A Study Of English Nominalization From A Grammatical Metonymy Perspective

Nominalization is pervasive phenomenon in natural languages. Verb is the majorsource of nominalization. Based on the fundamental theory of conceptual metonymyand grammatical metonymy, this dissertation attempts to explore the semantic shiftand its metonymic mechanism in nominalization and the interaction betweennominalization process and the linguistic structure. It focuses on three questions:(1)the role of metonymy in nominalization;(2) the operational model of grammaticalmetonymy in nominalization; and (3) the interaction of nominalization and linguisticstructure.There are some limitations in previous studies of nominalization. First, thelinguistic aspect of nominalization, namely the form, the syntax operation and thefunction is overstressed. This inclination treats nominalization as a tool of syntaxoperation. Second, some cognitive linguists have recognized the metonymic nature ofnominalization, but the metonymic operations process underlying nominalization hasnot been given sufficient attention. Third, the limited studies on the metonymicmotivation of nominalization have not given enough concern to the semantic shift andthe profile of semantic facet which impose impact on linguistic structure. Thisdissertation, based on the nominalization of English verbs, has explored thenominalization phenomenon from grammatical metonymy perspective. We have madethe following major findings:Firstly, nominalization is a metonymy-motivated way of cognition andgrammatical process that brings about impact in grammar. It is an operation ofincongruent cognition that takes place with the reference to the conceptual meaning ofthe source word, the syntactic constituent and the grammatical slot. Through theoperation, the nominal facet included in the source word is profiled and realized at thesyntactic level, thus creating the gestalt unity in lexico-grammar and logical-semanticrelationship.Secondly, this dissertation has constructed the metonymic operational model of nominalization. The model construction is based on the elaboration of a hypothesisproposed in the present dissertation. Based on the previous studies of conceptualmetonymy and the theory of prototype of cognitive linguistics, this dissertationproposes the hypothesis of prototypical linguistic domain and potential linguisticdomain to account for the metonymic nature of nominalization phenomenon, andprovides an elaboration on the notions. A concept has its primary semantic content,which constitutes its primary conceptual domain. As the components of language, aconcept also has the prototypical linguistic domain that corresponds to its primaryconceptual domain. The linguistic domain contains three subdomains: the formalrepresentation domain, the grammatical property domain and the grammaticalfunction domain. The previous studies reveal that there is semantic-inclusion betweenverb and noun. The semantic-inclusion forms a metonymic relationship between thesource verb and its nominal form with the latter being one of the semantic facets of it.This enables a concept to have a potential linguistic domain which also contains threepotential subdomains.Based on the elaboration of the hypotheses of linguistic domains， thisdissertation has constructed metonymic operational model of nominalization. When aconcept enters in a linguistic structure, only one part or facet of it participates directlyin the grammatical relation and becomes the active zone of the concept in the relation.When the primary conceptual domain and its corresponding linguistic domain do notmeet the expectation of the grammatical structure, the potentially included conceptualcontent and linguistic domain are activated to realize the grammatical acceptabilityand the logical-semantic unity.Thirdly, nominalization involves metonymy and syntax, so this dissertationargues that there is a two-way interaction between nominalization and the linguisticstructure it is embedded in. The interaction is reflected in the impact and restriction inthe nominalization process. On one hand, the linguistic structure has an impact on theform of nominalization. Firstly, the linguistic structure determines the need ofnominalization operation. Secondly, logically acceptable structure has both thesemantic and grammatical expectations and constraints for the participating constituents. Different forms of nominalization have semantic difference, and thechoice of the nominalization form is a grammatical operation made to meet theexpectation of the linguistic structure. On the other hand, the form of nominalizationalso exerts an effect on the linguistic structure. The concept the source verb is thefoundation of the metonymic operation which makes the whole nominalization refersmetonymically to a part or facet of it. Only one of the parts or facets plays an activerole in the grammatical relation, the semantic feature of the active part or facet willhave an effect on the linguistic structure.The previous linguists have made studies on the nominalization of English fromdifferent theoretical orientations and research paradigms. This has led to differentviews and limitation with respect to such issues as the motivation of nominalization,the semantic shift and the relation between nominalization and grammatical structure.This dissertation has made a preliminary discussion on the metonymicity of Englishnominalization and its impact on grammar and meaning. It aims to provide acomplementary, if not new angle to examine the nominalization phenomenon and toshed light on the remaining issues such as the semantic ambiguity, semantic shift andgrammatical impact of nominalization.