The Study Of Cognitive Mechanism Of Meaning Formation Of English Noun Compunds

Compounding is a very common way to form English words,and noun compounds are the largest proportion of all compounds.Concentrating on the phonological,syntactic,semantic and cognitive perspectives,previous studies lack the detailed description of the relation between internal semantic relations and the meaning formation cognitive mechanism of English noun compounds.Through the combination of the Conceptual Integration Theory(CIT)and Construction Coercion Theory(CCT),this thesis demonstrates a new cognitive model CCIT.From the perspective of meaning relations of components of a compound,English noun compounds can be divided into endocentric and exocentric ones.This thesis analyzes these two types respectively based on the CCIT,concentrating on the internal semantic relations of English noun compounds,but also the dynamic meaning formation cognitive mechanism.This study has answered the following two questions.In English noun compounds,there are compounds that are made of two or more totally different words in semantics.How these words reconcile the different meanings to a compound?Semantically,English noun compounds can be divided into endocentric and exocentric ones.What are the similarities and differences between the two types in the process of meaning formation?This study discovers some findings as follows.The meaning formation of English noun compounds all need to go through a process of integration,and the coercion plays an important role in reconciling semantic conflicts of components of English noun compounds.The only difference is that coercion usually happens between compounds and one components in endocentric noun compounds;it usually happens between compounds and two components in exocentric noun compounds.This thesis has established a new model CCIT by combining CIT with CCT,giving some enlightenment to the lexicography and vocabulary teaching.