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A Cognitive Semantic Study Of Phrasal Verbs With Out

Posted on:2010-12-21Degree:MasterType:Thesis
Country:ChinaCandidate:D XuFull Text:PDF
GTID:2155360275999861Subject:Foreign Linguistics and Applied Linguistics
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An English phrasal verb is an idiomatic combination consisting of a verb and a particle (adverb or preposition) or two particles. Nowadays, the application of the cognitive theories, such as, metaphor, image schema, etc., as the cognitive tools for research, becomes more and more popular, so that the cognitive researches on phrasal verbs are getting increasing, especially the semantic studies. However, the semantic study, based on the corpus analysis, on the phrasal verbs with particles, such as verb + out, are not common. Therefore, this thesis intends to do some cognitive semantic studies on phrasal verbs with out in the framework of the cognitive theories, with the foundation of the corpus analysis, for the purpose of revealing not only the relation between the particle out and the verbs ahead, but also the influence on the phrasal verbs with out given by the particle out.This thesis mainly analyzes the semantic instances of phrasal verbs with out in a cognitive way. After the general intoduction of the cognitive semantics and phrasal verbs, the whole process of reviewing phrasal verbs and cognitive theories do offer an important foundation for the core analysis. This study proposes the primary meaning of out, 'TR away from or not inside of LM', after analyzing the spatial meanings and metaphorical meanings of out. Based on this, further specifications of the particle out is offered. The three basic spatial meanings: static exclusion, a dynamic process from inclusion to exclusion and final exclusion of a dynamic process, and the six extended meanings, range, state, result, source, tendency and degree, are detailed analyzed.The core of this dissertation lies in the semantic research of phrasal verbs with out cognitively. After the analysis of 588 phrasal verbs with out compiled from four different dictionaries, this dissertation reveals the rules between the particle out and the verbs ahead. In addition to that, this dissertation gets some conclusions about the effect on the phrasal verbs made by out, based on the analysis of the particle out. The major conclusions are listed as follows:(1) The senses of "~out" phrasal verbs is related with the verb frequency. The lower the verb frequency is, the fewer senses its phrasal verb will have; on the contrary, the higher the verb frequency is, the more senses its phrasal verb will have, the stronger the lexicalizing capability the verb will be. And the capability is weaker the other way round.(2) The higher the verb frequecy is, the more influence from the conceptual meanings of out the "~out" will get, which reflected in the number of the various senses of the "~out".(3) Result, one aspect of the conceptual meanings of out, plays a vital part in the influence to the senses of the "~out", illustrating the result of some movement or activity. And this is accordant with the proportion of final exclusion meaning, about 67.4% in total, in the three classifications of the particle out.(4) The higher the verb frequency is, the more dispersive the influence from the six conceptual meanings of out will be. On the contrary, the influence is more concentrated on result.(5) Most of the "~out" are applied to the abstract non-physical meanings, with 70.6% in total.(6) The meanings of the phrasal verbs with out are formed mainly in fourtendencies, corresponding with the four sense clusters of the 18 senses, DISENGAGEMENT, COMPLETION, DECENTRALIZATION, REJECTION, influenced by the semantic features of the particle out.(7) All the four sense clusters, DISENGAGEMENT, COMPLETION, DECENTRALIZATION, REJECTION, are related with the primary meaning of out, 'TR away from or not inside of LM'. The primary meaning of out plays as a schematic meaning, and all the senses of "~out" just extended from it.
Keywords/Search Tags:Cognitive semantics, phrasal verbs with out, the effect of the particle out
PDF Full Text Request
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