A Cognitive Construal On The Functions Of English Articlesin Locating Entities

English Articles are very important functional words in the scope of English grammar and they are used in high frequency in discourse production and discourse comprehension.English articles have no lexical meaning in itself,thus cannot appear on their own.In order to realize its grounding function,English articles have to collocate with a noun or noun phrase to form “Article + Noun construction”.There are a large number of studies concerning English articles system at home and abroad,which ranging from its origin,classification,usage features and acquisition to pedagogical implications.All theses researches have contributed to giving us a general description on articles usage and its empirical analysis.However,little research has been done on the grounding functions of English articles from cognitive linguistic perspective.From the perspective of Cognitive English Grammar,this thesis aims to construe the functions of English articles in locating entities by virtue of the reference theory.From the continuum of grounding representation of nouns,article is a member of the determiners which provides information of maximal grounding for English nouns.This continuum includes determination,quantification,qualification and classification.In the layered conceptual structure of a noun phrase,English articles are the furthest from the noun and have the function of grounding a noun at macro level.The prototypical function of English articles is that the speaker singles out a particular instance in the category of a certain type in order to make the receiver identify the referent on the basis of speech-act participants shared background knowledge.Articles provide information of maximal grounding for existential things and phenomena in physical space,psychological space and social space.English articles enable the speech-act participants to share a gaze and establish mental contact with the same instance,hence the hearer can pick out the profiled entity.English articles have no access to provide more specific attributes representation for nouns.This thesis focuses on construing the grounding function of English articles from cognitive grammar perspective.A bare noun represents a kind or type of thing.A category has a large number of members.Different kinds of modifiers is added when thecommunicator intending to single out a particular instance.The English article system is on the level of determination.With articles or other modifiers,the noun can be extracted from a category.That is to say,speakers or writers ground the noun,i.e.the referent,by virtue of articles or other modifiers,then locate the noun from a category.Therefore,hearers and readers can single out the referent among reference mass.The central chapter aims at construing prototypical and atypical usages of English articles and makes some comparisons among them by virtue of reference theory.This thesis attempts to classify the grounding function of definite article into: the specifying function,individualizing function,generic function,demonstrative function and emphatic function.The grounding function of indefinite article,i.e.the generic function can be classified into: the individualizing function,the general function,the numerical function and the generalizing function.The grounding function of zero article falls into the following subcategories: the generic function,the general function,the generalizing function,the quasi-specifying function.The phenomena of English articles omission are also construed.And this thesis attempts to compare the semantic differences of generalizing functions created by English articles.The major findings of the thesis fall into the following five categories:Firstly,this thesis elaborates that English articles have generic function and general function,specifying function and general function,and illustrates the different effects on grounding a noun.Secondly,this thesis illustrates that the individuative reference and generic reference constitute the maximal continuum of reference.The whole articles grounding continuum includes individuated and generic,indefinite singular and definite singular,indefinite plural and definite plural.The speech-act participants choose the grounding methods depends on the perspective of macro and micro level,singular and plural entity.Thirdly,the indefinite reference and the definite reference of a profiled individual token are the main method for locating an individuative instance.Fourthly,the definite reference and indefinite reference profile the entity continuum of the singular and plural in generic reference.Fifthly,the definite article can locate the different stages of an entity by means of the representation of increasing or decreasing comparison.The causal salience functionof indefinite article enables speaker to locate an entity or the different aspects of an entity.In short,this thesis would tentatively enlighten and guide English learners to construe and apply the grounding functions of English articles precisely in communication,which will greatly facilitate language acquisition and language teaching.