An ER-based Analysis Of Verb “Chi” Class

Currently, researches conducted on the verb “Chi” class mainly focus on two aspects: one is from the perspective of traditional linguistics, which studies the semantic features of “Chi”, aiming to build its semantic network; the other is from the perspective of cognitive linguistics, which studies metaphors, metonymies, and some special constructions concerning “Chi”. However, the deficiency of these studies lies in the fact that the research objects do not cover a class of verbs, but a single verb or verb groups.Therefore, within the theoretical framework of event-domain cognitive model(ECM model), this thesis adopts the concept of Cognitive Reference Point to form the ER model in order to specify the interactive relationships among certain elements in the ECM model as well as to conduct a research on “Chi”-centered verbs at the level of word class. In addition, the thesis constructs the verb “Chi” class of 33 groups through selecting all the definitions of “Chi” from Modern Chinese Dictionary(the 5th edition), while referring to Tongyi Cilin and Jianming Tongyici Cidian. What’s more, the author tries to make a comprehensive research on verb “Chi” class by taking CCL and China Daily(1998)as data bases.After having analyzed the corpus, the author finds that:(1) Under ER model, people construe the salient elements in the event domain of “Chi” on the basis of embodiment, and then choose the salient elements and integrate them in making verb collocations;(2) Within the framework, the reference point can be Being, the Behavioral Pattern of Actions(D) or Information of Classifications of Being(C). Different reference points result in different verb collocations, which reflects the principle of embodied philosophy, namely human language conforming to the formula: Reality-Cognition-Language.