A Conceptual Frame Of Property Clauses

Based on the Conceptual Frame proposed by Cheng and by referring to the Functional Grammar and Construction Grammar, the author attempts to construct a conceptual frame of property clauses. This model is a relational network, which simulates the operation of neurons in the brain at the abstract level. The emphasis is laid on the operational validity and the neurological plausibility. The Conceptual Frame of Cheng's is a relational, hierarchical and operational network. The conceptual frame includes presupposition, process and entailment. Presupposition refers to the world before linguistic phenomena, entailment refers to the implicature we can get from the linguistic phenomena, and process is closely related to linguistic expression, which can be subdivided into three structures: space, action/sensing and causation. In conceptual structures, we have meta-concepts: Obj, STATIC, DYNAMIC, Pro/SPG, Ac, ACT, Acd, Cs, CAUSE, Csd and Ori, all of which are compulsory in conceptual structures. Due to different foregrounding of the meta-concept, one conceptual structure may be realized by different semantic and syntactic structures. Semantic stratum refers to the linguistic expression in a clause. For the sake of simplicity and accuracy, the author gives up the traditional thematic roles: agent, instrument etc, and insists on the terminology of Obj, Pro/SPG, Ac, and Cs. Because at semantic level there are many conflations we adopt Pt to replace the conflation of Acd and Csd that have been changed. When it comes to the predicates of the semantic stratum, the author , according to the different conflation of five semantic components STATIVE, CHANGE, CAUSE, CONTACT and MOTION , divide verbs into eight types: stative (STATIVE), motion (MOTION), change (CHANGE), cause (CAUSE), break (CAUSE and CHANGE), cut (CONTACT, MOTION, CAUSE and CHANGE), touch (CONTACT) and hit (CONTACT and MOTION). And the author uses these eight types of verbs to express predicates in semantic structures. So we have semantic structures:Object -STATIVE/BREAK/CUT - Property/Source-Path-GoalObject -CHANGEObject -MOTION -Property/Source-Path-GoalActor - TOUCH/HIT/BREAK/CUT - Patient - Property/Source-Path- Goal Actor-be- TOUCH/HIT/BREAK/CUT-en-Property/Source-Path- Goal Causer -CAUSE -Patient -Property/Source-Path-Goal Causer - BREAK/CUT -Patient Due to the conflation in semantic stratum, the syntactic realization varies, so wehave:NP -VP (-AP/AdP/PP/InfP)NP -VP -NP - AP/AdP/PP/InfPNP -VP -NP (- AP/AdP/PP/InfP)In this thesis, the notion of semantic components is employed in semantic stratum. The similarities and differences between caused-motion and resultative are presented, which are important because they certify the necessity for us to analyze the property clauses.At the end of the thesis, computer programs are employed to simulate the relational network of the linguistic system. The production is bi-directional, i.e. from the conceptual structures to the semantic structures and from syntactic structure to conceptual structure. The result is satisfying: the input and the output of the model are supported by the linguistic phenomena, and the operation process of the model is not incompatible with that of the neural network.