| "Possession is a universal domain, that is, any human language can be expected to have conventionalized expressions for it"(Heine, 1997: 1). However, we know only a little about it. With an attempt to apply the theories of cognitive linguistics, by probing analysis of the three elements of nominal possessives, that is, the possessor, the possessee and the possessive morpheme, the aim of the present study is to give a systematic analysis of nominal possessives.This dissertation consists of five chapters. Chapter one offers a brief introduction to the orientation of the title, the significance, the methods as well as the aims of the study. The following chapter covers literature review to the study on nominal possessives of some main linguistic schools. Chapter three introduces some concepts which will be applied in the next chapter, along with a summary of possessive morphemes in English and Chinese. Chapter four goes to the focal part of this dissertation. Our work on this dissertation has focused mainly on the three elements of nominal possessives, concretely speaking, firstly, on the basis of reference point model, an analysis of the relationship between the possessor and the possessee is provided and the possessor coded as the reference point was determined; secondly, with a discussion of the two contrastive structures, i.e. possessor specification and possessee specification, we give a general analysis and explanation of a very important issue, that is, whether the possessor precedes the possessee or the possessee precedes the possessor; finally, by applying the theory of cognitive linguistics, we present our explanation on the appearance and disappearance of the possessive morpheme"çš„"in Chinese. Chapter five provides the conclusion of the dissertation.
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