Way Construction: A Cross-language Study

Construction Grammar, as a new linguistic theory, has a strong explanatory power. According to this theory, a construction is a pairing of form and meaning. This means a construction has both special syntactic features and unique semantic and pragmatic functions. Construction Grammar aims to study the unity of language, including general rules of construction and some special constructions. Accordingly, Construction Grammar focuses on both language individuality and language universals. Due to those characteristics and intentions, construction studies have been extended cross-linguistically to languages other than English. Particularly the theory has been proved fruitful in explaining certain unsolved linguistic phenomena and problems.Way construction is a special construction in English. It has its unique syntactic feature: S+V+POSS WAY+PP and its unique construction meaning: path creating and difficulty overcoming. Jackendoff takes way construction as a kind of"constructional idiom,"marked by the noun way. Goldberg particularly studies the way construction in her works"Constructions: A Construction Grammar Approach to Argument Structure". As a special English construction, does way construction has similarities in other languages? And even if it does have similar construction in other languages, then how can its constructional meaning be conveyed in other languages? These questions make the starting point for the study of this thesis.The thesis aims at Chinese expressions for English way construction, both at meaning and form. The study starts from Wu's translation of those English way constructions in Goldberg's book. The syntactic forms and meanings conveyed in the translated way constructions are analyzed and discussed. It is found that among the translations, a Chinese word"yīlù"is used. And the word"yīlù"itself and the structure in which it is used are different in syntax and semantics from other structures. This is very important for further studies in comparison with English way construction. Therefore the research continues with detailed studies on"yīlù". 150 sentences with"yīlù"in the structure, among which 117 are relavent, are collected from CCL. Those Chinese sentences are analyzed in their syntactic and semantic properties. The findings show that Chinese"yīlù"structure not only has common grounds with way construction but also has its special characteristics. In addition, another related phrase"yīlùshàng"is discussed so that possibilities for any other close words or structures are excluded from similarities with English way construction. Therefore, it can be concluded that"yīlù"structure is the closer structure in Chinese to English way construction in semantics and syntax.English and Chinese are different in many aspects. This is not only due to the fact that they are of different language families, but due to different cultural environments and thinking modes. Thus this thesis also analyzes and explains the reasons for differences between way construction and"yīlù"structure.Cross-language studies of constructions will benefit the understanding and study of language universality and individuality. They will also provide theoretical basis for explaining the unsolved linguistic phenomena. Therefore, it is meaningful to study"yīlù"structure although the study still needs to be improved and perfected.