A Constructional Approach To The Polysemy Of English Resultative Construction

As an important phenomenon in language, English resultative construction, whichoccupies a special position in syntax and semantics, has become a hot topic discussed bymany linguists for decades. So far as the topic of the resultative construction is concerned,researches both at home and abroad have been conducted from the following four aspects:syntactic, semantic, pragmatic and constructional approaches, which have made greatachievements in the linguistic field.As Goldberg (1995) states, construction is a pair of form and meaning which can not bepredicted from its component parts or from other constructions. Goldberg proposes thatresultatives can only be applied to arguments which potentially undergo a change of state asa result of the action denoted by the verb. Goldberg and Jackendoff (2004) made a proposalthat resultatives share a certain family resemblance. They classified the English resultativesinto four types: causative property resultative, noncausative property resultative, causativepath resultative and noncausative path resultative. With the semantics of the constructionalsubevent and verb subevent, and the relationship between them, many properties of thedistribution are able to be explained.Based on Goldberg’s construction grammar, this thesis classifies the prototype ofEnglish resultative construction and the atypical resultative constructions. It mainlydiscusses the polysemy of English resultative construction, the motivation and formationprocess of the polysemy of English resultative construction. Through a detailed analysis,this thesis has made the following findings:First, the prototype of English resultative constructions has such syntactic propertyNP1V NP2RP3. The semantics of this construction is X causes Y to become Z. Besides theexamples of the typical resultative construction, other atypical ones with resemblance insyntax or semantics are widely distributed. This thesis concludes that there are fivedifferent but related meanings in English resultative construction. Each has a constructionalrepresentation and they are related with each other by family resemblance in syntax or semantics. English resultative construction is associated with a family of related senses andconstitutes a prototype category.Second, on the basis of the study of the relationship between the verb meaning andconstructional meaning of English resultative construction, this thesis shows that theintegration of the semantics of the verb and the semantics of the construction yields thesemantics of particular expressions. We have learned that there are two types of relationsbetween construction meaning and verb meaning. The first relation is compatibility, that is,construction meaning and verb meaning are compatible with each other; the second one isconflict, that is, construction meaning and verb meaning are in conflict. Thus, the polysemyof English resultative construction occurs. It is concluded that construction meaning canchange slightly to fuse with verb meaning in English resultative construction, and verbmeaning also can change slightly to fuse with the construction meaning. So bothconstruction meaning and verb meaning play very important roles. We should value both ofthem when considering the polysemy of English resultative construction.Third, all the English resultative construction observe the full argument realization andthe formation process of the semantics of the English resultative construction follow thesemantic coherence principle.It is hoped that this thesis can provide some referential materials for future studies ofresultative construction as well as other linguistic phenomena.