A Cognitive Semantic Study Of Phrasal Verbs With Up

As one of our basic mechanisms, cognition takes thought as its core, conceptualization as the expression form and reasoning as the fundamental process. On the other hand, language is an important tool to embody thought, categorization and reasoning. All these cognitive abilities interact with language and are influenced by language. Thus the study of cognition and language is of great significance (Dirven & Verspoor, 2004: viiii).Emerging in the 1970s, cognitive linguistics is a new approach to the study of language. Based on the Embodied Philosophy, the cognitive approach is embedded in our body experience and cognition, centers around conceptual structure and semantic research, explores the way of cognition underlying the language, and tries to make a united explanation of language (王寅, 2005: 8). With the related cognitive linguistics theories, such as prototype theory, image schema theory and cognitive metaphor theory, this project will make a cognitive semantic study of the phrasal verbs with up. From the semantic analysis of the phrasal verbs with up, we observe that the various meanings of the phrasal verbs are extended from the more prototypical senses to periphery ones, which is in accordance with the general rule of word extension. The influences of the particle up on the phrasal verbs with up are also explored.The whole thesis falls into six chapters.Chapter One begins with a brief introduction. The reasons for choosing the topic of this thesis are provided. Then the backgrounds and aims of this research are clarified. Finally the significance of the thesis is outlined.Chapter Two is the section of literature review. The traditional studies and cognitive researches of phrasal verbs have been reviewed. Most traditional researches on phrasal verbs are conducted from the structural perspective. The study on this issue made by Quirk et al. (1985) can be viewed as the representative. On the other hand, Bolinger (1971) and Side (1990) put their focus on the particle element in the phrasal verbs. They emphasize that particles should be integral to phrasal verbs. However, the syntactic approaches and semantic perspectives are made within the framework of the generative grammar; they fail to take human's experience and cognition into account or explicate the cognitive nature underlying the semantic formation of phrasal verbs. Therefore, the cognitive approach appears, and the representative scholars are Lindner (1981), Morgan (1997), Gries (1997) and Hamper (2000) and so on. The studies of phrasal verbs from cognitive approach make a deeper analysis of the semantic formation of phrasal verbs, and it's emphasized that figurativel extension plays an important role in the semantic formation of a phrasal verb.Chapter Three mainly deals with the theoretical foundation of this thesis which includes the theories of the prototype category, image schema and cognitive metaphor. The three theories are summed up concisely, as well as their crucial roles in the research.Chapter Four focus on the meanings of the particle up. The basic spatial meanings of up are determined as "the movement of something from a lower to a higher lever or in a higher position", after that the other spatial meanings in the scope of horizontal orientation are identified. Then with the combination of the image schemas, the spatial up is mapped onto the four target domains to get the extended metaphorical meanings. Through the analysis, we prove that the meanings of the particle up are extended from spatial meanings to non-spatial meanings, and the various meanings of up form a semantic network around the basic sense.Chapter Five is the essence of the paper, which is demonstrated from two aspects: cognitive semantic study of the phrasal verbs with up, effects of the particle up on the phrasal verbs with up. The findings are: the phrasal verbs with up are polysemous, the various meanings are mutually related through the primary meaning of particle up and form a family resemblance category. The influences of the particle up on the phrasal verbs with up are: the particle up makes a special contribution to the semantics of the phrasal verbs, the idiomatic meanings of the phrasal verbs are mainly derived from the figurative senses of up. And the particle up motivates the new combinatory meanings. The conceptual meanings of up bring a variety of effects on the senses of the verbs with which it is associated. The monosyllabic verbs with broad meanings take more senses in the combination with up, while the disyllabic or specific verbs (stress on the first syllable) pick up fewer senses in the combination. When combined with series of verbs with similar senses, meanings of up and the verbs form a scaffold which motivates the ultimate meanings of phrasal verbs.The last chapter is the concluding part. First, it summarizes the whole thesis, then mentions the limitations of this study.