A Study On The Origin And Mechanism Of Information Enrichment Of Linguistic Units

It has been found that some extra information will be added to the meaning of a linguistic unit in use and that is to say besides the lexical meaning and grammatical meaning of it, there will be some extra information. Such extra meaning covers the change and addition of the meaning in the aspect of syntax, semantics, or pragmatics. The previous studies have noticed this phenomenon. However, no systematic and profound explanation of the origin and mechanism of information enrichment are given.This thesis collects constructions which cover the following patterns: ditransitive construction, reduplications, compound words'N+N','Hen (很very) +N','You (有have) +bare N','NN de(地) V','V+ Peripheral Object','NP + (will) BE+ NP', etc. Linguistic units applied in these constructions bear more information, such as argument enrichment, enriched composition, enriched'quantity', enriched'modality'and diversity of perception, etc. Then from the perspective of Cognitive Linguistics, the origin and mechanism of information enrichment are studied.Construction grammar is the theory adopted to give the explanation to the origin of information enrichment. Constructions are pairings of form and (semantic or discourse) function. They have independent constructional meanings which are not changed with the alternation of the linguistic units licensed to them. After applied into a construction, a linguistic unit and this construction interact with each other, and then the construction imposes its constructional meaning to the linguistic unit. Thus, this process brings information enrichment.Then through the analysis of the data, it is found that metonymy is the mechanism of information enrichment. Metonymy is a conceptual phenomenon. It is our everyday way of thinking. Within one idealized cognitive model, one conceptual entity provides mental access to another. It is a cognitive process. These idealized cognitive models are not restricted to either the world of reality, the world of conceptualization or the world of language, but may cut across the three aspects. When a linguistic unit applies to a construction, they interact with each other and coercion plays an important role which emphasizes and profiles one aspect of a linguistic unit and it is used to perceive another aspect or the whole to create new information and vice versa. Form this we can see, metonymy reflects the mechanism of information enrichment.All in all, these two unsolved problems are given answers. Constructional meaning is the origin of information enrichment of linguistic units and metonymy is the mechanism of this phenomenon.