Interpreting English Denominal Verbs--A Cognitive Approach

English has much more nouns than verbs, so nouns often extend their functions to fill lexical gaps of verbs corresponding to the new nouns, and noun - verb conversion has thus become a productive way of creating new words. Also, language users have benefited much from the rhetorical effect of nouns - verb conversion. Therefore it is necessary for those who learn English as a second/foreign language to know the features of the comprehension of English denominal verbs and the cognitive strategies of human beings underlying the use and interpretation of English denominal verbs.In this thesis, after a general introduction to English denominal verbs, the features of the comprehension are explored through an experiment in the form of several tests. It is concluded that the comprehension of denominal verbs is more dependent on background knowledge than the comprehension of conventional verbs and that there is a mechanism particular to the comprehension of denominal verbs.The other aim of this thesis is to investigate the cognitive strategies underlying the interpretation and use of English denominal verbs. The study in the view of cognitive linguistics (including the experiential view and the prominence view) shows that people's use of English denominal verbs reflects their cognitive capacity of categorization, metaphor and the change of their way of scanning and describing events.