A Semantic Study Of English Light Verb Constructions From The Perspective Of Coercion

Light verb construction is a very common expression in English.Five light verbs with the highest frequency are have,take,make,give,do.According to the classification of light verbs by Kearns(2002),light verb construction can be divided into true light verb construction and vague light verb construction.For convenience,we call the former LVC1,and the latter LVC2.As a matter of fact,in recent years,the research on light verb construction is in the ascendant.While reviewing the contributions made by scholars from various angles in the interpretation of light verb construction,it is found that the previous studies are faced with many difficulties and disadvantages owing to the limitations of methods and theories they have applied.For example,the previous semantic studies on LVCs only illustrate the facts without explaining the mechanism systematically;the research object is limited to the LVC1,but rarely involves the LVC2.Therefore,in this thesis,the semantic study on both types of LVCs is carried out from the perspective of coercion.This not only enriches the application of coercion theory,but also allows us to have a more comprehensive understanding of the LVCs.As a new research paradigm,the coercion theory has a strong explanatory power in explaining light verb constructions,especially in the aspect of semantic study.Because coercion theory can solve semantic conflict between the lexical meaning and construction meaning,which is just suitable for explaining the semantic features of LVCs.Therefore,the thesis takes the COCA as the research tool,and uses the method of description in which the induction is the major means and deduction is secondary,aiming to make a semantic study on two types of LVCs headed by five high frequency light verbs from the perspective of coercion which includes constructional coercion and lexical coercion to solve the following three questions:1.What are the semantic features of LVCs from the perspective of constructional coercion?2.What are the semantic features of LVCs from the perspective of lexical coercion?3.What are the semantic functions of LVCs from the perspective of coercion?Through the research,the findings are that LVCs have the features of perfective meaning,idiomaticity,power of intention,argument-sharing and semantic type shifting from the perspective of constructional coercion.At the same time,LVCs have the features of progressive meaning,abstractness,and boundedness from the point of lexical coercion.Last,LVCs have the semantic functions of modification and quantification from the perspective of coercion.