A Comparative Study Of Symmetry And Asymmetry On Causativization Of Monosyllabic Adjectives In English And Chinese

Based on the theory of lexicalization and the corpora of BNC and CCL, this thesis focuses on the causativization of monosyllabic adjectives in both English and Chinese. Major findings are summarized as follows:On one hand, the thesis is on monosyllabic adjectives. 498 adjectives in English and 163 ones in Chinese are collected from A Dictionary of Usage of English Adjectives and A Dictionary of Usage of Chinese Adjectives. As a result, 56 English adjectives are capable of accomplishing causativization with the aid of conversion and affixation. Meanwhile, 37 ones in Chinese are provided with causativization by four approaches. The first is conversion which is the same as English monosyllabic adjectives. The second is “monosyllabic adjectives+hua(- 化)”. The third is the adoption of verb-complement constructions. And the fourth one is “monosyllabic adjectives+le(了)”. Therefore, it is addressed that the essence of causativization is lexicalization.On the other hand, this thesis compares causativization of monosyllabic adjectives in English and Chinese from three perspectives as morphology, semantics and phonetics. Both symmetrical and asymmetrical characteristics have been discovered. In the first place, the symmetries can be generalized as two aspects. One is the application of conversion in both languages, the other is the equivalence of“-en/-fy” in English and “hua(- 化)” in Chinese. Actually, the causative verbs in both languages converted by these two means belong to the category of lexicalization, and share the same lexicalization characteristics in morphology and semantics. The according lexicalization pattern can be defined as“action+cause+state”, with “state” externally acting as the nuclear component. At the meantime, the monosyllabic adjectives under these two symmetries both adopt synthetic expression to denote causative meanings in English and Chinese.As for the asymmetry, it is mainly manifested in the fact that all of the English monosyllabic adjectives employ morphological means to fulfill causativization, the results of which are completely lexicalized words. In comparison, the causative forms of monosyllabic adjectives in Chinese are slightly more sophisticated. In addition to the morphological means consistent with English, there exist two other methods: the verb-complement construction and the form of “monosyllabic adjectives + le(了)”.This distinctiveness substantially reflects the discrepancy of lexicalization capability. “monosyllabicadjectives + le( 了)” can be regarded as “the product of a certain phase during the process of lexicalization”. On the whole, the degree of causative lexicalization of monosyllabic adjectives in English is higher than that in Chinese, and the former is more inclined to exert synthetic expression to convey causative significance.