A Study Of Semantic Cognition And Grammaticalization

In this thesis, we discuss the verb"suan"from the angles of synchronicity and diachrony.First we investigate meaning domain of"suan",then discuss the process of its grammaticalization.In chapter 1, we introduce the cause of the analysis, purpose, present situation, meaning, ways used in the analysis, source of examples and thesis. Language continues changing in the process of its using. Language is a tool to narrate or describe things, to express opinion and feelings, that is to say,it is a tendency to subjectification in using language. Such subjective effort leads to change of meaning of word, that is,concrete and practical meaning changes into abstract one.In chapter 2, we discuss meaning domain, that is, content domain, epistemic domain, affect domain, of the verb"suan". We investigate meaning, semantic characters and syntactical characters of its content domain, epistemic domain, affect domain differently. Sometimes a word is used to narrate or describe objective things, sometimes to express subjective assessment or feeling,but in different conditions, its semantic characters and syntactical characters are different. In this chapter, we reveal different characters of content domain, epistemic domain, affect domain with theoretic analysis and example analysis.In chapter 3, we discuss its grammaticalization from the angle of diachrony. We first describe diachronic change of its semantics, syntax and using frequency, and its grammatical process, then we investigate reasons of its grammaticalization. A language phenomenon does not emerge suddenly, but has done in a long changing process. Its meaning change from concrete and practical meaning to abstract meaning, that is to say, the process is from practical meaning to complicated meaning and to this state that its meaning items decreased and stabilized than before. The verb"suan"is in the process of un-grammaticalization, and its abstract meaning is not real abstract meaning, in some degrees, it only seems to be a assessment mark.In chapter4, we conclude the above analysis.