Study On Changes Of The Emerging Constructions Of Degree And Scale In Contemporary Chinese

With the emerging constructions of degree and scale in Contemporary Chinese as object,construction grammar,language change,diachronic construction grammar,linguistic typology and interactional linguistics as basis,this paper systematically discusses the relation of expansion and inheritance between emerging constructions and existing structures,and probes into the mechanisms and motivations of the language changes from internal and external perspectives.Furthermore,it explores the universality of languages and the individuality of Chinese,and makes a positive attempt at the systematic study of a certain category of constructions in contemporary Chinese.The full text is divided into thirteen chapters.Chapter One introduces the cause of topic selection,value of the research and the research status.Chapter Two is an summary of the definition,classification and characteristics of the emerging constructions.Chapter Third to Chapter Eight belong to the case study,and Chapter Nine to Chapter Twelve make general study.Chapter Thirteen is the conclusion.Chapter Three investigates the semantic evolution of“zui(?)gaoji(??)de(?)X”and“X de(?)zui(?)gaoji(??)”.The constructions have derived the semantic function of high degree from sequence.This semantic evolution has occurred based on the interaction between the expansion of X and the semantic evolution of“zui gaoji”,the interaction between the construction and the elements,and the similarity between the first place in a sequence corresponds and the highest degree.The evolution is driven by the need of the construct of a temporary sequence and the Chinese translation of“the superlative form”in the language contact between Chinese and English.Chapter Four focuses on“jianzhile(???)”,which is a construct of the combination of“adverb+modal particle”,and aims to discuss the constructional meaning,function,mechanisms and motivations.“jianzhile”can serve as predicate or a single sentence to express the subjective evaluation and exclamation.Under the action of the paralleled expansion of“adverb+modal particle”,context absorption,borderization and reanalysis,“jianzhile”has been developed the formation.The evolution of“jianzhile”is motivated by the immediacy of information dissemination,pragmatic ambivalence,subjectification and intersubjectification.Chapter Five,taking“you(?)yizhong(??)X,bi(?)Y geng(?)W”as an example,investigates and analyzes the expansion of topic structure as a mightycategory to the comparison category in contemporary Chinese.The subject in the construction is ambiguous and new information can be used as a topic.This characteristic is highly shared by the topic structure“you(?)+??NP+VP”.Therefore,the construction is a subclass of topic structure and a result of the expansion of topic structure as a mighty category in contemporary Chinese.The expansion is driven by the optimality of topic,prominence and the need of communicative interaction.Chapter Six investigates the polysemy of the construction which can be analyzed into a grammatical construction and two rhetorical constructions,and explores the mechanisms and motivations of the polysemy based on the Multi-interactional View,.An emerging rhetorical construction“A he(?)B zhijian(??),gezhe(??)/le(?)yige(??)C”,for example,can express two meanings of difference/gap and condition.The formations of these two constructional meanings correlate closely with the interactions between the construction and the elements and the interaction between the construction elements.The polysemy of the construction is the result of the interaction between the different cognitive domains as well as the interaction of referential metonymy and conceptual integration.It is mainly driven by the interaction between defamiliarization and familiarization and the interaction between abstraction and visualization.Chapter Seven,taking the example of Cantonese construction of“X daohaam(??)”,deals with the grammatical replication which happened in contemporary Mandarin and dialects.The Cantonese construction of“X daohaam(??)”and Mandarin construction of“X daoku(??)”are homogeneous in the constructional meaning,structure and syntactic function.And the diachronic investigation of the constructions confirms the existence of grammatical replication.This realization of the replication has been due to the status of Cantonese and the uniqueness of the construction.In addition,the moderate variation and paralleled grammar revolution of“dao(?)”and“de(?)”provides the foundation for the replication.Chapter Eight,taking the example of the construction of“buneng(??)geng(?)X”in contemporary Chinese,aims to explore the polarity trigger of the construction.“buneng geng X”is the replication of the“couldn't be+comparative form”which indicates subjective maximum by the negative form of the comparative.From the perspective of linguistic typology,the polarity trigger is based on the semantic evolution of“neng”from ability to epistemic possibility.In the Languages with thispolarity trigger,the construction has developed the meaning of subjective maximum.Chapters Nine to Twelve expound systematically structures,inheritance,mechanisms and motivations of changes of the emerging constructions of degree and scale,and explore the degree category based on linguistic typology.The main conclusions are as follows.In terms of structural relation,most of the emerging constructions of degree and scale have polysemous relations with existing structures,and a few of them are structurally different from existing structures.There are four types of expansion of the variables in the emerging constructions,expansion of the core predicate,expansion of the center word,expansion of the construction elements and whole expansion based on the same motivation.There are two basic mechanisms for changes of the emerging constructions,namely internal mechanism and external mechanism.Internal mechanism refers to reanalysis and extension.Reanalysis is the main mechanism for grammatical change,and most of the emerging constructions have changed through the interaction of reanalysis and expansion.A few emerging constructions have changed only through extension,have not cause changes of underlying structure.External mechanism refers to contact-induced change.As far as the emerging constructions are concerned,there are mainly two mechanisms,borrowing and replication of English and dialects of Chinese.The changes of the emerging constructions are driven by multiple-motivations.The new constructions of degree are induced by erosion of subjective quantity,defamiliarization and de-routinization based on the language users' innovation,and expressivity and interactivity of network context.The realization of evolution is promoted by subjectivity,inter-subjectivity and pragmatic inference such as invited inference,abduction and default reasoning.The dialectical relation of iconicity and economy is the primary motivation of the language changes.The cross-linguistic investigation has revealed that adverb of degree is the primary means for expressing degree/scale.In contemporary Chinese,the evolution of new adverbs of degree is mainly driven by the adverbialization of adjective,verb and noun,which is the commonality of most languages.And the realization of the adverbialization is based on the semantic and syntactic conditions.Complement of degree is the important means for expressing degree in Chinese,and usually it evolves from resultative complement.There is the same evolutionary path in languages withresultative constructions,but it is not as common as that in Chinese.The most typical case is that the resultative constructions with “death” as result have undergone semantic bleaching to evolve finally into constructions of degree.Mighty category plays a part in the evolution of emerging constructions.Complement as a mighty category causes the evolution of complement of degree from resultatives,and topic structure as a mighty category expands to the comparison category in contemporary Chinese.Based on the main conclusions,it discusses three trends of the emerging constructions of degree/scale,and analyses the linguistic and social predictors of the trends.In addition,it explains the value of prediction for teaching Chinese as a foreign language,the innovations and the insufficiency of the study.