences of the systems of word classes in Indo-European languages and in Chinese.Thirdly,based on the two points above,this thesis also tries to build a relationship between the conceptualization of the passive events and the typological differences between German and Chinese in order to unfold one aspect of the relation between thinking and language.It is revealed that:?1?Concerning the grammaticalization of geben to passive auxiliar in the West-Central-German Dialects,the passive event is conceptualized through the"change of state" that is caused by external actor,while in the grammaticalization of ??gei?to passive marker in Chinese,the passive event is conceptualized through "giving the control over an object to another".?2?The copula-construction plays a very important role in the grammaticalization of geben,while the syntactic construction "NP₁+ ??gei?+ NP₂ + VP" offers an essential syntactic arena in which the grammaticalization of ??gei?develops.?3?The essential existence of the copula-construction in German can be attributed to the fact that the nouns and verbs in German build two separate word classes and the nouns and adjectives are closely related to each other due to their similar syntactic features.The existence of the syntactic construction"NP₁ + ??gei?+ NP₂ + VP" in Chinese is a result of the fact that such concrete pragmatic categories as "reference/predication" in Chinese haven't grammaticalized to the abstract syntactic categories such as "noun/verb" yet and the nouns and verbs can therefore directly "constitute" reference und predication,while the number of the verbs engaged in the "constitutive" process isn't limited.The existence of the copula-construction in German and the syntactic construction "NP₁ + ??gei?+ NP₂ + VP" in Chinese offers an important syntactic arena for the grammaticalization of the GIVE-verbs to passive markers as well as the conceptualization of the passive event.While the conceptualization is an indication of the way of thinking of human beings,the language typology offers different frameworks for the thinking activities.Therefore,an aspect of the relationship between language and thinking is unfolded in this thesis.