A Contrastive Study Of The Construction Of Chinese Word "Jiè" And Its English Counterparts "Borrow/Lend"

Construction Grammar has emerged at the end of1980s. The main contributorGoldberg has elaborated the main points of construction grammar theory. In herclassical book Constructions, she gives a clear definition of construction, which is “Cis a CONSTRUCTION if and only if C is a form-meaning Pair<Fi,Si>such Thatsome aspect of Fi or some aspect of Si is not strictly predictable from C’s componentParts or from other previously established constructions”. In1995, Goldberg makes afurther explanation that construction should not only include the traditional patterns,but the sentences, phrases, words and even morphemes. A construction includes wordmeaning and construction meaning and the construction meaning and word meaningwill influence or even inhibit each other.This essay will contrast the similarities and differences between Chinese word“jiè” and its English counterparts “borrow/lend” based on the framework ofConstruction Grammar. I study the polyseme “jiè” and English polysemes“borrow/lend” and find out the similarities and differences in word meanings between“jiè” and its English counterparts “borrow/lend”. I study the construction of Chineseword “jiè” and its English counterparts “borrow/lend” and their semantic changesthat accompany the changes of the constructions. By contrasting the constructions ofChinese word “jiè” and its English counterparts “borrow/lend”, it can be seen thatthe process of the cognition of the world is through feelings and experiences. And inpractical application, the contrast will contribute a lot to the understanding of words,grammar and meanings for the language learners and also helps to develop newmethods of teaching for language teachers.In this essay the method of contrast, introspection method and empirical method,together with the method of corpus analysis will be used to examine the construction of the Chinese word "jiè" and the construction of English word "borrow/lend" in thelevel of lexicon, phrase and sentences and also context. And this essay will examinethe following aspects in detail,1) On the one hand, from the aspect of word, a list ofprototype meaning and derived meaning in Chinese and In English will be givenseparately and a contrast of the similarities and differences will be specified in details.On the other hand, from the aspect of word construction, construction of two-syllableword including the monosyllable word "jiè" will be examined and the derivatives ofEnglish word "borrow/lend" will be examined and a contrast will be given inanalyzing the differences and similarities of between the construction of Chineseword "jiè" and the construction of English word "borrow/lend".2) from the aspect ofphrasal level, the “VN” construction, Ditransitive Construction and “VV”Construction of word "jiè" and English words "borrow/lend" will be examined indetail and a contrast of the differences and similarities will be analyzed.3) From theaspect of sentence, Ditransitive Construction of the Chinese word "jiè" and Englishword "borrow/lend" will be examined in sentence, and a detailed comparison will begiven considering the word coercion and construction coercion in sentences. Besides,a study of directivity, including both the directivity of Chinese word "jiè" and Englishword "borrow/lend" and the directivity of Ditransitive Construction will be proceededfrom the aspect of sentence.And some main findings are summarized as below:1)in the aspect of polysemyof the word "jiè" and “borrow/lend”, the meanings of polyseme "jiè" and itscounterparts “borrow/lend” have some similarities, but as the contrast is one-to-two,the meanings of “borrow” part of Chinese word "jiè" is much developed that the“lend” part. And some derived meaning of “lend” is absent in the word "jiè", whilesome of the meanings of Chinese word "jiè" is also absent in English words“borrow/lend”. The central meaning of word “borrow/lend” is used much more thanChinese word "jiè", but their derived meanings are used much less than the word "jiè".So the usage of Chinese word is more flexible and the usage of English word isstricter and more rule-governed.2) nouns, verbs, conjunctions and word “的” can beadded to the Chinese word "jiè" to form a new word. And the part of speech of the newly-formed word can be nouns, verbs, adjectives or conjunctions. At the same time,the meanings also change, the newly-formed word including monosyllabic word "jiè"may keep its central meaning or derived meaning, but it may also be changed into acompletely different meaning. In contrast, the English words “borrow/lend” cannot beadded to another word to form new words, but can only be added to suffixes, such as"-er","-ing" or "-ed", with a conservation of either central meaning or derivedmeaning.3) In the "VN" Construction of word “jiè” and its counterpart constructionof "borrow/lend". The English word “borrow/lend” also shows an exact nature inthese usages. Both the Chinese word “jiè” and its English counterparts “borrow/lend”can be followed by concrete words and abstract words, but when the Chinese word“jiè” is followed by a concrete word, it needs more words to make a clear sentencewithout ambiguity. In contrast, its English counterparts “borrow/lend” show an exactmeaning. When abstract word is attached to the Chinese word “jiè”, its meaningusually change into another word, and when abstract word is attached to its Englishcounterparts “borrow/lend”, the meaning of “transferring” usually changed into“sharing”.4) as for the Ditransitive Construction of word “jiè” and its counterpartconstruction of "borrow/lend". It is found out that the Chinese word “jiè” can beused in the two forms of Ditransitive Construction—double noun construction anddative construction. When it is used in the double noun construction, the bidirectionalnature of word “jiè” consists with the bidirectional nature of double nounconstruction. So the meaning of the sentence can also be bidirectional and whichdirection to choose depends on the context. And when the Chinese word “jiè” is usedin dative construction, its bidirectional nature is coerced by the construction meaningand the meaning of preposition in the sentence. So the sentence meaning can only beunidirectional. In contrast, the English word “borrow” can only be used in dativeconstruction, and the English word “lend” can be used in both forms of DitransitiveConstruction. However, both of the two words can only express a unidirectionalmeaning no matter in which construction. In this case, the unidirectional meaning ofthe word “lend” restricts the bidirectional meaning of the double noun construction.5)the Chinese word “jiè” can be used in a “VV” Construction. And the word meaning and direction of transfer are mainly decided by the stronger verb. But “borrow/lend"cannot be used in this pattern.