A Cognitive Approach To Word-class Recategorization

This thesis is an attempt to explore the word-class recategorization with the cognitive theories (prototypical category theory, recategorization, construal, metonymy, metaphor and principles of economy and salience). The aims of the study are to understand the nature of word-class recategorization, and to find the underlying cognitive motivations behind the generation and understanding of word-class recategorization in English and Chinese.It is argued in this thesis that perhaps all types of word-class recategorization are the results of metonymic mechanisms, and some cases of word-recategorization are produced based on both conceptual metonymies and metaphors. In addition, principles of economy and salience also shed some light on the generation and understanding of the word-class recategorization.The thesis encompasses six chapters:The first chapter provides an introduction of the thesis as a whole, including preliminary remarks, the theories, methods and goals of the research as well as the organization of the thesis.The second chapter briefly reviews some related researches into word-class conversion, especially noun-verb conversion and nominalization.In the third chapter, we, first, review the notion of category and categorization, focusing on the influence of prototype theory on the word-class categorization: word classes as prototype-based categories, then deal with the processing of recategorization, analyzing the dynamic construal approach to recategorization, providing some definitions of recategorization, and outlining some major types of word-class recategorization in both English and Chinese.In the fourth chapter, we review some theories and notions within cognitive linguistics: construal, metonymy, and metaphor.The fifth chapter is devoted to some case studies of the word-class recategorization from the metonymic and metaphorical standpoint and two basic cognitive principles (principles of economy and of salience) are involved.The last chapter is the concluding part in which our major findings, limitations and directions for future study are stated.