Comparative Study Of English And Chinese Denominal Verbs From The Cognitive Perspective

The interesting linguistic phenomenon of denominal verbs is pervasive in both English and Chinese. Many Chinese and foreign linguists have illustrated or analyzed this phenomenon. However, most of the previous researches have been devoted to exploring the motivation of denominal verbs from perspectives such as semantics, syntax or pragmatics. This study adopts a cognitive perspective to look into the phenomenon, and argues that denominal verbs are the product of certain construal operations, and the meanings of denominal verbs are dynamic, open, and based on usage. Starting from this perspective, this study has compared different kinds of English and Chinese denominal verbs on the basis of data collection and data analysis. Differences and similarities between English and Chinese denominal verbs have been concluded, and the reasons accounting for them have also been discussed.After introducing the definition, classification and the status quo of related researches at home and abroad, we present the methodology of the study, including the sources of data and the methods of data analysis. Data in this research mainly come from relevant literature, literary works and daily life. In total we have collected 1397 English examples and 298 Chinese examples. In the process of data collection we have noticed that metonymy and metaphor are the two major cognitive models underlying denominal verbs. Hence, we propose to divide denominal verbs into metonymic ones and metaphoric ones. Metonymic ones are then sub-divided into locatum verbs, location verbs, duration verbs, agent verbs, goal verbs, source verbs, instrument verbs, object verbs and miscellaneous, as has been suggested by Clark & Clark (1979). The metaphoric ones are subdivided into five kinds according to the referents of the parent nouns, i.e., nouns that refer to objects, nouns that refer to persons, nouns that refer to animals, nouns that refer to human body parts and nouns that refer to places.The theoretical framework of the research is presented in Chapter Three. At first we have introduced the background and basic tenets of cognitive grammar. According to cognitive grammar, we should view "meaning" from a construal way, i.e, meaning is open, encyclopedic, and the formation of meaning equals the process of conceptualization. Some construal operations, like base & profile, summary scanning & sequential scanning, metaphor & metonymy, are helpful for analyzing the mechanism of denominal verbs.From the comparison and analysis of the English and Chinese data, we find that the general distribution of the major kinds of metonymic denominal verbs in English is in consistency with that in Chinese, which demonstrates that Instrument for Action, Agent for Action, Object for Action, Result for Action and Place for Action are common metonymic models underlying English and Chinese metonymic denominal verbs, and Instrument for Action is the commonest among them. The mechanism of English metaphoric denominal verbs is also similar with that of Chinese ones:a particular structure in the domain of the parent noun is mapped onto a target domain, and the profile of the noun changes into a process in the target domain. However, due to the influence of cultural elements and different thinking ways, many discrepancies also exist among English and Chinese denominal verbs. For example, object verbs and goal verbs account for a larger part in Chinese metonymic denominal verbs than in English metonymic denominal verbs, which might have something to do with the fact that the Chinese tend to focus on the result while the English incline to focus on the process. Besides, the parent noun that refers to the same entity in the real world may be metaphorized with different meanings in English and Chinese. On the whole, we can say that English nouns are easier to be denominalized and denominalization is more prevalent in English.This study has also supported the two basic tenets in cognitive grammar: meaning is mental entities in conceptual space, and the conceptual structure of meaning is embodied and motivated by usages; the content of the conceptual structure draws upon an open-ended and encyclopedic knowledge.