A Corpus-Based Cognitive Study Of Adverbs In The English Middle Construction

As a unique language phenomenon, the English Middle Construction (EMC), active in form, but passive in meaning, has been one of the heated topics in linguistic studies since the19th century. The research on the EMC, with a long history, has seen vigorous development. But the adverb, one component of the construction, has not been comprehensively studied by linguists. The only available results could exclusively come from the research by Jackendoff (1972), Roberts (1987), Fellbaum (1986), Dixon (2005), Iwata (1999), Yang (2006,2008), and He (2004,2007,2009). However, most of the studies on adverbs remain at the stage of hypothesis-formulation, lacking in support of corpora. Hence, it is necessary to verify their assumptions by corpora and make an intensive study on the use of adverbs in the EMC. This thesis aims at answering the three questions below:1. What kind of adverbs are used and how are these adverbs used in the EMC?2. Are the previous assumptions on adverbs in the EMC well justified? Why?3. What is the theoretical explanation for the ways adverbs are used in the EMC?In this research,25high-frequency middle verbs were chosen from Zhang Chen’s (2007) paper as the objects of investigation and relevant data collected from the corpora, BNC and COCA, according to the form of the EMC (NP+V+ADV). After the screening,865middle sentences are derived. The research yielded the follow results:On the basis of the author’s corpora,35adverbs occur in the EMC. Firstly, they can be classified into4groups, namely, adverbs indicating Goodness, Speed, Difficulty and Misc. Secondly,"Well" is the most frequently used adverb which takes up34.57%of the total instances."Quickly" and "easily" come in second and third, accounting for13.29%and11.21%respectively. These are the only three adverbs whose proportions are more than10%. There are11adverbs whose proportions range from1%to10%and21adverbs with their proportions below1%. The difference in frequency of use for these adverbs varies sharply from0.12%to34.57%. Adverbs denoting goodness (42.43%in total), speed (29.71%) and difficulty (16.42%) are mostly used in the EMC, which take up nearly90%of the total tokens. Finally, the three adverbs "well"(Goodness),"quickly"(Speed) and "easily"(Difficulty) are typical adverbs in the EMC because they take the largest proportion in their own groups.The data from the author’s corpora indicates that Jackendoff’s (1972) view that "...the adverbs semantically orientated to agent could not exist in EMC..." has limitations. And the view held by Roberts (1987) that only the fourth group of Jackendoff’s classification of adverbs can be used in the EMC is too absolute. Dixon’s (2005) classification covers only a small proportion of adverbs in the EMC, and some of the adverbs in his classification were not found in the author’s data. The analysis of the available data demonstrates that Yang Xiaojun’s (2006) view that the middle verbs collocated with "easily" are more than those collocated with "well" is inconsistent with the author’s data.The above results could be accounted for from the perspective of Construction Grammar in general, and the Scene Encoding Hypothesis in particular. The ways adverbs are used in the EMC can be attributed to the influence of verbs and subjects in the construction, which is testified by the corpora.This thesis, a comprehensive study on adverbs in the EMC, has both theoretical and practical values. It not only makes an in-depth account for adverbs in the EMC as well as provides a new approach to the EMC, but also helps English learners acquire and use the EMC.