A Cognitive Approach To The Semantics Of Particle Verbs

Particle verbs can be said to possess some degree of idiomaticity in the assembly of the verb plus the particle(s), and usually semantically behave as a single unit. Since they play an important role in both spoken and written language, they have never been ignored in linguistic study. Both traditional linguistic study and the recent cognitive linguistic study have contributed much to the understanding of particle verbs, and the latter approach is especially revealing.The traditional structuralist study mainly concentrates on their syntactic behavior and does not pay much attention to their semantics. The recent cognitive study, particularly the metaphorical approach, looks much deeper into the process of semantic formation of particle verbs, maintaining that it is the metaphorical extension in both the verb and the particle(s) that contribute to the more or less idiomatic meaning of the particle verb, which is readily accepted in our study. However, these metaphorical studies have not given us a full picture of this integration process. They do not explain clearly and satisfactorily the issues such as the way(s) in which the integration is achieved on the conceptual level, the various combinatory abilities between the two components, the various degree of idiomaticity, the contributory status of the verb and the particle(s), and the relationsamong the various senses of the same particle verb, etc. These are surveyed in Chapter Two.The cognitive linguistic views on language developed in the last two decades set up the basis of the present study on particle verbs. According to cognitive semantics, language is regarded as an integral part of cognition rather than an autonomous entity; Meaning is conceptualization in cognitive models that are perceptually determined and primarily image-schematic; image-schemas are transformed by metaphoric and metonymic operations; semantic elements are based on spatial or topological objects; semantics is primary to syntax and partly determines it; and concepts show prototype effects. These tenets and findings of cognitive semantics are reviewed in Chapter Three, focusing on the prototype theory and radial category, metaphor and metonymy, and the more recent conceptual blending theory.Based on the basic tenets of cognitive semantics, our analysis of the merits and limitations of the traditional and the recent metaphorical studies on particle verbs, and on the research on the particles 'over' and 'at', we try to offer a tentative alternative model aiming to capture the integrating nature of the semantics of particle verbs, by combining the metaphorical approach with the conceptual blending theory. This is done in Chapter Four, which serves as the body of this thesis.According to our proposal, the basic integration process of the semantics of the verb-particle construction can be described as follows:Step 1: Previous metaphorisationBy previous metaphorical extension, the verb and the particle havederived respectively their distinctive meanings from their respectiveliteral (or physical) sense, which serve as selective sources. Step 2: Matching processThe distinctive meanings of both the verb and the particle are put tomatching. Step 3: Selective projecting processThe matchable two meanings from the verb and the particle are selectedand projected into the blend. Step 4: Integrating processThe projected two meanings interact with each other and are integrated hi the blend.Step 2, step 3 and step 4 take place almost simultaneously on the conceptual level in the mind, and the working of all the four processes is carried on according to our perceptual experience and encyclopedic knowledge.If the two selected meanings are both literal, the resulting particle verb can be said to be a case of free combination in most cases; if only one of the two literal meanings are selected, the resulting particle verb is less idiomatic; and if neither of the two meanings are selected, the resulting particle verb is considered to be fully idiomati...