The Fugitive Construction In Modern Chinese: A Cognitive Grammar Approach

The fugitive construction in modern Chinese encodes events of appearance and disappearance and it has long been one of the important topics in Chinese language research.Previous studies have focused on the types of the fugitive construction,the syntactic-semantic features of its components,its mechanisms and motivations,and its relationships with other related constructions,mainly from the perspectives of traditional grammar,generative linguistics,systemic functional linguistics and cognitive linguistics.Great achievements have been made.However,there are still some limitations in the descriptions and explanations of the syntax and semantics of Chinese fugitive construction in different theoretical paradigms.Amongst these,the following ones concern the current study most:(1)the nature of the constituents of the fugitive construction is unclear and controversial;(2)the characterization of the meaning of the fugitive construction is rather general and needs further refinement;besides,the study of the relationship between different types of fugitive construction also needs deepening;(3)the syntactic-semantic and cognitive motivations of the fugitive construction remain under-researched.Given these issues,based on the previous researches on the modern Chinese fugitive construction,this dissertation attempts to establish a Stage-Salience Model based on Cognitive Grammar and the assumptions of cognitive psychology on attention and salience.Taking this model as the theoretical framework and borrowing some approaches from Cognitive Construction Grammar,it focuses on the syntactial and semantics features of the fugitive construction,its construction hierarchy and cognitive motivation.To be specifi,this dissertation is particularly concerned with the following research questions:(1)What are the syntactic and semantic features of the fugitive construction in modern Chinese?(2)What are the syntactic and semantic motivations of the fugitive construction in modern Chinese?(3)What is the cognitive motivation of the fugitive construction in modern Chinese?The main findings are as follows.Firstly,the fugitive construction is a schematic construction,and the symbolic relation between its phonological structure and its semantic structure,that is,the form-meaning pairing relation,can be expressed as:[S_LV O_TH]/[literally:Location L appear or disappear a theme O(There appears or disappears a theme O in location L)].It has three components,that is three constructional slots,namely,the subject slot,the predicate verbal slot and the object slot.The subject slot sanctions phrases denoting location,including physical space,body parts,mental space,institutions,locative pronouns,synthetic locative words,nouns denoting things,and temporal phrases that are metaphorically used for space.The predicate verbal slot sanctions verbs of appearing or disappearing and can be categorized into four categories:(1)verbs typically encoding the appearance or disappearance of an object,such as chuxian(??appear)and xiaoshi(??disappear);(2)verbs denoting the result of the appearance or disappearance of an object,such as shao(?burn)and po(?broke);(3)verbs denoting preconditions for the appearance or disappearance of an oject,such as bian(?chang)and ke(?carve);(4)verbs indicating the means or manner of the appearance or disappearance of an object,such as jinlai(??come in)and chuqu(??go out).The object slot can be filled either by an indefinite or a definite element.Most of the objects of fugitive constructions are indefinite,including the common noun,[number+(measure)+noun],[one+(measure)+noun],[measure+noun],and[measure+noun],[definite+noun]and[number+measure]structures,etc.The two main types of definite phrases used as an object are the proper noun and[this/that+(quantifier)+noun]structure.Secondly,the fugitive construction is,syntactically and semantically,the result of the interaction between the construction hierarchies,including the interaction between the appearance construction and the disappearance construction at its subschemas level,and the interaction between the fugitive construction and other construction at the same levels,such as the existential construction and the possessive construction.The appearance construction and the disappearance construction are the two sub-schemas of the fugitive construction we classify.We elaborate on the verb-class-specific constructions and verb-specific constructions.The appearance constructions involve seven verb-class-specific constructions such as[S_LV_??(appear)O_TH]/[literally:Location L appear a theme O(There appears a theme O in location L)],[S_LV_{(??)displaces}O_TH]/[literally:Location L appear a theme O by a certain way or path(There appears a theme O in location L by a certain way or path)],and[S_LV_{??(increases)}O_TH]/[literally:Location L increase a them O(There is an increasing of a theme O in location L)],while the disappearance constructions involve[S_LV_{??(disappears)}O_TH]/[literally:Location L disappear a theme O(There disappears a theme O in location L)],[S_LV_??(leaves)O_TH]/[literally:Location L disappear a theme O by some kind of movement(There disappears a theme O in location L by some kind of movement)]and[S_LV_{??(displaces)}O_TH]/[literally:Location L disappear a theme O by some kind of way or along some kind of path(There disappears a theme O in location L by some kind of way or along some kind of path)].Through comparative analysis,it is found that the construction meanings of the appearance and disappearance constructions are in opposite and equal positions.From the perspective of word-class construction,the appearance and disappearance constructions are basically symmetrical;from the perspective of verb-specific constructions,the two have strong asymmetry.Comparing with the disappearance construction,the types of predicate verbs that can enter the appearance constructions are more abundant,and the appearance constructions are used more frequently.Through corpus analyses,it is found that the appearance construction is produced before the disappearance construction.The semantic attraction effect promotes the extension of the appearance construction and the disappearance construction.Chu(?going/coming out)and sheng(?producing)are the original members of the fugitive construction,and they each draw more predicate verbs into the construction.Shi(?losing)and qu(?going)imitates analogically the usage of chu(?going/coming out)and enter the fugitive construction,thus the disappearance construction is produced.In terms of the relationship between the fugitive construction and the related constructions,we believe that the possessive construction,the existential construction,and the fugitive construction share the same syntactic framework.The possessive construction is the most typical member of the SVO structure.There is an inheritance relationship between existential construction and possessive constructions.The syntactic structure of the existential construction and the fugitive construction are the same,and the three concepts of“existence”,“appearance”and“disappearance”are inseparably related,which makes the fugitive construction form an organic unity.Thirdly,this study finds that the cognitive structure of the fugitive construction is a projector-landmark relationship,which represents Stage-Salience Model according to different construals.Specifically,the cognitive motivation of the fugitive construction can be expressed as:the conceptualizer faces a specific direction at a certain moment and forms a field of view(i.e.,the maximal field of view),and performance area on the stage is the location.The conceptualizer focuses his or her main attention on the location so that it is primary salience and becomes the primary focal element,and part of the attention is focused on the things in the location.The is the Stage-Salience Model.Based on this model,the location becomes the projector,the location noun is represented as the subject,and the thing on the stage becomes the landmark,which is represented as the object.Things appear on the stage or disappear from the stage,and interact with the stage through the“way”of appearing or disappearing(indicated by verbs).This research also explains the ambiguity of the fugitive construction from the discourse level based on the stage salience model.It finds that to determine whether the fugitive construction provides a reference-point function for the appearance or disappearance of a thing,or the function that explains the effect of the appearance or disappearance on the location,we need confirm whether the subsequent discourse is the same model or a switched one.If the subsequent discourse is a new model constructed to highlight the thing,it can be concluded that the fugitive construction has the function of introducing new topics.If the subsequent discourse continues to use the location as the topic,it means that the subsequent discourse is still the linguistic representation of the Stage-Salience Model,and there is no model switch.From this,it can be concluded that the previous fugitive construction is an explanation or statement of the location subject.This research,based on the Cognitive Grammar and the related research results of cognitive psychology,constructs the“Stage-Salience Model”.And after analyzing the syntactic and semantic features the fugitive constructon,the research uses the model to explore the cognitive motivation of the construction.This research emphasizes not only the exploration of language facts,but also the construction of cognitive grammatical theory;it not only emphasizes the comprehensive description and systematic description of the fugitive constructions,but also emphasizes the explanation of the motivation of the fugitive constructions,so it has a certain theoretical and practical value.First,the“Stage-Salience Model”can not only provide a unified analysis framework for the study of the modern Chinese fugitive construction,but also develop Cognitive Grammar to a certain extent,and promote the localization of Cognitive Grammar in Chinese language study.Second,the analysis and research strategies of the fugitive constructions in this study can provide reference and enlightenment for the study of other constructions in Chinese.Finally,the research results can be directly applied to the teaching of the fugitive construction with Chinese as a foreign language,acquisition and other fields,which will help solve the problem of“teaching”and“learning”of the fugitive construction,and promote the improvement of theories and methods of teaching Chinese as a foreign language.