Penetrating The Polysemia Of "Utsu"-From Cognitive Semantics

Polysemy is a very common phenomenon in linguistics. There are nearly 30 lemmas of"utsu"in the dictionary, but it only lists all kinds of meanings of it, not the relationship among the meanings. This is not good for the study of the learners of Japanese. This thesis studies the polysemia Japanese verb"utsu", using the method of theoretical principle cooperating with specific examples to analyze the polysemia of"utsu". Firstly, to construct the prototypical meaning of"utsu"after analyzing and sorting out the usages of"utsu"in the dictionary. Then to discuss the polysemia models of"utsu", using the relevant theories of cognitive semantics, especially the image schema, from which I get the semantic extension because of the transferring of image schema. In the 1980s, cognitive linguistics comes into vogue, and this brings the new vision of the studies of linguistics. Cognitive semantics and cognitive syntax is the centre of cognitive linguistics. Many researchers use this theory to study the polysemia of words. However, there is nearly no polysemia studies of the verb"utsu". This thesis tries to start from the four aspects of the"utsu"-agent, patient, force, instrument and uses image schema to analyze its polysemia. Theoretically, to verify the possibility of the polysemia"utsu"in the prototype theory and image schema .In the meanwhile, to summarize the difference between the"utsu"in Japanese and Chinese through the comparative analysis of the Chinese polysemy verb"utsu". And to get the character of the Japanese polysemy verb"utsu". Realistically, it can make a reference for the learners of Japanese and the polysemia of other words.