A Study Of English Temporal-Setting-Subject Clauses Based On Event-Reference-Point-Relation Model

This research is devoted to exploring the formation motivation of Temporal-setting-subject clause(TSSC).TSSC refers to the clause with temporal setting as the subject.For example,The day saw the tightest security.In this sentence,the temporal setting component day serves as the role of subject,so,such clauses are called temporal-setting-subject clauses.Previous researchers have done abundant researches related to temporal setting subject.Langacker believes that time,like location,as the setting of an event,can serve as the primary focus of prominence,thus acting as the subject.But through further research,we found that the case that temporal words act as the subject is relatively complex and temporal-setting-subject clauses have several different types.Moreover,what are the regularity of the mental access path when temporal setting served as the focus of prominence? What are the semantic features of the temporal-setting-subject clause? None of these problems have been well explained.In order to further clarify different kinds of TSSC,this research guided by the basic view of cognitive grammar,with “Event Reference Point Relation Model”(Cai,2016)as the theoretical framework,tries to answer the following two questions:First,what is the formation motivation of temporal setting subject clause?Second,what are the restrictions on the choice of temporal words when they are used as subjects? What are the semantic restrictions on the temporal-setting-subject clauses?“Event Reference Point Relation Model(ERPRM)” is a theoretical model based on the “Cognitive Reference Point Relation” and the “Canonical Event Model” which holds that reference point relation is the most basic organizing principle in the process of the construction of syntactic structure,and the “ERPRM” represents the process of basic mental operation in dynamic extraction of conceptual components,which is a sequential mental access path based on the reference point relations.Different mental access paths are projected onto the syntactic level and form different syntactic structures.Therefore,this model can be used to explain the formation motivation of different types of syntactic structures.This study will try to use this model to explain the formation motivation of temporal-setting-subject clauses.The “ERPRM” shows a explanatory power in explaining the formation motivation of the syntactic construction of modern Chinese.This model focuses on the mental operation of people in the process of dynamic conceptualization,which is a sequential and selective extraction of the elements of events.The extraction process is restricted by the reference point relation,the proceduralization of event and the conventionalization.One of the basic tasks of cognitive linguistics is to search for the basic cognitive abilities of human beings and explore the role of these cognitive abilities in the formation of human language.In other words,how human cognitive abilities embodied in language.The research of cognitive linguistics shows that the reference point relation is one of the basic cognitive abilities of human beings.And the proceduralization of event in a canonical event is reflected by the extension of the action in time,because,when people segment events,they usually refer to the relationship between entities,which is often reflected as the extension of action in time in canonical events,resulting in some kind of energy transfer between two entities.It is also one of the basic research ideas of cognitive linguistics to establish a model based on canonical events and then explore the marginal events.On the other hand,conventional conceptualization has both generality and individuality in cross-language comparison.Specifically,between modern Chinese and English,the basic word order is SVO,which is the common way of conventional conceptualization between English and Chinese.Since “ERPRM” can be used to explain mental operation process of syntactic structure of modern Chinese,as well as the basic sentence structure when this process is projected onto the syntactic level,then,the basic sentence structure of English should be better explained under the framework of this model as well as modern Chinese.Therefore,this thesis tries to use this model to explain the formation motivation of English temporal-setting-subject clauses.For temporal-setting-subject clauses,when the conceptualizer intends to profile the temporal setting,under the operation of ERPRM,it is selected as the starting point of the mental extraction,then,it has the function of reference point.Under the function of the reference point relation,the mental access path leads to the target in the domain controlled by the reference point,forming a mental access path which is projected onto the syntactic level and forms TSSC.In this process,the choice of temporal words is not arbitrary.Only the temporal words(Equivalent to Quirk’s “time points” and “time periods”)which semantically reflect the attribute of positioning can be used as the subject,while the temporal words representing “frequency” and “relationship” can not be used as the subject.It is found that,first,TSSC is the result that the conceptualizer wants to profile the temporal setting,and it is the result of the ERPRM,which takes the temporal word as the starting point of mental path.Second,there are some semantic constraints when temporal words act as the subject.For the temporal words,only the temporal words that reflect the attribute of positioning can be used as the subject.There are four basic types of TSSC:A-TSSC(Clauses which temporal setting serves as both agent and subject),E-TSSC(Clauses which temporal setting serves as both experiencer and subject),C-TSSC(Clauses which temporal setting serves as both causer and subject),M-TSSC(Clauses which temporal setting serves as both mover and subject).All of them are intransitive and cannot be transformed into passive forms.