| As compared with the study of nouns and prepositions, the study of the meaning of English verbs is far from enough due to their semantic instability. The meaning of English motion verbs is strikingly instable in that it tends to be over sensitive to a linguistic context, in which it varies in accordance with different agents and locations. For such a meaning variation regarding English verbs, the traditional schools of structural linguistics fail to give a reasonable justification because they mainly focus on a "componential analysis" of the verb meaning. A similar approach is followed by some subsequent schools of formalist linguistics, which numerate a number of semantic primitives for the verb meaning from a syntactic as well as semantic perspective. They claim that various arrangements of such primitives can lead to meaning variation of the same English verb. Nevertheless, formalist linguists do not delve deeply into the nature of semantic primitives per se, which hinders them from an essential justification for variation in a verb meaning. In view of the abovementioned inadequacy, this thesis attempts to explore the meaning and meaning variation of English motion verbs within a theoretical framework of cognitive linguistics. We approach meaning as concepts and unite a theoretical analysis together with a case discussion. The main ideas are as follows.In human conceptual system, the meaning of English motion verbs designates a MOTION-PROCESS in the domain of space, engaging participants as "thing" and "locus" which have a particular motional interrelatedness in it. Normally, "thing" in motion serves as a trajector whereas "locus", as a landmark. The former experiences a MOTION-PROCESS with reference to the latter.The meaning of a given English motion verb is a semanticprototype-category with schemas, in which members have an unequal status with one being more representative of the verb meaning. It becomes a prototypical sense as a core in the semantic category and can be conceptualized as a synthesis of "prototypical attributes" and "proto-schema". Within this semantic category, three cognitive mechanisms are manipulated for a core-boundary conceptual extension form the prototype. They are "attributes elaboration", "schema integration" and "conceptual metaphor", which may function separately or synthetically.Taking a case discussion of "climb", we characterize a semantic prototype-category and category extension pertaining to English motion verbs. We first conduct a survey to detect a degree of semantic typicality in various expressions of "climb". In aid with the results, we argue for a prototype-sense, namely, "prototype-CLIMB", in the "climb" category. Meanwhile we conceptualize it as a synthesis of "prototypical attributes" and "proto-schema". The former is a collection of three attributes, i.e. "upward direction", "limbs manipulating" and "laborious manner";the latter is an "UPWARD-MOTION-PROCESS" in the domain of space, involving "thing" propelled from lowness to highness with reference to "locus".Along with the conceptual extension, two non-prototype senses come into being. They are "ascending-CLIMB" and "laborious-CLIMB", which means "go up" and "move laboriously with limbs" respectively. "Laborious-CLIMB" also gives rise to two semantic variants, namely, CLIMB (down) and CLIMB (in-out). The former refers to an awkward moving vertically while the latter is an awkward moving horizontally. Therefore meaning variation takes place among the prototype-sense and non-prototype senses as well as their semantic variants, which is attributed to their difference in conceptual attributes or schemas.Backed by prototype-category, cognitive grammar and Lakovianmetaphor, we exemplify with a case discussion of "climb" that the meaning of an English motion verb can be described as a semantic prototype-category with schemas. In addition to this, we concurrently justify the meaning variation pertaining to English motion verbs by means of comparing the conceptual attributes and schemas...
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