A Comparative Study Of “?” And Give Under Motion Event Theory

Transfer verbs are a hot research topic in cognitive linguistics. The thesis,according to the detailed investigation of corpus, comparatively studies the typical transfer verbs “?” and give on the basis of Talmy's(2000) Theory of Motion Event as the main guidance and reference to Cheng Qilong's(2006) Theory of Conceptual Framework, aiming at revealing the similarities and differences of the conceptual semantic frameworks and their mapping to syntactic structures of transfer verbs between Chinese and English and further explaining the reasons.A lot of studies on double object constructions corresponded to transfer verbs are done in previous studies. Among them, structural linguistics focuses on definition and description of double object constructions. Transformational generative linguistics pays attention to revealing the conversion between double object constructions and dative constructions from the perspective of transformation and generation. Cognitive linguistics breaks through the limitations of the previous studies and turns key point of research into conceptual semantic frameworks and their mapping to syntactic structures of transfer event. And they have made some explanations about generation of transfer verb's syntactic structure. But, until now, there is a few comparative study between Chinese and English from this angle.In order to make a systematic comparison on the similarities and differences of conceptual semantic frameworks as well as theirs mapping to syntactic structures of“ ? ” and give double-object constructions, the conceptual framework model of transfer event is put forward in the light of Motion Event Theory; then, it is divided into goal-prominent transfer event conceptual framework as well as processprominent transfer event conceptual framework and, further, is investigated not only their conceptual frameworks but also theirs mapping to syntactic structures. We find that their conceptual frameworks of transfer events are basically consistent, while the differences are mainly reflected in their mapping to syntactic structures. Firstly,syntactic structures of dative constructions in both Chinese and English are identical.Secondly, syntactic structure of double-object construction somewhat differentiates. Itis mainly [NP1+V( ?)+NP2+NP3] or [NP1+V+NP2+NP3] which applies to few verbs, like “ ? ”, “ ? ” in Chinese while it is [NP1+V+NP2+NP3] in English that almost all the transfer verbs could enter this construction, meanwhile under the influence of construction coercion, a few non-transfer verbs, such as, bake and kick also in the double-object constructions.Thus, on the basis of above analysis, the thesis is a comparative study of the typical transfer verb “?” and give from the perspective of conceptual framework and its mapping to syntactic structure. The main findings are:1)As for conceptual framework:firstly,both“?”and give are superordinate goal-prominent transfer verb,originating from only stressing on the result of transfer event;Secondly,their pragmatic range triumphs over other transfer verbs because they expand their application range by cognitive mechanism such as metaphor and metonymy.But the difference between them is that the pragmatic range of give is broader than its“?”.For example,in English,we could say“She gave him AIDs”while we could not say“??????.”.2) As for its mapping to syntactic structure, firstly, their syntactic structures of double object constructions are reflected as [NP1+ ? +NP2+NP3] and [NP1+give+NP2+NP3] and they expand the scope of their application by cognitive mechanism such as metaphor and metonymy in the practical application. According to the distribution of the typical and atypical thematic roles, there are eight forms of double object sentences in Chinese and English. Both of them use three kinds of forms the most frequently. They are, namely,(1) NP1, NP2 and NP3 are all belonging to prototype role;(2) only NP3 is not prototype role; and(3) only NP2 attributes to prototype role. But, according to the result of the corpus,(3) ranks the first,(1) lists the second, and(2) is the third in Chinese corpora of LCMC while people use the most frequently give double-object constructions is(2),(3) ranks in the middle and the least frequently used is(1); Secondly, the forms of dative constructions are not consistent. give functioned as main verb generates dative constructions, reflecting as[NP1+give+NP3+to+NP2], while “ ? ” as prepositions, representing the transferdirection, enters into the dative construction, reflecting as [NP1+V+NP3+?+NP2].This is because the difference of typology of language grammar system exists in Chinese and English. In English language system, there is independent prepositional system while prepositions in Chinese are basically grammaticalization from verbs.Based on above analysis, conceptual semantic framework of “?” grammaticalizes as a preposition, highlighting transfer direction.