A Cognitive Study To The Asymmetric Phenomena Of The Existence Sentence In Modern Chinese

Existence sentences in modern Chinese is a kind of sentence that is mainly named by semantics,such as "there are three students in the classroom".We find that it is problematic to analyze the existence sentences of modern Chinese by traditional syntactic analysis.This paper reanalyzes the syntactic structure and semantic features of existence sentences in modern Chinese through the theory of construction chunks and explores the general cognitive features hidden behind the existential syntax and semantics.In addition,this paper finds a special cognitive phenomenon in existence sentences--asymmetry.This paper focuses on the asymmetry in the existence sentence and analyzes the cognitive motivation of the asymmetry of the sentence.This also has certain reference significance for analyzing the asymmetry in other sentences.This paper is mainly divided into six chapters:The first chapter summarizes the definition,classification and cognitive research of existence sentences,and tries to define and classify existence sentences.A sentence that conforms to the double standard of form and meaning is the"existing sentence(存在句)".Meaning:"somewhere/sometime there is something".Form:"NP1+VP+NP2".This paper mainly refers to the classification of"A+B+C"by Lei Tao(1993),and classifies existence sentences according to the structural features.The second chapter analyzes the structural characteristics of existence sentences.According to Lu Jianming’s constructive chunk theory,the syntactic structure of existence sentences is divided into three chunks,namely,the place of existence,the verb of existence and the thing of existence.Chunk 2 of existence sentences can be omitted under certain conditions,so chunk 1 and chunk 3 are the semantic core of existence sentences.The structural features of each existence sentences have one side of symmetry and the other side of asymmetry.The third chapter studies the semantic features of existence sentences.Through analysis,it is found that chunk 1 has the semantic characteristics of [+ spatial][+locative][-life].Chunk 2 has the semantic feature of [+ existential relation][+existential mode].Chunk 3 has the semantic features of [+ not quantitative][+generalization][+ descriptive].The whole sentence pattern has the semantic feature of[+ existence][+accommodating].The semantic features of each existence sentences have both symmetry and asymmetry.The fourth chapter explores the general cognitive characteristics in the existence.The existence sentence mainly involve five cognitive features: the prototype category feature of the existence sentence of "you";the syntactic structure of the existence sentence reflects the iconic feature;the verb of the existence sentence reflects the subjective feature;the existence sentence reflects the image schema of the container;chunk 1 and chunk 3 of existence sentences are metaphorical.The fifth chapter describes the special performance in the existence sentence-the asymmetry phenomenon.The asymmetry in existence sentences mainly includes:the asymmetry of each part in the specific sentence;the asymmetry between the existence sentence of "you(有)" and the existence sentence of "shi(是)";the asymmetry between the existence sentence of "zhe(着)" and "le(了)";the asymmetry of each sentence pattern in the category of existence sentences;the asymmetry of the membership status in the category of existence sentences.The cognitive motivations of the existence sentence asymmetry mainly involve the influence of metaphor,the difference of perspective,the restriction of bounded and unbounded,and the difference of image schema.The sixth chapter summarizes the full text.Summarize and sort out the conclusions drawn from the previous chapters.At the same time,it puts forward the unresolved issues in the study of existence sentences and the direction that need to be researched in the future.