A Study On The Construction Of �Adjective+Infinitive�

At the end of 1980 s, the thoughts of Construction Grammar theory have emerged, and now have developed into a mature framework. Based on Goldberg's Construction Grammar theory, the thesis studies the construction of �adjective+ infinitive" systematically.The construction of �Adjective+ infinitive� is very common in English. The choice and collocation of adjectives and verbs and the other ingredients in the construction are very complex. And it has been the important and difficult point in English learning. However, the study of adjectives has been ignored for a long time.Based on A Guide to Patterns and Usage in English, dictionaries and corpus, the construction of "adjective+ infinitive" have an analysis in quantitative and qualitative. Based on the perspective of Construction Grammar, it investigates the construction meanings, and then analyzes the restriction and coercion between constructions and adjectives. When adjectives are used as predication, there are two different basic constructions, one is " noun(pronoun) + be+ adjective+ infinitive ", the other is "It is + adjective + of/for sb. + infinitive". In this thesis, it analyzes respectively " noun(pronoun) + be+ adjective+ infinitive �and "It is+ adjective + of/for sb. + Infinitive". Ultimately, this study was based on corpus using statistical classification method, it obtains the following conclusions:(1)Based on the analysis of corpus, it has been found that 539 adjectives can be used as predicative, and 220 adjectives can be used in the constructions of �noun(pronoun) + be + adjective + infinitive�, 76 adjectives can be used in constructions of �It is + adjective + of sb. + infinitive� and 122 adjectives can be used in constructions of �It is + adjective + for sb. + infinitive ". According to the types of predicative adjectives, the constructions of �adjective + infinitive� can be divided into two categories which one is entity attributes constructions and the other is event attribute constructions. On this basis, we find out four meanings of the constructions: the entity carries on certain behavior under certain state the entity has certain state after certain behavior, the entity reflects the characteristic through carrying on certain action and the entity reflects the characteristic through carried on certain action(2) �It is + adjective + of / for sb. + infinitive� is a transform pattern of �noun(pronoun) + be + adjective + infinitive�. They are both related and different. Adjectives that occur in constructions are very rich, expresses mood, attitude, personality, status, quality and so on. The significance of these adjectives is basis on infinitive that can make the evaluation of the significance of the adjectives. Specifically, �noun(pronoun) + be + adjective + infinitive� expresses the objective evaluation, and �It is + adjective of / for sb. + infinitive� expresses the subjective evaluation.(3)Not all predicative adjectives can occur in the constructions of �adjective + infinitive�. There are some restrictions on adjectives, for example, Dynamic adjectives are usually used in �It is + adjective of sb. + Infinitive� which expresses the action that has happened. Static adjectives can only be used in �It is + adjective for sb. + Infinitive� which expresses the action that happens in the future. According to the analysis of coercion, when construction meanings and the lexical meanings are in conflict, construction meanings and lexical meanings are changed through coercion, which makes the construction meaning acceptable. Based on the analysis of corpus, we find out some adjectives are replaced by the nouns which express the meanings of adjectives. It makes sure that the constructions are acceptable.However, this research is only a tentative study on the construction of �adjective+ infinitive�. There are some limitations in the analysis, so more efforts are needed in the future.