A Cognitive Interpretation Of “Numeral X Numeral Y” Idiomatic Construction

Numeral idioms emerge as a combination of numerals with Chinese idiomatic structure: Chinese numerals serve as a carrier of extensive and profound Chinese culture; Chinese idioms are a kind of common language form that is concise in structure and rich in meaning. These two factors have led numeral idioms to become a language phenomenon worthy of attention.Generally speaking, numerals are used to number things or events, but this is not always true of numeral idioms of “N1XN2Y” construction. Through observation of the corpus, we find that words filled in “X” and “Y” slot are not necessarily countable nouns: those words such as uncountable nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs can also be candidates of the slots. Apparently, these words are unable to number, so how is their combination with numerals made possible? Previous studies mainly focus on analysis of the superficial structure of numeral idioms. There are also studies discussing Chinese idioms from cognitive perspective. However, few researches are made into the formation mechanism of numeral idioms in view of Cognitive Construction Grammar, especially that of idioms in “N1XN2Y” pattern. In addition, those studies always fall short of support from corpus.Within the framework of Cognitive Construction Grammar, the thesis builds an ADC model by integrating A/D-alignment and construction coercion theory in an attempt to explain the formation mechanism of “N1XN2Y” construction. A closed corpus is also built to facilitate the analysis. ADC Model being the analytical framework, 307 idioms in “N1XN2Y” pattern has been exhaustively collected from Xinshiji Xiandai Hanyu Cidian for the systematic discussions of their prosodic, syntactic, semantic and pragmatic features. Findings of our study are presented as follows:1. Syntactically, “X” and “Y” slot are usually occupied by content words such as nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs; in most cases, “X” and “Y” are the same in part of speech, but there are cases where they are different in this regard. In terms of syntactic function, instantiating idioms of the construction act as subjects, predicates, objects, attributes, adverbs, complements and independent form.2. Semantically, the construction has 7 types of meaning: a. large Number/few; b. high/low probability; c. high level; d. contrastive correspondence; e. non-contrastive correspondence; f. enumeration; g. other relations.3. “N1XN2Y” construction has six pragmatic effects: a. productivity; b. economy; c. fuzziness; d. generalization; e. vividness in meaning presentation; f. being easy to remember.The significance of this study is as follows:To begin with, modifications are made to Langacker's A/D-alignment: we discover that the change of dependence relation between component parts is determined by “dependence rate” existing at both lower and higher level.Secondly, a new model is constructed to analyze the construction. The thesis examines the prosodic, syntactic, semantic and pragmatic features of the construction on the basis of ADC model.Thirdly, a closed-corpus is built. The author exhaustively collects 307 idioms in “N1XN2Y” pattern for systematic analysis.Last but not least, Chinese way of thinking, as well as their views towards numerals is discussed at length during the process of our analysis.