A Cognitive Study Of The “Adjective + Object” Construction In Mandarin Chinese

Ma's Grammar,the first systematic and comprehensive grammar book on Mandarin Chinese,has touched upon the “Adjective + Object” structure in Chinese.Since then,the “Adjective + Object” structure has been a hot issue in the academic circles.Scholars have done extensive and deep researches on the “Adjective + Object” structure in terms of its semantics and structure.In the framework of Cognitive Linguistics,this thesis attempts to explore the formation mechanism of the “Adjective + Object” construction,the types of adjectives that can take objects,the meaning that the adjectives express after taking objects and other related issues.In accordance with the definition of construction proposed by Goldberg(1995,2006),this thesis establishes that the “Adjective + Object” structure is an independent construction,conveying the causative meaning.Coerced by the “Verb + Object” construction,adjectives in the “Adjective + Object” construction are converted into transitive verbs and metonymically stand for the process of change of state.When construing a causative event,we tend to fix our attention on the cause and result of the event,and selectively ignore the specific causal process and manner.Thus the cause and result are profiled and encoded.According to the two causative situations put forward by Talmy(2000b),this thesis classifies the “Adjective + Object” construction into two sub-constructions.One expresses the meaning of CAUSE-to-BECOME and its sequence is from causing event to caused event,making the entity occur with concrete change.The other expresses the meaning of CAUSE-to-FEEL and the sequence is from caused event to causing event,making the entity occur with abstract emotional change.Finally,in accordance with the classification of scalar adjectives and nonscalar adjectives and the manner/result complementarity hypothesis proposed by Rappaport Hovav and Levin(2010),this thesis finds that only scalar adjectives can be coerced into result verbs to show the change of entity.Non-scalar adjectives only implies the meaning of manner and cannot be coerced into the “Adjective + Object” construction.