A Comparative Study Of English Middles And Chinese Construction "NP+V Qilai+AP"

Middle construction is a common and peculiar language phenomenon which has cross-linguistic features.It displays active form in syntax but implicitly conveys passive meaning in semantics.Owing to its special syntactic form and unique semantic properties,middle construction has triggered numerous discussions and become a controversial research topic in linguistic field both at home and abroad over the recent decades.The previous studies on middle construction were primarily centered on the definition,the generative mechanism and the selectional constraints on tense and aspect.However,a unified criterion are seldom formed.for the classification of middle construction and the comparative analysis of English middles and Chinese construction "NP +Vqilai+AP" still remains further investigated.In addition,the cognitive motivation of middle construction is also a question worth exploring.Based on the research achievements achieved by the previous scholars in this field at home and abroad,the thesis tries to find out the classification in the two languages,and to explore whether there are similarities or differences between English Middle construction and Chinese sentence pattern "NP +Vqilai+AP".Finally,with the theory of energy transmission and prominence view in cognitive linguistics,the thesis,by adopting the contrastive method,attempts to reveal the cognitive mechanism of the formation in English Middle construction and Chinese construction "NP +Vqilai+AP" from the cognitive perspective.It aims to seek out the deep cognitive motivation of the differences and similarities between the two middle construction.Thus leading to a deeper understanding of the essence of middle construction from cognitive perspectives.The linguistic data concerning middle construction in this study are collected from BLCU Corpus Center,Corpus of Contemporary American English,and the previous studies.And the methods of textual analysis and comparative analysis are used to carry out a detailed analysis of English Middle construction and Chinese construction"NP +Vqilai+AP".The following conclusions are drawn from the analysis:Firstly,English middles,according to their syntactic form,can be roughly classified into two categories-typical English middle construction and atypical English middle construction.Generally speaking,typical English middle construction refers to those constructions that accord with the basic structure[NP(patient)+V+ADV].And the atypical English middle construction include the other special constructions,and it can generally be divided into several subtypes.For instance,it can be coded as[NP(instrument/location)+V+ADV],[NP+do(don't)+V],[NP+aux+V].For the classification of the Chinese construction "NP+Vqilai+AP",the thesis finds out that it can be classified into different types according to the AP's Semantic Direction and NP's Semantic Role.That is to say,AP's Semantic Direction can point to the Implication Agent,the Top Noun and the Verb.And the NP in Vqilai construction can be the common patient,the instrument and the location.Secondly,there are similarities and differences between English middle construction and Chinese construction "NP +Vqilai+AP".They share commons on the following aspects:the subjects in both Chinese and English middle construction are passive participants,verbs in both are active in forms but the structure express passive meaning.Semantically,they share commons on the following features-implicit agent,non-eventiveness,and genericity.In regard to their differences,English middles allows resultative compounds to form the middle construction,however,it is not acceptable in Chinese.And there must be an adverbial modifier at the end of each sentence.The adverbs usually play the role of modifier in English middles while adjectives usually act as the modifier in Chinese.Thirdly,there is energy transmission during the formation of English middle construction.And there are mainly three energy resources:the internal special features that distinguish the entity from the others(internal force),the energy transmitted from the action initiator(external force),and the power gained from the nature(natural force).The above three resources are the cognitive basis for the formation of English middle construction.And the motivation of Chinese construction is to deemphasize the role of the active participant and highlight the role of the passive participant.The direct result is that the patient occupies the position of the syntactic subject,and the agent is compressed in the syntax.Through making a comparative analysis and interpretation of English middles and Chinese construction "NP +Vqilai+AP",the thesis can help language learners have a deep understanding of this peculiar structure.And a better grasp of the differences and similarities between the two construction can also be used for reference in teaching Chinese as a foreign language and bilingual translation between English and Chinese.What's more,this study will be helpful to confirm the fact that middles have cross-linguistic characteristics,which will help to deepen the ontological research of Chinese language theory.Finally,it is hoped that this study will enable more researchers to interpret middle construction,and have a more profound thinking and analysis on the sentence patterns of different languages.