A Cognitive Study Of Patient-Preposed Sentences In Modern Chinese

The patient-preposed sentence,which is various in the form and frequent in the use,is a ubiquitous sentence pattern in modern Chinese.Its researches,especially the researches of the patient-topic sentence dating from Ma’s Grammar,have a history of more than 100 years.The researchers have done extensive and profound studies in 3 aspects:(1)the definitions of patients.Patients are divided into 3 levels:the 1st level refers to the recipients of the action in a narrow sense.The 2nd level refers to the entities causally affected including recipients,results,targets and materials.The 3rd level refers to the recipients in a broad sense including recipients,results,targets,materials,places,datives,experiences,objects of the verb ’have’,etc.The recipients on the first level and results belong to the typical members and the others belong to the non-typical members of the patients.(2)the researches of particular patient-preposed sentences.It focuses on the semantics,syntax and formations of the three patient-preposed sentences:the patient-topic sentence,the patient-subject sentence,the patient-subtopic sentence.It turns out that the patient before the verb is different from the subject and remains to be the argument of the verb,that the typical patient is inanimate and in-volitional,that the typical agent is animate,agentive and volitional,and that the typical verb,viz.verb-compliment structure,is dynamic and bounded.About the formations of patient-preposed sentences,there exist two opposite views:one proposes that the sentences are formed by moving the patients forward before the verbs compulsorily or with a great tendency,while the other assumes that they are formed instantly online.(3)the relationships among the patient-preposed sentences,and the relationships between the patient-preposed sentences and its related sentences.The researches probe into their conditions,restrictions of conversion and their differences between pre-conversion and post-conversion.The previous researches have laid solid foundations for the subsequent studies,but left four deficiencies:(1)Limitations of research scope.These researches only focus on the three objects,that is,the patient-subject sentence,the patient-topic sentence and the patient-subtopic sentence.(2)A lack of holistic researches concerning the syntax,semantics and formation of the three patient-preposed sentences.A thorough analysis has been done respectively in the previous researches on the syntax,semantics and formation of particular patient-preposed sentences,but a holistic and systematic research on them is neglected.(3)Limitations of systematic researches of the relationships between patient-prposed sentences and their related sentences.(4)Insufficiency of systematic and congruent explanations to the motivations of patients moving forward before verbs.In light of the above deficiencies,the dissertation probes into the following:(1)How are Chinese patient-preposed sentences reclassified and probed into the semantic features?(2)How are the Chinese patient-preposed sentences construed originating from the causative events and how are their meanings constructed?(3)What are the ways and cognitive models of the extensions of Chinese patient-preposed sentences?(4)What are the motivations for the formations of Chinese patient-preposed sentences?This study delves into the Chinese patient-preposed sentences,employing the prototypical category theory,conceptual metaphor theory,conceptual metonymy theory,conceptual integration theory and subjectivity&subjectification theory,integrating description with explanation,diachronic study with synchronic study,induction with deduction,and comparison between Chinese and English.The dissertation firstly reclassifies the patient-preposed sentences and analyzes their semantics.The literature review shows that Chinese patient-preposed sentences are rich in types:the patient-topic sentence,the patient-subject sentence,the patient-subtopic sentence,the ba-construction,the bei-construction,even the middle construction,etc.But the existing researches are limited only to the first 3 types of the sentences.That’s why the present research is enlarged to include the patient-topic sentence,the patient-subject sentence,the ba-construction and the bei-construciton as the research objects.The study of the semantics of patient-preposed sentences originating from the causative events reveals the following:(1)The correctness of the patient-preposed sentences is decided by the degree of patients’ affectedness by the action.For the patient-preposed sentences from the causative events,the patients are of change of state as well as affected,the agents are agentive and volitional,and the verbs are causative as well as involving.(2)The whole patient-preposed construction expresses the state,the stationarity,and the epistemic modality of the affairs,in which the patient in the position of subject and in the position following ba enables non-dynamicity and non-processing of the verbs and the great changes have occurred to the telic role and agentive role of the qualia structure of the patient,which can be testified by the progressive aspect and imperativization.(3)All the patient-preposed sentences have the semantic feature of[-disposal].Secondly,the dissertation studies the construals of the causative events and the meaning constructions of the patient-preposed sentences.The following points are found:(1)The patient-preposed sentences are construed by the salience of the patients and the projectors’ projection to landmarks.The patient profiled in the event,as a trajector,aims and projects to different landmarks acted upon by other parts of the event to form different patient-preposed sentences.That the trajector selects different elements in the event as the landmarks reflects the viewer’s different intentions.The four Chinese patient-preposed sentences have different meanings,in which Chinese characters ba and bei mark the disposal and negative meanings in the ba-construction and the bei-construction.(2)The patient-preposed construction is construed by the salience of the patients,conversion of figure and ground and conceptual integration.A causative event can be divided into 3 stages:causative,inchoative and stative,in which the first two can be merged into processual stage and the third can be called resultative stage.They have the time order and the relationship of cause and effect.The processual stage and the resultative stage of the causative events can act as figure and ground respectively.Take the processual stage as the figure and resultative stage as the ground,the declarative sentence comes into being.The resultative as the figure projects to the processual stage as the ground,forming the construction:(A)P(A)V.Its meaning of stativity emerges from the conceptual integration of Input 1 action-concept space and Input 2 state-concept space via composition,completion and elaboration.The dissertation thirdly studies the ways and cognitive models of the extension of patient-preposed sentences.The major findings are as follows:(1)The patient-preposed sentence is a prototype category with patient-subject sentence being the prototype,which can be testified by the frequency,productivity,salience,and transparency;other type of sentences being the non-prototypical members of the category.(2)The categorization of patient-preposed sentences is a cognitive process of classifying in accordance with the categorial features,with the prototype the patient-subject sentence as the center.The transitivity of the patient-preposed sentences is characteristic of categorization and decategorization features:Ba-construction>patient-topical sentence>Bei-construction>patient-subject sentence.From the right to the left is the process of transitivity categorization,for the transitivity of the left sentence is stronger than the right one,while from the left to the right is the process of transitivity decategorization,for the transitivity of the right sentence is weaker than the left one.(3)The category of patient-preposed sentences is extended via certain cognitive models.A patient-subject sentence is the representation of the 2nd stage and 3rd stage of causative events in the reverse order involving the inchoative and the result while the patient-topic sentence is the representation of the whole process of causative event in the reverse order.They form adjacent part-whole relationship and the patient-subject sentence extends to the patient-topic sentence via conceptual metonymy.The typical bei-construction extends from the patient-subject sentence via conceptual metonymy for they are representations of two contiguous concepts:negative vs.postitive.The ba-construction extends from the patient-subject sentence via conceptual metonymy for they’re representations of two contiguous concepts:cause vs.effect.In summary,the Chinese patient-preposed sentences extend in a radial circle via the cognitive model of conceptual metonymy with the prototype the patient-subject sentence being the originating point.The constituents of the patient-preposed sentences extend via metaphor based on the similar image schema.Take the verb as an example,dynamic verbs can extend to static verbs on the basis of the similar image schema:agent-recipient image schema,in which case the patient-preposed sentences are correct except the ba-construction.This is shown in Figure 6-4.The particular patient-preposed sentences are also a prototypical category,in which they extend via conceptual metaphor except bei-construction,which extends via both conceptual metaphor and metonymy.Fourthly,the dissertation studies the motivations of the formation of patient-preposed sentences.It reveals the following points:(1)The vector directions of Chinese verbs are uaually conceptualized neutrally by Chinese people,which leads to the verbs’loose controlling to the patients.(2)The principle of Chinese syntax endowing semantic definiteness with the position of the subject promotes the patients to the initial position or middle position after ba to acquire the definiteness.(3)The expressions of subjectivity from the perspective,empathy and epistemic modality of the patients make their forward movement.(4)The patient-preposed sentences are motivated by Chinese culture,in which Respecting Harmony and Mean contributes to the formation of patient-subject sentences and Everything I Made Reflections On contributes to the formation of all patient-preposed sentences.