A Tentative Study On The Construction Of Semantic Schematic Representation Integration Mechanism For English Compound Nouns

Language stems from human interaction with the real world.It is the expression of human knowledge,experience and feelings.Vocabulary,as the fundamental element in language,evolves as time goes.The rapid development of economy,politics,technology and society speeds up the complexity of things and the relationship between things,resulting in the emergence of compounds.The appearance and appliance of compounds display the high generality of human mind as well as the conciseness of language expression.Compounds are the product of compounding,which is viewed as one of the most effective word formation methods in English.Briefly speaking,compounding is the process of combination of two or more morphemes on the basis of specific rules by which new words are created.In the category of English compounds,compound nouns are numerous.Compound nouns play an indispensable part in naming complicated things and relations.Apart from that,variety of structure and flexibility of usage also contribute to many scholars? attention on compound nouns both abroad and at home so that they are dedicated to the research on English compound nouns.However,most of them focus their attention on the complicated structure types,syntactic relations as well as semantic relations,neglecting the function of cognitive factors that play an essential role in the process of meaning construction.Moreover,research focus only falls on noun+noun type.This thesis attempts to study the semantic integration mechanism for English compound nouns on the basis of conceptual blending theory.On one hand,The study proves that conceptual integration is a fundamental cognitive operation,which possesses extraordinarily cognitive explanatory ability.On the other hand,it verifies that the semantic integration mechanism of English compound nouns can be elaborated by conceptual blending theory.In addition to noun+noun type,this thesis also takes adjective+noun type,gerund+noun type as well as noun+gerund type into account,thus extending the research on English compound nouns to some extent and making up for deficiency of present research.The findings of the research are presented as below:Firstly,it is a newly tentative study to apply conceptual blending theory into the research of the semantic integration mechanism for English compound nouns,providing a new perspective for the study of other types of English compounds.Secondly,we find that syntactic and semantic relations can not be neglected in the interpretation of compound nouns.There are six internal syntactic relations within noun+ noun type;adjective + noun type;gerund + noun type and noun + gerund type compound nouns,which play a role in the comprehension of compound nouns.The meaning of these four type compound nouns presenting those syntactic relations all can be constructed by the four networks in conceptual blending theory,namely simple network,mirror network,single-scope network and double-scope network.Thirdly,these four different semantic integration networks present respective characteristics in semantic extraction and processing.In the simplex network,the blended space extracts the organizing frame and roles of one input space,as well as the semantic features of the other input space corresponding to these roles.Meanwhile,those irrelevant elements are filtered out.Through three steps of composition,completion and elaboration,the new concept comes into being.In the mirror network,all the spaces share the same frame.On the basis of this,all the semantic elements in both input spaces are almost projected into the blended space.The new concept,namely the emergent structure is generated by the combination of semantic elements in both inputs.In the single-scope network,two input spaces possess their own frames,only one of which is inherited or extended by the blended space.The input space which does not offer frame for the blended space just provides several semantic elements that match the frame in the blended space.In the double-scope network,two input spaces contain respective frames which are distinct and even conflicting.Both the frames are partially projected into the blended space.The huge difference between two frames urges the blended space to generate the completely new concept in addition to extracting the prominent semantic features in both input spaces.Lastly,this thesis is dedicated to the construction of new semantic integration network models for these four structural types of compound nouns,presents the process of semantic integration in schematic form and makes the invisible cognitive operation visible,providing a new mode for the study of English compound nouns and English compounds.This thesis consists of five sections.chapter one introduces the purpose and significance of the study,research question of the study,methodology of the study and the organization of the thesis.Chapter two is literature review section,which presents precious research achievements on English compounds both abroad and at home.Chapter three lays the theoretical foundation for the study,including the definition and classification of compound nouns as well as the brief introduction of schema theory,construal theory and conceptual blending theory.Chapter four,the central part of the whole study,endeavors to construct and construe some new semantic integration network models for noun + noun type,adjective + noun type,gerund + noun type and noun + gerund type compound nouns.In addition,some instances are explained in detail to prove the rationality and feasibility of the newly-built network models.Chapter five is the conclusion part,concerning both findings and limitations of the study.