A Corpus-based Cognitive-comparative Study Of The Ditransitive Construction In English And Chinese Within The Framework Of Construction Grammar

The ditransitive construction,which is commonly seen in English as well as in Chinese,has long been a research focus of linguists both at home and abroad.A great number of scholars have conducted researches on English and Chinese ditransitive constructions from different perspectives,and most of their findings have proved rewarding and enlightening.However,so far the published papers or dissertations mainly focus on one certain aspect of the ditransitive construction,which leaves much room for more systematic and more comprehensive study.On the basis of the theoretical framework of Goldberg's Cognitive Construction Grammar and by referring to Cognitive Semantics and Cognitive Grammar,the present dissertation,through analyzing data collected from COCA and CCL,makes a systematic study of the ditransitive construction in English and Chinese.Apart from finding out similarities and differences in semantic features between English and Chinese ditransitive constructions,this research also probes into the mechanism of coercion between verb and construction and the extension mechanism of the ditransitive construction in English and Chinese.Furthermore,the research attempts to dig out the cognitive motivations behind the language phenomena,which is quite different from previous studies and thus becomes the highlight of this dissertation.The research has the following major findings.Firstly,the prototypical meaning of the English ditransitive construction is considered as the actual successful transfer from the agent to the recipient,while the prototypical meaning of the Chinese ditransitive construction is just regarded as“transfer”,either positive or negative,as the Chinese ditransitive construction conveys not only the meaning of “giving”,but also “taking”.However,in both English and Chinese,there are special cases.In English,there are some verbs that can be categorized into the “refusal” type,such as “refuse”,“deny” and so on,which can be used in the ditransitive construction but do not convey a successful transfer.Also,there are some verbs that belong to the type of the so-called “negative transfer”,such as “fine”,“charge”,“cost” and so on.On the other hand,Chinese ditransitiveconstruction is even more complicated.In Chinese,such verbs as “jie”(?),“zu”(?),“dai”(?),“she”(?)and so on are bidirectional,which means in different situations they can either mean “giving” or “taking”.The ditransitive verb that conveys the meaning of “giving” and makes the recipient get the thing being transferred can be followed by a light verb “gei”(?),while the ditransitive verb such as “fa”(?),“qiang”(?),“ying”(?)that conveys the meaning of “taking” is unable to be followed by “gei”(?),but “le”(?),which indicates a state of termination.The research also discusses about the differences between the dative construction and the ditransitive construction,ba-construction in Chinese,and some other special cases.We think that embodied philosophy is the common cognitive base of the ditransitive construction,and the choice of perspectives and different levels of conceptualization are the causes of the differences between English and Chinese ditransitive constructions.In terms of the English ditransitive construction,the agent is usually taken as the cognitive reference point and put into the most salient position,while the patient and the recipient are regarded as the background of the whole event.Therefore,the central meaning of the construction is “giving”.With regard to the Chinese ditransitive construction,as Chinese people tend to shift their perspectives when describing the “giving” or “taking” scene,that is to say,either the giver or the receiver can be taken as the agent and put into the subject position,the basic meaning of the Chinese ditransitive construction is regarded as both “giving” and “taking”.This kind of discrepancy implies that the act of transferring has been differently conceptualized in English and Chinese.We believe that the conceptualization of the Chinese ditransitive construction is systematic and consistent while the English one pays more attention to logic and form.The comprehensive perspective point taken by the Chinese people has resulted in the different levels of conceptualization of the Chinese ditransitive construction and that of the English.Secondly,we've found that coercion takes place not only from the construction to the verb,but also from the verb to the construction.Our data analysis has proved that the construction itself has the meaning independent of the lexical items,which might change the meaning of the verb that enters this construction.Nevertheless,whetherthe ditransitive construction indicates a successful transfer is not merely determined by the construction,but the meaning of the verb sometimes plays the leading role.The theory of gestalt,as well as the principles of the maximization of information and that of economy are considered as the motivations of coercion.Although there are disputes about the cognitive base for coercion,we hold that coercion can be cognitively construed from the perspectives of the prototypical effect of categorization,salience and the mechanism of metonymy.Thirdly,our data analysis proves that the extension phenomenon is quite popular in English and Chinese ditransitive constructions.The agent can be inanimate or abstract entities,not limited to animate and volitional beings;the recipient is not necessarily animate,and such inanimate things as location,institution,organization can also play the recipient role;the patient can also be such abstract things as time,information,identity,action,and event,not necessarily a concrete entity.In terms of the cognitive motivation of the extension,we assume that the mechanism of metaphor and that of metonymy have brought about the extension of Agent,Recipient and Patient in the ditransitive construction.It is found that the frequency of the extension in English is higher than that in Chinese,the reason of which can be attributed to different ways of conceptualization and different perspectives of the two nations.In summary,the ditransitive construction in English and Chinese has been deeply and systematically explored from the cognitive perspective,which has enriched the research method and paradigm of the ditransitive construction.Through the comparison between English and Chinese,the crucial role of cognitive mechanism behind language phenomena has been revealed,which has deepened our knowledge of the nature of language.In addition,we have found that some verbs which in theory are able to enter the ditransitive construction fail to appear in real corpus.This finding reminds us that language study can never be merely based on subjective assumptions,but should be based on real language practice.