Analysis Of N-V Conversion From The Perspective Of Inheritance Of Denotation And Connotation Theory

N-V Conversion means that the noun is converted to be used as a verb withoutany suffix. It is a common phenomenon both in Chinese and English. Scholars bothabroad and at home have studied N-V Conversion from different perspectives such asthe syntactic, semantic, pragmatic and rhetoric perspectives. Yet, these studies do notexplore the cognitive mechanism behind the phenomenon of N-V Conversions.Relevant studies from the cognitive perspective argue that the working mechanismbehind N-V Conversions are metaphor and metonymy, of which metonymy is thebasic one. N-V Conversion is the conversion of the concept of the noun to the conceptof the verb. Studies from the cognitive perspective only point out the mechanism ofN-V Conversions. It does not further analyze the deep reason of the mechanism. Whatmakes the N-V Conversions possible? N-V Conversion is the concept of thing for theconcept of action. But, what is the medium? Based on previous studies of N-VConversions, this paper tries to analyze the deep reason behind N-V Conversionsunder the new framework of inheritance of denotation/connotation theory put forwardby Xu Shenghuan (2008). This paper draws the conclusion that the reason why nounscan be used as verbs is the inheritance of denotation/connotation between the conceptdenoted by the noun and the concept denoted by the verb. Nouns denote things, andthe concept of things has connotations. The action reflected by the verb is a certainproperty of the connotations of the concept reflected by the noun. So, a certainconnotation of the noun is inherited to the verb. The connotations of a noun can beanalyzed from the following perspectives: structure, property, origin and function.Nouns have rich connotations. When the noun is converted to be a verb, there arerich connotations of the noun to be inherited to the verb. For example, in the sentence他总是熊我, the properties of熊include strict, bad-tempered and clumsy etc. Which property on earth is to be inherited? This paper tries to conclude several factorsthat may influence the inheritance. For example, the speaker’s communicativepurpose, the cognitive accessibility of the noun’s connotation, the communicationcontext and the cultural background.N-V Conversions can make up the shortage of verbs in vocabulary and satisfythe user’s psychology of economy. On certain occasions, N-V Conversions make theexpressions more vivid, humorous and expressive. However, not every noun can beused as a verb without any constraints. The speaker and the listener’s mutualknowledge and the particular context can influence the conversion of nouns to verbs.From what has been discussed above, this paper draws the conclusion that thedeep reason behind N-V Conversions is that the connotations of the concept reflectedby the parent noun are inherited to the verb. The inheritance of denotation/connotationis the basic reason of N-V Conversions.