A Study On The Theoretical Construction Of Cognitive Semantic Field Basing On Field-core System

As a main constituent of structural linguistics, semantic field theory has historicalroots in William Humboldt, Johann Herder and Mikhail Pokrovski. Semantic fieldtheory has experienced a systematic development after being introduced by Jost Trierin1930s, but it is not only a matter of theoretical evolvement, because it has beenapplied to a plenty of practical researches, even some in other disciplines for threequarters of a century. However, semantic field theory is far from flawless. From theperspective of post-structuralism, closure is the vital flaw of it. Firstly, the quantity oflexical relations is restricted by closure. Secondly, closure does not conform to thegenerating mechanism of lexical relations. Finally, closure cannot explicate the causeof lexical relations, even though it reflects the common features of lexical relationsdistinctly. Therefore the aim of this dissertation is to explore an alternate approach ofclassifying lexical relations, and reconstruct semantic field theory in order to solvethis flaw. The process of this reconstruction is divided into three phases:The first phase begins with a new classification, which is in accordance with thecategories of Charles Peirce, of lexical relations. Specifically, lexical relations aredivided into two categories——constant relations （six types） and variable relations（two types）. Of the two the former is the basis of the most of the latter, becausehomophonic phenomenon is included in the latter. While homophonic phenomenonfalls outside the domain of lexical relations, it is still incorporated into variablerelation due to cognition.In the second phase, basing on six types of constant relation, field-core system,which is the core structure of cognitive semantic field, is put forward. Field-coresystem consists of three sole-field-core structure, each of them includes a field-coreand three or four subfields, in addition, two of them respectively possess out-fieldcorrelative lines.The third phase is intended to illustrate the macrostructure of cognitivesemantic field, or demonstrate cognitive semantic field is a structure withoutstructure by giving several examples of multi-field-core structure.