A Cognitive Study Of English And Chinese Middle Constructions From The Perspective Of Conceptual Blending Theory

Middle construction is a complex and common language phenomenonwhich is defined as sentence patterns in active form with passive meaning. As anindependent grammar category, the study of middle constructions stemmingfrom Indo-European languages to Chinese has been hot topic all the time.Although there are many linguists studying the forming mechanism, propertiesand components of middle constructions, most studies are from the perspectiveof traditional grammar which doesn’t reflect the nature of forming mechanism ofmiddle constructions. The thesis tries to analyze the hot issues of middleconstructions from the perspective of cognitive linguistics and tries to provide anew manner to explain English and Chinese middle constructions by combiningconstructional grammar with conceptual blending theory.Firstly, the thesis reviews respectively the literatures of English middleconstructions and Chinese middle constructions. The history of studying onEnglish middle constructions is very long. The linguists have made manyresearches on the status, formation mechanism, properties and constraints onverbs of English middle constructions, but there is an only unified view on itsmajor properties: non-eventivity, agent-arbitrary, patient-responsibility, modalityand genericity, and other questions are in controversial state. The thesis is basedon Constructional Grammar and takes full advantage of Conceptual BlendingTheory to give an explanation to what the features of English middleconstruction are through explaining its status, forming mechanism, properties and constraints on verbs. The thesis thinks that the formula of English middleconstructions is NP+VP+AP, and it is the result of blending activeconstructions and passive constructions rather than syntax-generation or lexicalgeneration. The transitivity of middle verbs in English middle constructions isblended between transitive and intransitive which means that transitive verbscan show intransitive properties after entering into English middle constructions.The studying on Chinese middle constructions is based on the experiencesof studying English middle constructions. So there is no doubt that there arecontroversies on some questions. The thesis also made a study to status, formingmechanism, properties and constraints on verbs to try to define what the featuresof Chinese middle construction are. The thesis thinks that NP+V-qilai+AP isthe formula of Chinese middle construction and the forming mechanism ofChinese middle constructions is the same with English middle constructions,that is blending of active constructions and passive constructions, which testifiesNP+V-shangqu/V-zhe are not representatives of Chinese middle constructions.Because V-shangqu and V-zhe are not the real predicates but the parentheses.They can be placed in the front of sentence patterns or even be eliminated andthe sentences patterns are still acceptable. Form the perspectives of conceptualblending theory; they are the results of blending parenthesis and SLP whichtotally violates the forming mechanism of middle constructions. In addition, thethesis thinks that the transitivity of Chinese middle verbs also is the result ofblending transitive verbs and intransitive verbs. But the specialty of Chinese middle constructions lies in qilai which is called middle morpheme. Middlemorpheme is the sign of middle constructions which can endow the wholeconstructions non-eventivity and modality and so on. But not all languages’middle constructions possess middle morpheme. After analyzing, we find outthat the language whose middle constructions have obvious middle morpheme ismore productive, and that is why Chinese middle constructions have morevariants than English middle constructions’.At last, the thesis also makes a research on the prototypes and untypicalones of English and Chinese middle constructions from the perspectives ofconceptual blending theory. The prototype is typical one that can fully reflect thecharacteristics of its category. The thesis gets the prototypes of English andChinese middle constructions respectively through blending the prototypes ofactive constructions and passive constructions in English and Chinese. Untypicalones lose one or two characteristics of category out of replacing one or twocomponents in prototypes. The thesis also introduces untypical ones of Englishand Chinese middle constructions and makes a comparison between them.Middle constructions exist in every field because they are economical andstrong oralized. The attempt to define middle constructions with constructionalgrammar and to analyze and compare English middle constructions and Chinesemiddle constructions from the perspective of conceptual blending theory iscreative and illuminating viewed both from teaching or academic research.