A Cognitive Study Of The Unmarked Passives In Modern Chinese

In modern Chinese, the unmarked passives have greatly exceeded the marked passives in number. However, in academic circles, research on the unmarked passives still remains on superficial level. It is known that traditional grammar and structural grammar have contributed much to the passive research, however they have failed to produce a scientific device for the passive research, and also neglected the study of the unmarked passives, owing to the influence of pragmatism and lack of the orientation of modern linguistic theories. This dissertation adopts a cognitive approach and follows the foundational assumptions of cognitive linguistics"human experience→conceptualization→schematization→linguistic forms"for the study of the unmarked passives in modern Chinese, aiming at uncovering the deep mechanism that underlies the differences between Chinese marked and unmarked passives.