A Study On Universals Of Simple Assertive Constructions In English And Chinese

Assertive construction,which can be formulated as XP be YP,has aroused widespread concern of scholars in the academic field.It expresses a kind of assertion between the precopular part and the postcopular part.Recent studies roughly classified it into simple assertive construction and complex assertive construction.As a subtype of assertive construction,simple assertive construction plays an indispensable role in integrated and systematic study on assertive construction.The thesis mainly focuses on the form of NP1 be NP2,which is a typical type of simple assertive construction.Though considerable achievements have been made on the quest of classification,syntactic and semantic features of simple assertive constructions,there still remains some unexplored problems which are neglected by many scholars.Firstly,the content of simple assertive construction is insufficient to some extent as little attention has been paid to tautology which can also be conceived as a special case of simple assertive construction.Secondly,most scholars have been primarily concerned about exploring assertive construction within one specific language without giving a try on a cross-language study.Thirdly,as simple assertive construction expresses the semantic meaning of “assertion” which has already been proved as a universal semantic category among languages,scholars seldom intend to provide possible explanations on the universals of simple assertive construction.Therefore,the thesis which takes tautology into consideration intends to make a tentative study on the universal of English and Chinese simple assertive constructions,aiming to answer the following two questions:(1)What are the universals that English and Chinese simple assertive constructions share?(2)What are the possible explanations for the universals of simple assertive constructions in English and Chinese?Based on previous research,simple assertive construction can be classified into three basic types: specificational,predicational and identificational type.However,tautology can also be conceived as a special type of simple assertive construction because it expresses an assertion between the precopular part and the postcopular part.Therefore,we found that English and Chinese simple assertive construction share similar syntactic and semantic properties.All subtypes express a common semantic meaning,that is,a kind of assertion or identification.This common assertion is determined by the copula “be” or “shi” which is derived from their superordinate construction.However,each subtype also expresses different semantic features as they can be regarded as special or specific version of their superordinate construction.These dissimilar semantic features result from different relations between NP1 and NP2 or different syntactic patterns.Specification construction expresses an assertion of variable-value between NP1 and NP2;predication construction expresses an assertion of certain categories or certain properties between NP1 and NP2;tautology only expresses an assertion of certain properties between NP1 and NP2;and identification construction expresses an assertion of identity between NP1 and NP2.The constructional meaning of each subtype of simple assertive construction results from the integration of constitutes in the construction.The universals of English and Chinese simple assertive construction can be explained with the help of figure and ground theory.In specification constructions,the object is always more salient than the subject because the object is regarded as a unique value which is assigned to the subject as a variable.Hence,the object is more prominent as the figure while the subject is backgrounded as the ground.In predication construction,the subject or the object can either be the figure or the ground considering different contexts involved.This is also true in identification construction,which the subject is identified in terms of the object or vice versa.In tautology,the subject is regarded as the ground while the object is regarded as the figure because the object which highlights the additional attributive meaning of the noun phrase is perceived more prominent than the subject.Figure and ground theory implies that human languages are influenced by the similar way of how people perceive the world.The viewpoint which is proposed by figure and ground theory is supported by embodied philosophy.As the philosophic basis of cognitive linguistics,embodied philosophy believes that our bodies and brains shape the conceptual structures,in turn,it has a great influence on the organization of our speech.The thesis,based on basic theories of construction grammar and linguistic typology,attempts to explore the universals of English and Chinese simple assertive construction.It not only enriches the study of simple assertive construction by taking tautology into consideration but also provides a new perspective on the explanation for the universals of English and Chinese simple assertive construction.Applying figure and ground theory and embodied philosophy to the explanation of the universals will achieve a relatively satisfactory result.