Study Of English Middle Constructions

The term "middle construction" was originally developed as a voice category todescribe an intermediate category between the active voice and the passive voice.Middle constructions have been almost unanimously considered to be used forexpressing generic statements about the notional object. They ascribe an inherentproperty to what would normally be realized as the object of the verb. The verb, fordenotation of genericity, can only be allowed non-eventive and stative reading.Linguists have tried to examine middle constructions in specific languages fromtheir respective perspectives, to reveal the common features of middle constructionsacross languages, and to investigate the uniform mechanism governing theirformation across languages. Their research findings help us understand middleconstructions more clearly. However, the special features of middle constructionsrequire us to reveal the driving force behind, which evade the previous researches. Itis for this purpose the current study is intended for. In this study, theory of energytransmission proposed by Langacker is applied to analyze middle constructions.The goal of this study is to answer the following questions:1) What constitutes the cognitive base for formation of middle constructions?2) What is the driving force for the particular features of middle constructions?3) What is the specific requirement of middle constructions?The analysis indicates that the inherent properties of the entity taking the positionof subject, energy transmitted from the action initiator, and the internal power are thedriving cognitive base for middle constructions. The requirement of an adverbial oran adjunct in a middle construction may be also investigated from the perspective ofthe source of energy. Since the internal power, serving as the source of energy,depends on the completion of the creation of the entity. While in middle constructions,adverb or adverbial phrase is used to denote the features of the subject but not theaction that the middle verbs denote. Therefore, the presence of an adjunct is required.The final conclusions may answer the questions that we put forward before asfollows: 1) The cognitive base for middle constructions lies in the fact that the entity mayon the one hand serve as the subject in the surface structure and on the other hand asthe source of energy in cognitive term. The energy source originates from threechannels, one being the energy transmitted from the action initiator, the other beingthe special features that distinguish the entity from the others, and still another beingthe internal power gained from the completion point of entity creation.2) The source of energy does not only constitute the cognitive base for middleconstructions, but also serves as the driving force behind the particular features ofmiddle constructions, because this energy source may influence anyone who isinvolved in the action. This is the final driving force for particular features of middleconstructions.3) Different from active and passive, middle constructions have a specificrequirement for its realization. The internal power of an entity plays the central role inthe realization of middle constructions. Without the source of energy, the formation ofmiddle constructions would not be possible.