A Cognitive Approach To Polvsemy: A Case Study Of The Polvsemes Water And Shui

The constant interaction between human cognition and the objective world may give rise to polysemy. This thesis defines polysemy as a prevalent linguistic, cognitive phenomenon that a single word with different parts of speech possesses a number of related senses. A word that carries several related senses is termed as a polyseme. For a given word, its process of becoming polysemous is termed as polysemization.This thesis aims to take a cognitive approach to polysemy by prototype category, prototype split, prototype shift, family resemblance, conceptual metaphor, conceptual metonymy and the cognitive models of the meaning extension of polysemes. Besides, this thesis intends to launch a full-fledged probe into the English-Chinese polysemes water and shui by comparative and contrastive analysis.The research questions of this thesis are presented as follows.(1) What is polysemy from the perspective of cognitive linguistics?(2) What are the similarities between the senses of the polyseme water and those of the polyseme shui?(3) What are the disparities between the senses of the polyseme water and those of the polyseme shui?The research findings of this thesis are demonstrated as follows.(1) From the angle of cognitive linguistics, a polyseme is a polysemous category where there is a prototype sense and the other senses either located close to the center of the category or situated at the periphery of the category. Family resemblance helps divide the polysemous category into several sub-categories. Prototype split and shift are the means of the sense generation of polysemes. Chain models, radial models and synthetic models are the cognitive models of the meaning extension of polysemes, which facilitate the construction of the semantic networks of polysemes. Conceptual metaphor and metonymy serving to diversify the figurative usages of polysemes are the underlying cognitive motivations of the meaning extension of polysemes.(2) The polysemes water and shui share the same prototype sense, namely, "a pure, colorless liquid essential for human life". Besides, the prototype shift is the major means of their sense generation while the prototype split is the minor means of their sense generation. Conceptual metonymy plays a major role in their meaning extension while conceptual metaphor plays a minor role in their meaning extension. In addition, both of them unanimously take on the synthetic models. Moreover, as for their metaphoric usages, they can be compared to moving objects, time, money, ideas, strength, trouble, transparency and excellence, whereas as for their metonymic usages, they can stand for a body of water, a particular liquid and waterway.(3) In the polysemous category water there are 26 senses,9 of which split from the prototype sense and 16 of which shift from the prototype sense. In contrast, in the polysemous category shui there are 24 senses,4 of which split from the prototype sense and 19 of which shift from the prototype sense. Besides, only three pairs of senses are similar while the rest of them are different, owing to the cognitive and cultural differences between English and Chinese people. Moreover, the senses of the polysemous category water bear a larger degree of family resemblance than those of the polysemous category shui. In addition, the polyseme water can be either a noun or a verb. By contrast, the polyseme shui can be either a noun or a verb or an adjective.