A Cognitive Grammar Analysis Of Objectless Transitive Constructions

Transitivity has been labelled as one of the most basic and perplexing topics among linguists.Traditional grammar claims that transitivity should be treated as an inherent property of verb itself.Nevertheless,in actual language use,variations such as transitive use of intransitive verbs and intransitive use of transitive verbs defy enumeration.Objectless transitive constructions(OTCs)refer to those transitive constructions whose omitted objects can be semantically interpreted but remain implicit in syntactic form.From the 1970s,research on transitivity variants emerged from different perspectives which could be roughly categorized into two aspects:first are factors contributing to object omission,with classical TG resorting to deletion transformation and lexical perspective attributing to lexical items specially verbs;second is the recoverability of omitted objects from semantic and pragmatic perspectives.Nevertheless,previous studies are more about describing language itself.Also,previous research methods run counter to the basic tenets of CG grammar which cherish the close relationship between language and human cognition.A cognitive grammar analysis model offers a new dynamic perspective in clarifying variations of transitive verbs and elaborating the cognitive mechanisms behind.This thesis aims to investigate the motivations and constraints of qualified OTCs inspired by neural activation and different construal within cognitive grammar framework.Adopting a dynamic cognitive approach,this thesis holds that transitivity does not split into two entries by a clear-cut boundary as is categorized into a traditional grammatical concept,but falls into a continuum flowing between transitives and intransitives,subjecting to alternate construal of conceptualizers.Based on the origins of omitted object retrieval,we classify OTCs into lexical OTCs and contextual OTCs:lexical OTCs are basically self-sufficient which derive their omitted objects from contents indicated by lexical items specially verbs,while contextual OTCs are heavily reliant on contexts,either existed or constructed,to retrieve their omitted objects.An activation-based motivational analysis reveals that:(1)in lexical OTCs,both default OTCs and conventional OTCs are motivated by lexical items especially verbs in that verbs already denote semantic meaning of the omitted objects and are thus simultaneously accessed and co-activated;(2)generic OTCs and indefinite OTCs are motivated by weakening extended activation on objects during activation transmission.Due to the indefiniteness of objects,activation force received by objects is scattered with each individual weakly activated or even fails to be activated,shifting information focus to subjects or actions denoted by verbs;(3)contextual OTCs are motivated by overlapping of "moving window" of attention.Generally,existing context OTCs acquire higher degree of overlap,thus falling into the obligatorily omitted group,while context-construction OTCs basically acquire lower degree of overlap,thus falling into the optional omitted group.A construal-based constraint analysis from the perspectives of specificity and prominence indicates two points:(1)specificity:the more fine-grained details we impose on expressions,the less omissibility is allowed,in that high level of specificity carries more necessary information,contributes more to meaning construction and thus requires more processing efforts;(2)prominence:objects with high degree of prominence defy object omission,such as structures imposed with new information or metaphorical usages of verbs,which stand at the figure as information focus.To conclude,transitivity is featured by fluidity and dynamicity,which depends on varied contexts,situations and alternate construal instead of being considered as an inherent property stipulated by grammar.