A Comparative Study Of English And Chinese Denominal Verbs:Characteristics And Formation Mechanisms

Denominal verbs are here and there, in the newspapers, in literature works as well as people’s daily conversations. Many scholars have attached great importance to such language phenomenon at home and abroad. This thesis aims to carry out a comparative study of English and Chinese denominal verbs in terms of characteristics and formation mechanisms. It gives a brief introduction of denominal verbs, reviews its researches by former scholars, analyzes them from different perspectives and finally reaches a conclusion. Based on the researches by former scholars, this thesis has a new classification of denominal verbs. Generally speaking, English and Chinese denominal verbs share a similar mechanism. Firstly, we have identical, near-identical and distinct denominal verb types in English and Chinese; we also have near-identical uses as well as identical rhetorical effects. Secondly, the metaphoric and metonymic mechanisms are the major ones but not the whole. Thirdly, English and Chinese denominal verbs almost share the same cognitive models in spite of different characteristics. Fourthly, during the process of data collecting and data analysis, we have found that English and Chinese denominal verbs differ in the distribution. Finally, the most important one:not only is metonymy part of metaphor, but also the metaphoric mechanism, as part of the metonymy, plays a role in the cognitive construal. Denominal verbs that employ the metonymic construal only are possible, but those that employ only the metaphoric construal are impossible. Researches concerned with denominal verbs also have great reflections on many aspects such as cultural communications, language acquisition and translation and so on.