A Cognitive Study Of The Generation And Expansion Of The Existential Concept And The Existential Sentence In English

The existential sentence in English has been a hot research topic of different linguistic schools, including structural linguistics, generative linguistics and functional linguistics. All the research work done so far has contributed a lot to the analysis of the existential sentence. However, in the previous studies little attention has been paid to the generation and expansion of the existential concept and the existential sentence. Based on the prototype category theory and the metaphor theory within the frame work of cognitive linguistics, the present paper has made a study of the generation and expansion of the existential concept and the existential sentence in English, specific research problems involving the experiential basis of the generation of the existential concept and the existential sentence in English, the process of the generation and expansion, the mechanism involved in the expansion, the prototypical and non-prototypical features of both the existential concept and the existential sentence in English.The study shows that the existential concept is the outcome of people's categorization and conceptualization of the existential event in the objective world, and is the result of the metaphorical mapping from the objective world onto the conceptual world. The existential event involves an existent, a state of existence, and a location of existence. Through metaphorical mapping, generated in people's mind is the existential concept "an existent exists in a location" or "in a location exists an existent", including in it the three conceptual elements:the existent, the state of existence, and the location of existence. The existential concept, which is a prototype category, has its own prototype and non-prototypes. The prototype of the existential concept is physical existence, which means a physical existent exists in a physical location or in a physical location exists a physical existent, and is the result of people's categorization and conceptualization of the physical existential event in the objective world. With the development of cognition, by taking the prototype of the existential concept as the reference point, people began to cognize through metaphor all kinds of abstract existential events in nature, social life and the spiritual world. As a result, the existential concept has been expanded from its prototypes to its non-prototypes. The non-prototypes of the existential concept are non-physical existence, which means a non-physical existent exists in a non-physical location or in a non-physical location exists a non-physical existent, and is the result of people's categorization and conceptualization of non-physical existential events in the objective world. The conceptual elements of the existential concept all show features of prototype categories. The existent may be human beings, animals, material objects, abstract events or concepts, the prototype being human beings, animals or material objects. The state of existence includes physical and non-physical state of existence, the prototype being physical state of existence. The location of existence includes physical location and non-physical location, the prototype being physical location of existence.The study also shows that the existential sentence is the sentence used to express the existential concept. The existential sentence in English is the metaphorical mapping and symbolic representation of the existential concept, and its structure reflects the structure of the existential concept. The existential sentence in English has three forms:"Subject+ Predicateexistence+Adverbial", "Adverbial+Predicateexistence+Subject", "There+Predicateexistence+Subject+Adverbial". The first two of the three patterns reflect directly the conceptual structures of "Existent+ State of Existence+Location of Existence" and "Location of Existence+ State of Existence+Existent". The third pattern results from the evolution of the first two in order to make the process of information exchange confirmable to the human law of cognizing from what is known to what is unknown. It also reflects the structure of the existential concept, and has become the main sentence pattern to express the existential concept in modern English. Like the existential concept, the existential sentence is also a prototype category. The prototype of the existential sentence is the result of the metaphorical mapping and symbolic representation in language of physical existence, the prototype of the existential concept. The non-prototype of the existential sentence is the result of the metaphorical mapping and symbolic representation in language of non-physical existence, the non-prototype of the existential concept. Both the prototype and non-prototype of the existential sentence express existential concepts, so they are the same in structure; but, since the existential concepts they express are in nature different from each other, with one being physical existence and the other non-physical existence, they are different from each other in syntactic features to some extent, which is reflected by the fact that the sentence elements of prototypical existential sentences are realized by linguistic forms reflecting physical conceptual elements, while the sentence elements of non-prototypical existential sentence are realized by linguistic forms reflecting non-physical conceptual elements.This study has revealed the law of cognition behind the generation and expansion of the existential concept and the existential sentence in English. It will be of some reference value to the learning, teaching and application of the existential sentence in English.