Cognitive Construal Of Chinese Idiomatic Construction “VN₁ru???N₂”

Idioms are a larger semantic unit than words,and some even contain a whole sentence pattern.Construction Grammar views idioms as a form-meaning paring,and the studies on idioms have furthered the theory.Chinese idioms are yet another unique linguistic phenomenon,whose intact semantic feature and fixed structural characteristics embody the uniqueness and similarity among various languages.The application of similes in idioms is the outstanding embodiment of the uniqueness.As a simile construction,Chinese four-character idioms "VN1 ru(?)N2" represents the inheritance and similarities of simile constructions,and yet at the same time,contains a neglected constructional meaning of extremeness in daily conversations due to its uniqueness in semantic and structural features.Traditional studies on Chinese idioms started from the identification of Chinese idioms,focusing on the issues concerning the internal structures(grammar)and external functions(rhetoric),or the connotation and extension of Chinese idioms.These static studies on Chinese idioms are prevalent in the second half of the twentieth century;however,they cannot effectively expound the generative mechanism and construal process of Chinese idioms.Due to the prevalence of Cognitive Linguistics,particularly the study conducted by Fillmore,Kay&O'Connor(1988),attempts from the perspective of cognition with the aid of Cognitive Linguistics have been made by an increasing number of scholars.These attempts,however,require elucidation.The present thesis uses the theory of categorization,conceptual metaphor and scalar implicatures and with the application of blending theory to build a construal model to seek after the possibility of viewing“VN1 ru(?)N2" construction as a polarity item and thus its constructional meaning of extremeness,and finally,from the perspectives of semantics,syntax and pragmatics,analyzes the online processing of "VN1 ru(?)N2" idiomatic construction.To put it in details:Firstly,from the semantic analysis on "N1" and "N2",it is found that in Chinese idiomatic construction "VN1 ru(?)N2","N1" and "N2" represents a cause-and-effect relationship in the subject-predicate structure,and a complement relationship in predicate-object structure and a mutual connected relations in predicate-complement structure.Besides,the relations of "N1" and "N2" in predicate-complement and predicate-object structures can be explained by the forming of an ad hoc category of"N1" and "N2" with the aid of conceptual metaphors.Secondly,from the viewpoints of scalar implicatures,the present thesis finds that in the ad hoc category of "N1" and“N2","N1" and“N2" can autonomously form a scalar according to their mutual relations of entailment,which gives rise to the rhetoric effect of polarity,that is,the constructional meaning of extremeness of the construction.The reason for this phenomenon is the rhetoric effect of superlative comparison in Chinese simile idiom,and this is also the reason for the prevalence of these idioms.Thirdly,analyses of“VN1" and "ru(?)N2" in“VN1 ru(?)N2" idiomatic construction based on the previous two findings revealed the restrictions of certain one“VN" in“VN1 ru(?)N2" idiomatic construction.That is:(1)"V" in "VN" should ai cai ru ming xue tie ru ni control both Ns in this construction,like ????,????;(2)"N2" can be the liao shi ru shen qing gai ni gu subject of the "V" in "VN",like ????,????;(3)two Ns of the construction xi zi ni jin zhi fa ru shan can form an ad hoc category,like ????,????,or opposite ad hoc category,shi xian wei yi shi si ni sheng like????,????.Finally,on pragmatics,the analyses on the parodic uses of Chinese idiomatic construction "VN1 ru(?)N2" further reflect the online processing of the construction.