On The Valence Of Contemporary Chinese V-R Compounds: A Study Based On Conceptual Structures

This Dissertation studies the valence of Chinese V-R Compounds from the perspective of cognitive linguistics. The definition of V-R Compounds is in a wide sense. It includes not only the type of V-R compounds of which the R expresses the result of the V, but also the type of V-R compounds of which the R expresses the direction of the V. It consists of 7 chapters.Chapter 1 indicates that the previous syntactic approaches that deduce the valence of V-R compounds from the valence of the V and the R are not successful because of their inner defects. Then, it argues that the approach based on the conceptual structures of V-R compounds is promising.Chapter 2 introduces conceptual structures. It includes three parts. Part one analyzes the conceptual structure of three kinds of events expressed by V-R compounds, including the motion event, the event of change of state, and the event of temporal contour. All of them consist of a main-event and a co-event, and the main-event is made up of four conceptual elements-Figure, Motion, Path and Ground. The motion event and the event of change of state can all be divided into two types-the causative type and the non-causative type. Besides the four conceptual elements mentioned previously, the main-event of the causative type has an Agent in addition. The body of the dissertation is divided into three parts, each part dealing with a kind of event. Part two argues that V is the head of V-R compounds. This argument is to support our choice of the conceptual system. Part three sets up the projecting principles of the conceptual elements. There are four principles: the first is the principle of conceptual salience, that is, the salient conceptual elements are expressed firstly, independently, with salient forms, and matching the salient syntactic positions; the second is the principle of tightness-the tightness of the combination between conceptual elements equals the tightness of the combination between the syntactic elements which express the conceptual elements; the third is the constraints on the conceptual structure -the main-event and the co-event must have relevance and can not have contradiction between themselves, and the main-event and the co-event can only have one conceptual element of each kind; and the fourth includes two formal constraints on the V-R sentences-placing the focus at the end of a sentence and a sentence can only have no more than two syntactic places after the V.Chapter 3 discusses the valence of V-R compounds that express motion event. The main points include: the valence of V-R compounds which have "lai "(来) or "qu"(去) as their R or the part of their R is relevant to the salience of the Ground of the main-event; whether R and V are expressed together or separately embodies the principle of tightness; the fact that some R, such as "shang(上)", can not be expressed separately is due to its salient Ground not having a syntactic expression; Goal is more salient than other kinds of Ground, so it can occupy a more salientsyntactic position; that the object of ditransitive V-R compounds can not be located at the end of the sentence is to avoid violating the constraint that a sentence can have no more than two syntactic positions after the V.Chapter 4 discusses the valence of V-R compounds that express the event of change of state. The analyses show that the object of V-R compounds which are formed incidentally or V-R compounds of which the R denoting abnormal or specific states must be moved to the position before the V-R compounds, because the R is the focus of the sentence. It is also pointed out that the causativisation of V-R compounds is always based on the Idealized Cognitive Model ( ICM ) of the respective event.Chapter 5 includes case studies of the valence of V-R compounds that express the event of change of state. The main points include: the conceptualization of reflexive actions is based on the ICM of the event; the condition of the occurrence of the NP after the non-transitive V-R compounds is relevant to the predictability of...