Abstract Action Event Semantic Category And Chinese Dummy Verbs

The existence of "dummy verbs" is prevalent in different languages across the history.However,the linguistic identity positioning and functional positioning of dummy verbs are still unclear,either from "subordinate verbs","empty general verbs","light verbs" in foreign languages,or from "domestic verbs","virtualized verbs","dummy verbs",etc.in Chinese.Based on the perspective of the event semantic category and the relevant perspectives of cognitive linguistics,this paper establishes the Chinese "abstract action event semantic category" and discusses the process and mechanism of the category from the objective world to the cognitive world and to the language world.We conclude that the essential position of dummy verbs in the language is a highly abstract action verb,which linguistically represents of the "abstract action event semantic category".There are many unresolved questions related to the dummy verb,which could be systematically answered within the semantic framework of abstract action events.The dissertation consists of seven chapters,and the main contents are as follows:Chapter One introduces the research object,research design,theoretical framework,and research methodology.The purpose of this study is to explain "how humans use language to express abstract action event —— taking ‘event entities' as virtual domination objects".It tries to prove into the reseach question from meaning to form.Starting from the cognitive foundation and semantic composition,the study constructs the abstract action semantic category,clarifies its language representation form,and summarizes the generation mechanism of abstract action event discourse form.Chapter Two reviews the literature of dummy verbs.Previous studies on the semantic category of abstract action events have focused on the related achievements of dummy verbs,which were mainly based on the perspective of partial formalismssuch as structuralism,transformative grammar,prosodic grammar,and stylistic grammar.These studies always focused on the meaning of dummy verbs and the classification of parts of speech.There are still many problems needed to be resolved,such as the meaning of dummy verbs,part-of-speech functions,dummy verb functions,and syntactic integration of two events,etc.Therefore,the study of dummy verbs needs to start from a completely new perspective.By taking semantics as the foundation and the semantic event category as the starting point,exhaustively searching for its possible expressions,it is possible to examine their cognitive mechanism,symbolization mechanism,and linear sequence mechanism,and explain how the abstract action event is realized,hence finding a systematic explanation for the meaning,syntax,and pragmatic phenomena and problems of dummy verbs.Chapter Three,from the perspective of event semantics,constructs the semantic category of Chinese abstract action events,including category meaning,element composition,semantic features,classification,and the cognitive mechanism of its formation.The semantic connotation of the abstract action category is expressed as "the subject exerts or performs a certain behavior on something".By classifying and extracting its event elements,three semantic features of the abstract action event: "movability","virtual dominance” and “dual event expressiveness" are summarized.These three semantic features connotatively determine the high degree of“abstraction” of action meaning of the abstract action event.According to the presence of "object" elements,abstract action events are divided into "abstract application action event" and "abstract execution action event".Besides,three distinctions are made between the abstract action event and the specific action event in the expression of the event: "the holistic prominence","planning procedural","object cohesion",and further differences in the cognitive mechanisms are clarified.Chapter Four combines the semantic features of abstract action categories and related dictionary definitions to determine the symbolic representations of abstract action events.Among them,the representations of abstract action events are:“jiayi”,“yuyi”,“geiyi”,“jiyu”,“jinxing”,“zuochu”,“geichu”,“tichu”,“fachu”.The representations of abstract execution action events are: “jinxing”,“zuo”,“gao”and “da”.On top of this,the mechanism of symbolization of abstract action event representations is explored,including the extraction of public semantic factors,the possible ways of public semantic factor symbolization.The possible original forms of public semantic factor symbolization: specific “zuo” sense classes and specific “gei”sense classes,and the way of symbolization is form extension and semantic value-added.These findings will lay the theoretical foundation for the next step,the in-depth study of the forms of linguistic representation,the nature and functional positioning of Chinese dummy verbs,and the in-depth discussion of the meanings of category and personality,formal and non-formal meaning.Chapter Five systematically explains the meaning and usage of Chinese dummy verbs using the related theories of abstract action event semantic categories.First,based on the symbolization mechanism of the form of representation in the previous chapter,the rationale,method,standard and result of the establishment of abstract action class are discussed.Then the status of the dummy verb in the Chinese verb system is clarified: "abstract action words" is opposite to "sub-abstract action words" and "concrete action words".Its essential function is to represent "abstract action events".The related theory of abstract action event semantics is used to analyze the relevant problems in the previous studies of dummy verbs,including the systematic value of dummy verbs,the abstract and specific meanings,the division and combination of generic and individual meanings.Within the theories of the distinctive features of morphemes,the principle of grammatical preservation,semantic implication,and latent semantics in combination,a further explanation is also made to the abstraction,stylistic color,and selectivity of objects in dummy verb members.Chapter Six determines the possible utterance form sequence of the abstract action event category,based on the mathematical arrangement of the core elements of the event.By drawing language experience and the CCL corpus of Peking University,a detailed description and analysis of the semantic alignment of events and typical discourse forms in Chinese abstract actions are summarized,including subject antecedent sequence,object antecedent sequence,action antecedent sequence,and behavior antecedent sequence,19 semantic alignments of 4 broad categories and 29 typical discourse forms.A summary is made on the tendency of the abstract action event discourse form,i.e.when discourse forms are consistent with the event semantic order,there tend to be unmarked serialization;on the contrary,when the discourse forms are contrary to the event semantic order,the expressions are tend to be marked.Chapter Seven discusses the process and mechanism of mapping the semantic category of abstract action events to the discourse level.The formation of discourse forms includes the extraction of elements,the reference of elements,and the arrangement of elements,corresponding to the constraints and related rules of the three processes.Specifically,it can be expressed as follows: in the element extraction stage,the main constraints are the general level of the event,given the pre-verbal context;in the element reference form selection stage,the constraints mainly include the abstract action event semantic connotation and the difference in semantic accessibility;in the formation of discourse form,the main influencing factors are the rule-based dominance of prototype and material events,the highlighting of graphic and background interactions,and textual cohesion,coherence and contrast;the semantic categories of abstract action events are officially related to the constraints and rules in the three selection processes.Under the limitation,after coordinating,comparing and screening,the final realization of different forms of discourse forms.Finally,the concluding part restates the main findings,points out the limitations of the study and gives recommendations for future research.