A Cognitive Study On English Middle Construction

English middle construction, as a special construction, has been a hot topic in linguistic study. Due to its special syntax structure and complex semantic characteristics, the construction has received much attention from many scholars in recent years. The literature review shows that the majority of the researches concerning this construction were done from the perspective of generative linguistics but few were ever conducted in cognitive linguistics.On this account, the present thesis aims to analyze the construction’s syntactical features and generative mechanism from the angle of cognitive linguistics. Two major theories are adopted for the analysis, construction grammar and event syntax. All the examples and instances are selected from the previous literature.The thesis is composed of5parts.The first part states the purpose and significance of the study on English middle construction (hereafter, EMC), and the thesis organization is also demonstrated in this part. The second part of the thesis gives a general introduction on EMC. The thesis gives a definition to the EMC and introduces its classification in this part. On the basis of precedent definition, the author summarized three terms on EMC:(1) EMC indicates the property of the action in the event;(2)There are three basic components in EMC:noun subject(S), predicate verb(V.) and the adverbial part(Adv.);(3) The proto-EMC is [S+V+Adv]. And then, in the third part, a comparison is made between English middle construction [S+V+Adv] to English passive construction [S+be+V-en] and English active construction [S+V+O]. As EMC is in an active form with a passive meaning, it’s different from both English passive/active construction, but a unique construction in English language. Afterward, the EMC is divided into two types:typical English middle construction and atypical English middle construction. The typical EMC sentences strictly follows the basic structure [S+V+Adv], which is the thesis mainly discusses about, and the atypical ones take the exceptions. Although the atypical EMC doesn’t fit the pattern of [S+V+Adv] in appearance, it’s still EMC. The thesis analyzes the English middle construction from the point of view on event-syntax next in the fourth part. The participants of EMC play different roles in the event. It is found that "S" in the event of English middle construction is the receptor, while the "Adv." is a modifier to describe the degree or level of the action "V.". This makes a further interpretation of the English middle construction on the previous construction study. After the clear division of the roles in English middle construction, the thesis reveals the event relevance between English passive construction and English active construction. The fourth part of the thesis analyzes the different roles the participants of EMC play first; the event relevance has been explain next; and then these resources are found which explained the complex cognitive generative mechanism. They are the internal resource and external resource. The last part is conclusion. It summarizes the researches done in the thesis, and points out the implication and limitation of this thesis.The major contribution of this thesis is to provide a systematic interpretation of EMC, including its formal characteristics, its semantic description and the event type it communicates, in light of cognitive linguistics. For instance, the agent of EMC is implicit, and it has the characteristics of generality in time.The thesis is supposed to give a panoramic picture for English learners of how EMC differs from and agrees with EAC and EPC, respectively. In theory, the research does complement what has been done before in EMC study in some degree. In practice, English learners may get some implication from the study, say, how to distinguish the synonymous structures with slightly different arrangement.Owing to the author’s poor knowledge of linguistics, many issues regarding EMC are left to be explored further. For example, the study in the thesis is not comprehensive enough, as it focuses only on the typical English middle constructions and talks little on the atypical ones.