Large / Small + Structure Inspection

Guided by the cognitive grammar theory and the "two triangles" theory, the author strives to make a multiangled observation of Chinese construction "大/小+名" in this thesis.The whole thesis consists of the following four parts:The first part simply addresses classified fruits achieved on this subject and some theories involved such as relative independence of grammar, prototypes and marked ness theory.The second part deals with the semantic features of "大,小"from the point of modifier position. "大,小"are used to express the quantitative attribution of object, so this thesis describes and compares the semantic features in two aspects: quantitative classification and pattern. In addition, the semantic direction of "大,小"and the semantic metaphor model are analysed that reach a conclusion that the meaning of "大,小" is a radial category.The third part discusses the skewed phenomena between "大+名 "and "小+名"from the point of centre position which includes asymmetry in same semantic classifications and symmetry in same or different semantic classifications.The forth part is concerned with the functions of "大,小"in this construction which mainly cover referentiality, classification and saliency. Their distributions are crossing but relatively complementary.In a word, the synchronic asymmetry between "大"and "小"and the different grammaticalized degree result in the difference in form and function of the constructions.