A Study Of Cognitive Motivation And Metonymic Mechanism Of English Verbal Nominalization

Nouns are one of the most important parts of speech in English.Many nouns are formed by nominalization and become common nouns.Nominalization is also an important grammatical device in English.By nominalization,other words can express the concept and meaning of a noun.The simplest definition of nominalization is the process of forming a noun from another word class.Based on this,nominalization is a kind of lexical conversion phenomenon.This kind of conversion has always been the interest of linguists.From the source,nominalization usually refers to nominalization of verbs or adjectives.This paper focuses on the verbal nominalization in English,hoping to find the cognitive motivation and mechanism of English verbal nominalization in order to understand its meaning.English verbal nominalization is the conversion between the noun and verb,is it arbitrary or motivated? If it is motivated,how can we explain its motivation? And what's the cognitive mechanism in the process of English verbal nominalization? These questions are the focuses of this paper's research.Using the prominence view and conceptual metonymy as theoretical foundation,this paper adopts the qualitative research method to explain the cognitive motivation and metonymic mechanism of English verbal nominalization.The main findings of this paper are the following:(1)The English verbal nominalization is not arbitrary,but motivated.Its cognitive motivation is the prominence of the elementts in the event frame evoked by the verb.The cognitive motivation of English verbal nominalization can be expressed in various forms according to different profiled parts,such as profile the patient,profile the agent,profile the instrument,profile the result and so on.(2)In the process of verbal nominalization,the concept expressed by a word moves from an action to a thing,which is realized through conceptual metonymy.Consequently,the cognitive mechanism of English verbal nominalization is conceptual metonymy.Through which,the concept of a thingcan completely or partially represent an action concept.Linguists have used different research methods to explore English verbal nominalization from different perspectives.This paper explores the cognitive motivation and metonymic mechanism of English verbal nominalization from the theory of prominent view and conceptual metonymy.The research of this paper has expanded the application scope of the the prominence view and conceptual metonymy.It is helpful for the English learners to understand the cognitive process of English verbal nominalization.