| Many human cognitive experiences are built on the cognition of spatial conceptualization. Of these, spatial motion is the most basic as well as vital one. When encoding the motion experience into linguistic structure, how to treat the relation between lexical semantics and syntactic structure is a hot issue in the theoretical field of syntax-semantics interaction. The most satisfactory interaction between spatial motion experience and syntactic structure is the exact mapping from the semantic roles of core verb onto the construction argument structure, basing on which forms the verbal mapping approach. On the other hand, there exist kinds of unsatisfactory mappings, such as the mismatches and unmatches between verbal semantic roles and construction argument structure, basing on which forms the constructional approach to the syntax-semantics interaction. Centering on the two mainstream approaches to the interface between syntax and semantics, with construction grammar and cognitive grammar as theoretical frameworks, meanwhile synthesizing event schemas, frame semantics, two/three dimensional analysis of verbal aspect and metaphor/metonymy theories, the thesis proposes a bidirectional interaction paradigm of verb potential semantic frames and construction event schemas, for which the realization of argument structure is the result of bidirectional interaction: first, construction event schemas categorize verbs conventionalized in different degrees; second, the potential verbal semantic frames can be activated by the construction-built event schema; finally, the integration of verbs and construction is primarily based on the inner isomorphism of verbs and constructions.The thesis focuses on two types of path-motion constructions—way construction and caused-motion construction for the reasons that the integration between verbs and the two constructions doesn‘t get a systematic study as the other constructions in Goldberg‘s construction grammar; another reason is that way construction and caused-motion construction are separated as different ones and can not be categorized into the same resultative construction. Opposite to Goldberg‘s opinion, the thesis sets out from the relation between ―motion‖ and the ―path result‖ produced by motion, proposes that the two constructions can be classified into the same higher level of construction paradigm—motion-resultative construction for the reason that the ―path‖ constituents are the necessary results of ―motion‖. There is close cause-effect relation between ―motion‖ and ―path‖, and the two constructions share the common ―action chain‖ conceptual structure, except that one is an autonomous motion, the other a caused motion. Therefore, the two constructions have uniformity at both the construction paradigm and the conceptual structure.The study methods are mainly composed of introspection, abduction and corpus verification. Abduction is different from deduction in that abduction reasons reversely from the ―result‖ to the ―cause‖, through which we can hypothesize the possible explanation of language structure by way of introspection to the linguistic facts. Therefore, the thesis, based on the observation and reflection of language facts collected from corpus, offers a possible theoretical framework and verifies it with a quantitative data analysis from corpus.With way construction and caused-motion construction as study objectives, the research first classifies the verb types collected from corpus according to its semantics, then for each verb type, elaborates its interaction and integration with construction from the two perspectives of potential semantic frames and potential aspectual meaning. On one hand, the interaction between verbal potential semantic frame and construction event schema is reflected in the fact that when some of the potential verb-linked semantic frames such as ―force dynamics‖, ―action event‖, ―motion event‖, ―causal relation‖, ―action result/goal‖, etc. are activated by the coercion of the higher construction event schema, some of the backgrounded semantic roles of verbs are profiled and fill in the slots of argument structure. On the other hand, the interaction is also reflected in the integration between verbal potential aspectual meaning and construction-representing event telicity, under which the verbal inherent aspect meaning might be temporarily coerced, while its potential aspect consistent with the construction event telicity might be profiled so as to realize the on-line aspectual integration between verbs and constructions.Meanwhile, the role played by metaphor and metonymy is also discussed in the integration between verbs and constructions, of which metonymy plays the role of cognitive reference point when accidental verbs and action verbs integrate with way construction, namely the metonymy of the most profiled event characteristic replacing the whole potential event frames; while the integration of perceptual verbs, affectional verbs and inductive verbs with caused-motion construction depends on the metaphorical mapping of EFFECTUAL FORCE domain into PHYSICAL FORCE domain. Finally, the thesis clarifies the poly-coercions between verbs and constructions, particularly categorizes the way construction and caused-motion construction into the same higher level of resultative construction among which different construction types and different members of the same construction form a cognitive continuum.The contributions of the study are mainly reflected on the following four aspects: first of all, a new perspective of bidirectional interaction between verbs and constructions is set, which breaks the long-existing opposition between lexical projection and construction grammar in the study of semantic-syntactic interface. The study confirms that the realization of argument structure is the result of bidirectional interaction between verbs and constructions with construction event schemas categorizing different degrees of conventionalized verbs and the potential verbal semantic frames being activated by the construction-set event schema. The advantages of a bidirectional interaction theoretical framework over construction grammar lie in the fact that it covers the deficit of insufficient explanation of construction grammar and enhances the theoretical sufficiency and efficiency.Secondly, with the advantage of emphasizing the systematic construal of meaning in cognitive grammar, the thesis depicts the exact process in which the potential semantic roles of verbs are selectively profiled under the coercion of construction event schema and forms a coherent event representation with other profiled arguments, which makes up the deficiency of Goldberg‘s meaning representation basing on the verb‘s conventional roles.Thirdly, different from the traditional one dimensional description of verb aspect, the thesis makes the initiative attempts to apply Croft‘s(2012) two dimensional(t/q) geometric analysis of verb aspect and gives a dynamic description of the aspectual interaction between each verb type and way construction from the dimensions of time and qualitative property; also, applying Croft‘s three dimensional analysis of causative relation, the thesis offers a comprehensive and dynamic description of the interaction between different causative verb types and caused-motion construction from the dimensions of time, event quality and causal relation, which are relatively new trials on the aspectual interaction between verbs and constructions.The final contribution is that the thesis categorizes the way construction and caused-motion construction into the same higher level of construction paradigm—MOTION-RESULTATIVE CONSTRUCTION. Along the scale from prototypical members to non-prototypical members within the same construction type, the category members of the same construction form a cline with two poles from specificity to abstract according to their different conventionality and schematization, and also the members along the cline interact as both motivations and norms, which play a key role in the emergence of new expressions. |
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