Metaphorical Analysis Of The Relation Between Chinese Resultative Construction And Caused-motion Construction

Chinese Resultative Construction (CRC) and Chinese Caused-motion Construction (CCMC) are very common in modern Chinese. CRC consists of a primary verb predicate and a secondary result predicate with the former indicating an action and the latter implying the result caused by the action, for example,"Feng chui-mie-le you-deng". CCMC is typically embodied in the ba-construction and conveys that the causer argument directly or indirectly causes the theme argument to move along a path assigned by the directional phrase, for example,"Feng ba you-deng chui-dao-le di-shang". Although a great number of studies of CRC and CCMC have been carried out separately from different perspectives such as syntax, semantics and pragmatics, there is little literature to demonstrate how CRC and CCMC are metaphorically related.This thesis employs Construction Grammar as theoretical foundation. CRC is rather complicated for it can occur in many constructions. As a result, there is no consensus on its classification. Based on the semantic orientation of the result complement and the source of the subject, CRC can be sub-divided as follows: object-oriented So+V+C+O, Sc+V+C+O, Sn+V+C+O, Se+V+C+O constructions and subject-oriented So+V+C+(O) construction. In addition, the generation mechanisms of the five constructions are analyzed. Compared with CRC, CCMC is quite simple for it mainly has two configurations:S+Oba+V+DP and S+V+O+DP.Conceptual Metaphor, especially event structure metaphor, is of great importance to the investigation of the relation between CRC and CCMC, through which state change can be understood as location movement. This thesis mainly examines the co-occurrence restrictions of resultatives in terms of event structure metaphor based on the Unique Path Constraint:resultatives cannot occur with directional phrases regardless of sequence; resultatives cannot be applied to the theme argument of ditransitive expressions; two distinct resultative phrases cannot co-occur; resultatives cannot occur with directed-motion verbs when used literally. The Unique Path Constraint indicates that more than one different path cannot be predicated of an argument within a single clause, which applies not only to literal motion but also metaphorical motion. Through detailed investigations and analyses of relevant corpuses, a conclusion can be drawn as follows:CRC is a metaphorical extension of CCMC; the Unique Path Constraint is applicable to the two construction indeed, but with some exceptions.The thesis is divided into five chapters. Chapter One briefly introduces the research background, objectives, significance and layout of this thesis. Literature review occupies Chapter Two, which reviews previous studies of resultative construction and caused-motion construction in both Chinese and English respectively. Chapter Three mainly concentrates on the theoretical foundation:Construction Grammar. The core of the thesis is expounded in Chapter Four, in which the classifications of CRC and CCMC are illustrated in detail within the frame of Construction Grammar, and the metaphorical relation between CRC and CCMC is verified. Chapter Five is the conclusion, involving the major findings, possible limitations and suggestions for further study.