Semantics And Syntax And Interface Of English And Chinese Basic Color Adjectives

With BNC and CCL as the main sources, the thesis tries to contrast six groups ofcorresponding English and Chinese basic color adjectives in terms of their semantics,syntax and interface within the Construction Grammar. The findings are as follows:(1) In terms of lexically distinguishing semantics consisting of literal semantics, themetaphorical and metonymical semantics, both languages have first layer mapping andsecond layer mapping; The range rank of semantic domains is “white (bai)﹥balck (hei)﹥red (hong)﹥yellow (huang)﹥green (lv)﹥blue (lan)”; In the same semantic domain,basic color adjectives have the same or different extending meanings. But the semanticdomains in Chinese are larger and more colorful; the sub-categories of semantic domainshave partly correspondence and non-correspondence. In syntactically relevant semantics,both have [+permanent],[+temporary],[+caused-change],[+resultant state]. But thesyntactically relevant semantics in Chinese are more colorful, and have [+self-change].On the same semantic domains, the syntactically relevant semantics are a little different.(2) Both can be used in attributive, predicative, resultative and subject complement,subject and object structures. But the syntactic structures always followed by aspectmarkers in Chinese are not as united as those in English; non-correspondence of syntacticstructures also exist in both languages.(3) In semantics-syntax interface models, English and Chinese basic color adjectivesas prenominal are mapped to [+permanent]. Subject, object, predicative and complementare subject to [+temporary]. But the interface of English basic color adjectives is moreconsistent, which can be mapped to object complement by [+temporary] and [+noun-like]while [+temporary] and [+verb-like] make Chinese basic color adjectives mapped topredicate with some special syntactic structures mapped to [+self-change].