A Research On The Construction Zai X Ye Y Based On The Corpus

The "zai X ye Y" construction,as a frequently-used construction in modern Mandarin,has rich contents and great expressive power,with degree of polarity as its semantic core.However,its salient semantic features are understudied in previous literature.Under the framework of Construction Grammar,this thesis describes and analyses various constituents of "zai X ye Y”construction and their interactions semantic features of the construction,its syntactic function and the conditions to be "X".Therefore,this thesis mainly focused on solving the following mentioned problems:(1)what are the main types of this construction?What kind of syntactic function does it have?(2)What's the characteristic of verbs and nouns that can enter "zai X"?Why can they appear in this construction?This thesis investigates "zai X ye Y" from the perspective of the Construction Grammar Theory and discoveries it has its own independent meaning:indicating hypothetical concession.It is assumed that the property,state and degree of "X" are reinforced into the top or the extreme,i.e.the meaning of "however" or "anyhow",the results of "Y" can't be changed yet.Therefore,it produces the pragmatic function of emphasizing unchangeable results and counter-expectation.The semantics types of the "X" and "Y" is of great importance to the basic classification of the construction.Then according to the analysis of corpus,we conclude seven different syntactic functional characteristics based on the constituents acted as by "zai X" and "ye Y" in the sentence.In addition,we emphatically observed the constraint conditions to be "X" in "zai X ye Y" and found that not all of the adjectives,verbs and nouns can act as "X" in the construction "zai X ye Y".Only the words that express some certain quantity extent can enter this construction.This is because "zai",a degree adverb,enhances the degree meaning the construction,makes the degree quantity of "X" reach to extremely high,at the same time,the meaning of "zai" is also affect by the degree meaning of "X".Then the construction "zai X ye Y" possesses the semantic of degree of polarity with subjective comments.Therefore,the "X" should be non quantitative adjective,verbs and nouns which can mean quantity extent.