Research On Rules Of Lexical Semantic Change And Cognitive Motivation Of Chinese Body Nouns

Research aim on the deep motivation of lexical meaning is to explore why the change of word meaning happened. Past researches on lexical meaning change are not systematic but case study. Further more, study on change motivation is not deepened in the past researches.Group analysis of lexical semantic change is necessary. I t is maybe a way which can discover the deep rules of semantic change. The paper explores the semantic change of body nouns. Concepts about body nouns are meta concept of the world of humane cognition.Research method of the paper is an integration of lexical semantics and cognitive linguistics. Based on systematic description of body nouns, the thesis analyzes the rules and motivation of semantic change.Research stress on lexical meaning change of body nouns is the extraction of cognitive features. Reference of a word can form a certain psychological image, which called semantic image extraction by us. The features of semantic image extraction of body nouns include appearance, position and function. Features of semantic image extraction are genes of lexical meaning change.Based on quantitative study on presentation of features of semantic image extraction, we found that the more prominent of a certain image feature, the more the extended meaning from that image feature, which we called"strong feature"."Strong feature"is an outcome of impact of cognitive features on semantic extension and can be applied to quantitative exploration on cognitive factors.Description of lexical meaning change of body nouns includes the quantity of extended sense,type of the extended sense and how the sense extended. Meanwhile, strong feature is the most important factor, which accounts for the motivation. We found lexical meaning change of body nouns refers to the regularity of sense category and the particularity of individual sense. The regularity of sense change is the decisive factor, which is and the particularity of individual sense changeThe main features of lexical meaning change of body nouns include: 1. The number of extended meaning of most nouns conforms to the number of semantic category hierarchy. The number of extended meaning is determined by the degree of cognition prominence. The quantity of category reflects the width of sense extension, and it increases at a certain range with the increasing of the number of extended sense.2. Different Strong features lead to different lexical meaning tendency and have an impact on semantic category distribution;3. Lexical meaning change of body nouns includes two kinds of patterns. One is influenced by metaphor, some senses, which belong to the category of nonhuman and abstractness and are relate to appearance and position, were extended from the primary sense. The another is influenced by metonymy, some senses, which belong to the category of activity and are relate to function, were extended from the primary sense..4. The hierarchy of semantic category of body nouns depends on the direction and difficulty degree of cross-domain extension. The hierarchy order of semantic category of body nouns is in accord with the rules of human cognition, such as from concreteness to abstractness.5. The tendency of lexical meaning change of body nouns refers to the restriction of sense extraction and the emphasis shift of lexical meaning; he emphasis shift of lexical meaning include the shift of the most prominent feature, direction and change patters of lexical meaning. The tendency of lexical meaning change closely relates to the deepening of cognition.According to the above five characteristics, there are two following factors which influence the lexical meaning change of body nouns:1. Sense image extraction has a impact on lexical meaning change of body nouns. In fact, it is the semantic genes of words themselves that influence the trait and direction of lexical meaning change;2. Metaphor and metonymy are ways of humane thinking, which can influence the lexical meaning change, for certain thinking mechanism may form certain semantic correlation pattern, which have an systematical impact on the lexical meaning change. In essential, semantic process mechanism causes the shift of sense category, which influence the lexical meaning change.Study on cognitive motivation might a way can reveal the rules of lexical meaning change. Further more; it has important value in lexical meaning discrimination, which can be applied to teaching Chinese as a second language.