On The Relation Of Constructional Meaning And Lexical Meaning In Ditransitive Construction

Ditransitive construction refers to the structure which corresponds to the syntagmatic sequence [N1VN2N3], among which N and V represent nominal phrases and verbal phrases respectively. As one significant linguistic phenomenon, ditransitive construction has occupied its unique position in syntactic and semantic researches. Construction Grammar takes it that construction is a form-meaning pairing. However,there are different opinions on the role of lexical item and the construction in the settlement of ditransitive construction.In the thesis, firstly, the mechanism of interaction between lexical meaning and constructional meaning has been explained. Coercion has been concretely expounded owing to its significant role played in the interaction process. Then, a further study on the interactive relation from interlingual and intralingual perspectives has been done. Interlingually, ditransitive construction has occupied significant role in human language use, however, it does not exist in all languages. In English, the construction has caught a lot of attention. Construction grammarians represented by Goldberg have defined the constructional meaning as "transfer". Recently, Chinese ditransitive construction has aroused Chinese scholars’interest. Though the construction share its entrance in the two languages, its meaning generation process differs owing to the different roles played by lexical meaning and constructional meaning respectively. Besides, the construction does not have access to languages as Japanese. From the intralingual angle, the thesis mainly takes English and Chinese ditransitive construction as examples. In the two languages, the construction shares the same representation, namely, VNN. In English, the meaning of ditransitive construction results from the interaction between the lexical meaning and constructional" meaning. The lexical meaning constrains and is constrained by the construction. While in Chinese, ditransitive construction has been divided into "give-type" and "take-type" according to the verbs accessible to the construction. Among the "give" verbs,"make" verbs can not enter the construction which shows the role played by lexical meaning is much more significant than the role of constructional one. While "send" verbs do well with the construction. Therefore, in "give-type" ditransitive construction, the lexical meaning plays a larger role. On the other hand,"take-type" verbs, being triacid or divalent, have successful entrance into the construction. Thus, the role of constructional meaning is more obvious. Based on the aforesaid, generally the settlement of ditransitive construction meaning is the result of interaction, however, the interaction is asymmetrical both interlingually and intralingually. The reasons have been explored as follows:language users’ cognitive projection, language users’ cognitive iconic proximity, language users’ pragma-cognitive knowledge and different cultural genes of different languages. This study, on the one hand, contributes to a deeper understanding on the ditransitive construction; on the other hand, it will benefit the teaching and translation of the construction.