A Comparative Study On English V_L-a-V_n Construction And Chinese V-Yi-V Construction

According to observation, expressions like’have a look’in English have properties of constructions. Meanwhile, expressions like’kan-yi (一)-kan’ in Chinese also have properties of constructions. Thus they can be presented as English VL-a-VN Construction and Chinese V-yi(一)-V Construction. This paper will use a comparative approach to explore the similarities and differences of the two constructions.In terms of structure, VL in English VL-a-VN Construction is a light verb responsible for telling syntactic information. The second component, the indefinite article, becomes a determiner indicating that the third component VN is a nominalized verb. However, VN is the main component in determining the holistic meaning. In Chinese V-yi( 一)-V Construction, the first and third V are both mono-syllabic. However, the first V is still a verb, and acts as the main component in both meaning · and structure, while the third V is no longer a verb and becomes a quantifier instead, indicated by the second component’yi(一)’.This paper suggests that English VL-a-VN Construction is intransitive, bounded, more exact and more polite in terms of meaning, while Chinese V-yi( 一)-V construction is transitive, unable to be negated in declarative sentences, bounded and more polite. Through a simple comparison, this paper finds that the two constructions are similar in the number and functions of components as well as the number of syllables. Moreover, they are both bounded and more polite in meaning, which are similarities based on the same cognition among people.All in all, this paper, based on Construction Grammar, applies methods such as description, analysis and comparison to explore the similarities and differences between English VL-a-VN Construction and Chinese V-yi(一)-V Construction. Although many deficiencies exist, this paper contributes to research about Construction.Grammar and contrastive studies on languages.