Cognitive Functions And Cognitive Mechanism Of Chinese Classifiers

Although only a limited set of nouns require classifiers in front of them for theexpression of quantification in English, a noun in Chinese usually does so, becausea Chinese classifier has its unique semantic features such as singularity, classification and visualization, which are responsible for reflecting the style ofthinking and cognitive habit of the Chinese language. This dissertation is intendedto have an examination by means of two experiments, which are composed of fivesub-experiments, at what psychological mechanisms are under the semantic featuresof Chinese classifiers, how these semantic features influence the cognition style ofthe people, and how the lexical access of Chinese classifiers is achieved.The two sub-experiments in experiment 1 will be about the influence ofChinese classifiers on cognition. Experiment 1A is about the influence of Chineseclassifiers on the judgment of semantic similarity and experiment 1B is about theinfluence of Chinese classifiers on concept organization.The lexical access of Chinese classifiers is to be studied in Experiment 2 whichincludes three sub-experiments: how the lexical access of classifiers is achieved inExperiment 2A /2B and Experiment 2C by examining the process of NPsproduction/of Nouns production and NPs reading.Through the experimental study on Chinese classifiers?semantic features, theirinfluences on cognition style of the Chinese and their lexical access process, asystematic investigation into the psychological mechanism under the Chineseclassifiers could be achieved. It is hopeful that the discoveries could help to enrichthe theories on Chinese and the cognition style of the Chinese and enrich thetheories of搇nguistic relativity?...