A Cognitive Contrastive Study On English SVOC Pattern And Chinese Pivotal Pattern

English Pattern subject + verb + object + complement (SVOC) and Chinese Pivotal Pattern (PP), as one of the ordinary structures in two languages respectively, have aroused much attention for their similarities and differences. However, the present study between the two focuses mainly on the analysis of their corresponding relations, the reasons and laws behind them remain untouched. Aiming at uncovering the deep mechanism which causes their similarities and differences, this thesis analyses the two patterns from a cognitive perspective, following the basic assumptions of cognitive linguistics "human experience→conceptualization→schematization→metaphor extension→linguistic forms" for a contrastive study of English SVOC and Chinese PP.The thesis first sums up their differences and similarities from three aspects on the basis of the literature available: elements in structure, types of pattern and main verbs in semantics. And then through cognitive approach for a contrastive study of the two patterns, the thesis uncovers the deep mechanism that underlies the above similarities and differences between the two patterns.In the process of conceptualization, it is found that Chinese PP and English SVOC are greatly different in terms of their own prototypical category. PP's prototype is "A causes B to C" while SVOC's is "A acts on B and B's property, movement or state". This fundamentally accounts for the fact that SVOC does not always correspond to PP, though there are some shared attributes between their prototypes which are bound to result in certain similarities in clause elements and arrangements. In the process of schematization, there are also differences between them. With reference to Langacker's Action Chain and Energy Transmission structure, the author constructs each image schema of Ideal Cognitive Models of the four main types of PP and six basic types of SVOC respectively. By contrast, it is revealed how the differences and similarities between image schemata map to the language forms and reflect to different types of the two patterns. In the process of metaphor extension, the thesis proceeds to contrast the prototypical verb of the two patterns from the view of their semantic condition. It is concluded that the prototypical verb of PP is a causative verb while that of SVOC is a complex transitive verb and it is just the relevant syntactic metaphor extension from the different prototypical verbs that results in the primary differences and similarities between verb meanings of the two patterns. Thus far, a unified cognitive account is given for each deep mechanism and the reasons behind differences and similarities between the two patterns.This study is of significance because it is an attempt at probing linguistic universality across different languages through linguistic phenomena and investigating essential principles of language according to different deep mechanisms of languages.