Image Schema In Verb-Particle Constructions

The verb-particle construction is one of the most pervasive constructions inEnglish language. Due to the particularities in morphology, semantics, and syntax, ithas been the object of numerous studies. The present research deals with the meaningsof the particle in the VP construction from a cognitive perspective.In the first place, the author proposes a theoretical framework on the basis ofintegrating several existing theories, which include the Perceptual Symbol Systems byBarsalou (1999), the Theory of Affordances by Gibson (1979), the CognitiveGrammar by Langacker (1987，1990，1991，1993,2003,2007), and the ConstructionGrammar by Goldberg (1995,2005,2006). These theories each address one certainaspect in the whole process of “the world---perception---conception----language”.The theory of Perceptual Symbol Systems bridges the gap between perception andconception, the notion of construal proposed in Cognitive Grammar deals with themanipulation of concepts, and Construction Grammar provides explanations for howconstructions are formed in language system. When taken together these theoriesdisplay to us the whole picture of an embodied language.This theoretical framework in fact is a model about conceptual formation, whichdistinguishes three types of knowledge in a concept: perceptual knowledge, functionalknowledge, and spatial (structural) knowledge. These three types of knowledgeconstitute all the contents of a concept.Because neurons in our brain are highly specialized in function, concepts aremulti-modal, non-propositional and topological in nature. Concepts are formed in anatural, unintentional and accumulative manner in our everyday life. The conceptualretrieval is partial and selective, and it is rare for all the knowledge of a concept to beactivated simultaneously in one natural processing. Therefore, the same linguisticconstruction (say a word) will activate different conceptual knowledge in differentcontexts, which creates the possibility for polysemy.The semantic analysis of in/out and up/down in their respective VP constructions are based on this understanding. A basic assumption adopted here is that the variousmeanings of each particle (in(to),out, up, down) can be systematically explained awayby manipulating the spatial image schemas, and by activating the related perceptualknowledge or functional knowledge.The particles of in/out are regarded as linguistic realizations of theCONTAINMENT image schema, which is an abstraction of all kinds of containerspeople come across in everyday life. Among the various meanings of in/out, thedynamic image schema (an object moving into/out of a container) is viewed as theprototype, and eight varieties of CONTAINMENT image schema are distinguished onthe basis of three parameters (conceptual profiling, conceptual zoom-in-and-out, andviewing perspective). These8varieties, together with the functional knowledge ofcontainers (for example, containing, blocking, protecting, etc.), provide explanationsfor the various extended meanings in non-spatial domains.The particles of up/down correspond to the dynamic VERTICALITY imageschema. Specifically, it is assumed that the image schemas of UP and DOWN are thecombinations of the image schema of VERTICALITY and the image schema ofSOURCE-PATH-GOAL. Similar to in/out, four varieties are identified on the basis ofconceptual manipulation. Two varieties are identified by considering the parameter ofconceptual profiling. The third variety is obtained by taking the upright human bodyas the landmark. It is assumed that we unconsciously divide the space around ourbodies into three layers with the middle layer being the most active. This is becausethe organs responsible for cognition, such as the head and the hands, are located in theupper part of the body. The conceptualization of space in this way greatly influencesthe semantic extensions of up/down in many abstract domains, and is assumed toprovide sources for the various derivative meanings of the two particles. The lastvariety takes the horizontal ground as the landmark, whose steadiness helps to derivea few senses of up and down.After the two case analyses, an experiment in the paradigm of sentence judgmentprimed by pictures is designed to examine whether the theories and the case analysesare psychologically real. The target sentences fall into two types: sentences ended with particles of spatial-sense and sentences ended with particles of non-spatial sense.The primes include three types of pictures: pictures in agreement with the particles,pictures in disagreement with the particles, and pictures of neutral blank (a cross mark“+”). The result shows that in the processing of the spatial type of VP constructions,the reaction time is the shortest for the agreement picture (630ms), followed by theneutral blank picture (648ms), and the disagreement picture takes the longest time(670ms). As for the processing of the non-spatial VP constructions, the neutral typetakes the shortest time (613ms), followed by the agreement picture (630ms), and thedisagreement type still takes the longest time (663ms). The result indicates that theprocessing of VP constructions is influenced by the pictures no matter the particle isin spatial sense or non-spatial sense, which can be regarded as evidence for thepsychological reality of image schema. In the case of the non-spatial type VPconstructions, that the neutral blank takes the shortest time implies the constructionalview of non-spatial VP constructions.