A Corpus-based Study Of English Caused-motion Constructions

Adele E.Goldberg put forward the caused-motion constructions in 1993.Scholars abroad and in China have studied the English caused-motion constructions from the perspectives of generative semantics,generative grammar,systemic functional linguistics and cognitive linguistics,and have reached remarkable achievements.As a special caused-motion construction,the Away construction is less studied by previous scholars.Therefore,based on BNC and from the theoretical perspective of the usage-based construction grammar,this thesis analyzes the verbs entering the Away construction and their characteristics,construction semantics and formation mechanism with the help of collostructional analysis.The findings are as follows:(1)The total frequency of the Away construction in the corpus is 6587,and there are 298 verbs in the verb slots.With the help of R software,collostruction strengths are calculated.The results show that the verb presenting the strongest strength with the Away construction is take,followed by throw,push,give,put,keep,drag,pull,etc.,which all have a strong association with the target construction.(2)143 verbs that appear in the Away construction with strong strength are classified.The results show that the verbs can be divided into 8 categories,which are ranked from the highest to the lowest in terms of total frequency,so,41 verbs in the take-group,including take,push,drag,pull,send,drive,carry,etc.;6verbs in possess-group,including give,snatch,keep,store,get,hold;17 in throw-group,including throw,chuck,kick,toss,cast,etc.;13 verbs in put-group,including put,hide,pack,tuck,lever,lift,etc.;29 in remove-group,including sweep,wipe,whip,brush,wash,tidy,clear,etc.;9 in accompany-group,including lead,chase,conduct,accompany,steer,guide,usher,direct,escort;8 verbs in cut-group,namely,crape,rip,hack,cut,bore,blow,tear,dissect.In addition to the above main categories,there are 20 verbs classified in the others-group.The research finds out that the verbs appearing in the Away construction include causative verbs and non-causative verbs.Therefore,the analysis of the forming mechanism of the Away construction should consider both the lexical view and the constructional view.(3)The Away construction has five types of related senses.Combined with the characteristics of verb and the semantics of adverb AWAY,the semantics of the Away construction are summarized as follows: the agent causes the patient to move toward a different direction(central meaning);the agent transfers the patient;the agent removes the patient,the agent keeps the patient in a safe place;the agent does something continuously or for a long time.(4)Interaction between verb meaning and construction sense complements each other.On the one hand,with the increase of verb input frequency,the verb itself can also carry out meaning renewal or undergo meaning change.On the other hand,the coercion of construction on verbs has a strong explanation of the periphery phenomena of language.Therefore,the relationship between verb meaning and construction meaning is complementary.In short,the thesis inspires expanding the scope of the Away construction and developing research methods.