A Construction Grammar Approach To The Polysemy Of The English Caused-Motion Construction

With the development of modern linguistics and the studies of constructiongrammar, the English caused-motion construction (e.g. He pushed the ball up the hill.),as an important topic discussed in the construction grammar, draws lots of attention inlinguistics. The linguists have done a lot of researches on this topic from differentperspectives. The most prominent linguist who has studied this construction is Goldberg.She has achieved a lot of achievements in this area but still has some limitations. Thisthesis, on the basis of the theory of construction grammar, discusses the polysemy of theEnglish caused-motion construction.Firstly, Goldberg (1995) proposes that the English caused-motion construction is atypical construction that has its own syntactical and semantical characteristics. That is,syntactically, the English caused-motion construction has its own formulaNP1+V+NP2+PP, in which NP1(Noun Phrase1) stands for the causer argument, NP2(Noun Phrase2) stands for the theme argument, V (Verb) refers to non-stative verbs,and PP (Prepositional Phrase) stands for directional phrases. The basic semantics of thisconstruction as described is that “the causer argument directly causes the themeargument to move along a path designated by the directional phrase, that is,‘X causes Yto move Z’”(Goldberg,1995:152). As what has been proposed by Goldberg, besides thebasic meaning, the English caused-motion construction has various but related senses.The various but related senses make up the polysemy of the caused-motion construction.This thesis, on the basis of construction grammar and some related cognitive theories,discusses the motivation and the constitution of the polysemy of the caused-motionconstruction and explores how the various but related senses extend from the centralsense to the others.Then, this thesis mainly focuses on the discussion of the motivation of thepolysemy of the caused-motion construction and how the senses extended from thecentral sense to the other senses. In the aspect of motivation, this thesis mainlyconcentrates on the blending, metonymic coercion and some other theories. All theses aspects play important roles in the motivation of the polysemy of the caused-motionconstruction. This thesis focus on the analysis of the interaction between verb meaningand construction meaning. The sense of the sentence will be reinforced if the verbmeaning and the construction meaning are compatible with each other. But when theverb meaning and the construction meaning are in conflict with each other, themetonymic coercion occurs. Both the verb meaning and the construction meaning willcoerce each other to get a qualified meaning. The meanings produced from the processof metonymic coercion constitute the polysemy of the English caused-motionconstruction. At last, this thesis also analyzes the category of the senses of thecaused-motion construction extended from the central one to the other senses.