A Study Of Nominal Independent Clauses From The Perspective Of Cognitive Grammar

As an indispensable part of the construction of Chinese grammatical system,the widely-used independent clauses typify some distinctive features that distinguish Chinese from Indo-European languages,and therefore deserve an in-depth and systematic study.Statistics show that nominal independent clauses(hereafter abbreviated as NICs)account for 71.45% of the total collected data of independent clauses.So,this study focuses on NICs—a typical sub-category of independent clauses.An NIC mainly consists of one nominal expression with a certain mood,which can denote meaning independently just as a sentence does.Unlike an elliptical sentence which can be supplemented in only one possible way,an NIC is self-contained in meaning because there are more than one way of adding supplements or sometimes nothing can be supplied at all.The study of NICs began with “one-word sentence” initiated by Liu Fu in 1920.The past century has witnessed that almost every innovation of Chinese grammatical theory,from “Ellipsis Theory” to “De-ellipsis Theory”,from “Minor-sentence Theory” to “Phrase-oriented Theory”,“Zi-centered Theory” and “Clause-pivot Approach”,has promoted the development of the NICs study to a certain degree.However,the previous research achievements on NICs are mainly confined to its definition,classification,pragmatic and rhetorical features.There are very few studies describing its syntactic and semantic features,and the cognitive mechanism and constraints of NICs need an in-depth study as well.Three research questions are proposed in view of the above-mentioned research gap.First,what are the syntactic and semantic features of NICs? Second,what is the cognitive mechanism of the semantic construction of NICs? Third,what are the constraints for the semantic construction of NICs?In view of the above three research questions,this study firstly describes the syntactic and semantic features of NICs based on the redefinition and classification of NICs,and then constructs “a grounding analytical framework based on cognitive prominence and cognitive reference point”(abbreviated as “PRG Framework”)by integrating cognitive prominence,cognitive reference point and grounding theory,with the purpose of seeking cognitive interpretation of the semantic construction mechanism and the entry conditions of NICs systematically.This study follows the research process from data collection to description and analysis,and finally to the cognitive interpretation of the NICs phenomenon.Data are mainly collected from the BCC Chinese Corpus of Beijing Language and Culture University,classical examples in literary works and previous research studies.The major findings of this study are as follows:Firstly,all the collected data of NICs can be unified into the construction of “(A)(de)N(M)”.Based on this construction,NICs are further divided into prototypical NICs construction “N” and its extended form “NM”,modifier-head construction “A(de)N” and its extended form “A(de)NM”.The classification can cover all the NICs data collected in this study and effectively avoid the problems of the inconsistency in classification and the narrow coverage in previous studies.Secondly,it is found that the syntactic and semantic features of NICs are distinctive rather than indescribable.The major findings of syntactic features are as follows: the independence of the syntactic structure,the non-copy tendency of syntactic forms,the possibility of co-occurrence with the dynamic auxiliary “zhe” and “le”,the positive correlation between the implicit regularity of the word “de” and the functional feature of the grounded modifier,and the irreversibility of syntactic combination.The typical semantic features of NICs are delineated as follows: positive correlation between the prototypicality of nouns and the potentiality of being NICs,the referentiality,diversity of the semantic roles,non-prominence of tense and prominence of aspect,the economy of form and the richness of emotional expression,and the polysemous feature of NICs.Thirdly,on the basis of Langacker's(2017b: 18)description of English grounding elements and his claim on grounding theory to different languages,this study puts forward a grounding hypothesis of Chinese NICs and summarizes the grounding features of them.Fourthly,based on the “PRG Framework” constructed by integrating cognitive salience,cognitive reference point and grounding theory,this study interprets the cognitive mechanism of semantic construction of the prototypical NICs and their extended forms,as well as the modifier-head construction of NICs and their extended forms.The main finding is that,there is no difference in the cognitive mechanism of semantic construction between the prototypical NICs and the modifier-head NICs except for the explicit reference point and part of overt grounding elements,which can all be interpreted by the analytical framework constructed in this study.Fifthly,the entry conditions for different subtypes of nouns are analyzed from the perspective of Cognitive Grammar.The main findings are: 1)a proper noun with two or more syllables has potential to form an NIC without being grounded with other explicit elements,while a monosyllabic proper noun cannot be sanctioned to enter NICs unless a certain addressing element is grounded;2)an individual noun usually can form an NIC independently no matter whether it is preceded by a measure word;3)abstract,collective and material nouns cannot stand alone as NICs,except that they coexist with other NICs or appear in the form of modifier-head construction;4)in the construction of “A(de)N(M)”,“A” can be any category of the 12 parts of speech.Functional words as modifiers of head-noun in the construction of “A(de)N(M)” account for a relatively small proportion in NICs,whose acceptance is not high enough now but displays an upward trend.The main theoretical significance of this study lies in the following aspects.To begin with,the “PRG Framework” constructed in this study is not confined to the application of one certain theory of Cognitive Grammar,but the theoretical innovation of applying the mechanism of mutual improvement among theories,which integrates the essence of cognitive salience,cognitive reference point and grounding theory to delineate a Chinese language phenomenon.The construction of this analytical framework can not only interpret the cognitive mechanism and entry conditions of NICs semantic construction,but also shed new lights on the study of the similar language phenomena in Chinese.Another theoretical contribution of this study is that it puts forward a grounding hypothesis of NICs and summarizes the grounding features of them according to Langacker's description on English grounding elements and his developmental perspective on the grounding system.The third contribution of this study lies in that it effectively solves the long existing problems of entry conditions for NICs by applying the newly constructed analytical framework,which not only deepens the understanding of NICs,but also contributes to the exploration of Chinese essential features and the development of modern Chinese grammar system.In addition,this study can provide some theoretical and practical reference for the compilation of Chinese grammar textbooks.