A Study Of English Verb-particle Constructions From The Perspective Of Conceptual Integration Theory

Verb-particle constructions are ubiquitous in languages.English verb-particle constructions consist of a verb and a particle.According to Mc Arthur?1980?,verb-particle constructions are probably the first form that children in English-speaking countries have learned.Due to their significance and particular structure,a number of researches have been conducted on verb-particle constructions from the perspective of traditional grammar,generative grammar and cognitive linguistics.Traditional linguistics argues that verb-particle constructions are random,unpredictable and illogical.Traditional grammarians neglect the contributions of particle to the overall meanings of verb-particle constructions,and they mainly concern the nature and grammatical status of the non-verbal components in verb-particle constructions.In contrast,generative linguistics mainly adopts two approaches to verb-particle constructions including the small clause approach and the complex predicate approach to analyze its syntactic structures.Therefore,the semantic meaning of verb-particle constructions has received less attention relatively.While the majority of studies conducted under the framework of cognitive linguistics illustrate the semantic analysis of particle only,thus paying little attention to the semantic effect of verbs on VPCs,and neglecting the possible interactions between verb and particle.Meanwhile,“v+away”construction,a particular subtype of verb-particle constructions,hasn't aroused much interest from linguists due to the low frequency of particle“away”in the corpus.On the contrary,time-away constructions proposed by Jackendoff?1997?are much preferred by researchers as their research objects.For the first time,Zhang Jianli and Luo Rong?2014?investigate and classify the verbs occurring in the“v+away”constructions,but their study lacks a comprehensive exploration of“v+away”constructions.So far,the senses denoted by“away”in“v+away”constructions,along with the formation mechanism and semantic network of the target constructions remain unclear.Therefore,this thesis takes“v+away”constructions as its object,and adopts collostruction analysis to explore their formation mechanism and semantic network under the theoretical framework of construction grammar,principle polysemy model and conceptual integration theory.The following three questions are going to be solved:1)What kind of verb shows strong collostruction strength with the particle“away”in“v+away”constructions?2)What is the primary sense of the particle“away”in VPCs?3)How do verb and particle“away”integrate with each other to form“v+away”constructions?On the basis of data extracted from COCA,the present analysis applies R software as analytical tool to calculate the collostruction strength between verb collexemes and the target construction.Afterwards,the primary sense of particle away is identified under the framework of principled polysemy model,and the formation mechanism and semantic network of the target construction will be then explored.The findings can be concluded as follows:?1?The computing outcome of the collostruction strength reveals that verb collexeme showing the strongest collocation strength with away construction is“walk”,followed by“take”,“go”,“turn”,“get”,“run”and so on.By using Wordnet,top-50verbs that are strongly attracted to the target construction are classified into nine groups from the perspective of semantics,namely,1)verbs of motion;2)verbs of contact;3)verbs of change;4)verbs of possession;5)verbs of perception;6)verbs of stative;7)verbs of body;8)verbs of communication;9)verbs of emotion.Of all the verbs that collocate with particle away,motion verbs take the largest proportion of“v+away”constructions,accounting for 40%of the total.Contact verbs rank the second,occupying 30%of the total.Verbs of change and possession account for a relatively low proportion with 10%and 6%.The rest types of verbs only appear sporadically.Verbs of motion and contact entail or often associate with changes of positions,and the addition of“away”indicates the moving direction or path of the TR.?2?Particle“away”has ten distinctive meanings,namely,1)leave a particular place or position or stay some distances from a place or person;2)toward a different direction;3)not at home,or not at the place where you work or study;4)distance in space or time;5)gradually disappear,out of existence;6)used for showing that someone does something continuously or for a long time;7)used for showing that something is removed;8)in a safe place,or in the place where something is usually kept;9)used for showing that there is a change in people's opinions or ways of doing things;10)?related with sports?at the opponents'ground.Five criteria proposed by Tyler&Evans's?2003?are used to identify the primary sense of“away”.And the results indicate that“leave a particular place or position or stay some distances from a place or person”is the central sense of away,and the rest senses are directly or indirectly extended from the primary sense.?3?According to Fauconnier and Turner?1996?,conceptual integration theory is capable of being applied to the study of grammatical constructions.It refers to a set of cognitive operations that integrate a complex sequence of newly perceived events?input1?onto the existing syntactic constructions?input 2?in order to form an emergent structure.The first input space is provided by English caused-motion construction or intransitive motion constructions,while the second input space consists of two sub-events denoted by verb and particle away respectively,and the causative or accompanying relations between the two sub-events.The existing syntactic constructions provide their syntax and semantics as the integrating frames,and two sub-events provide the detailed lexical elements for the conceptual integration.Verb and particle are mapped onto the verb and PP?preposition phrase?slot of the existing syntactic constructions through projected selection,and such integration motivates the emergence of“v+away”constructions.In general,“v+away”constructions are classified into intransitive type and transitive type concerning the transitivity,presenting three kinds of syntactic structure as[NP+V+Away],[NP₁+V+NP₂+Away],or[NP₁+V+Away+NP₂].The semantic meanings of typical“v+away”constructions can be summarized as:1)move further from the original place;2)keep a distance,withdraw or not involve;3)separate,transfer and remove;4)store,hide and isolate,5)gradually disappear or no longer exist.6)continuous action or wasting time.The above six distinctive meanings form the semantic network of typical“v+away”constructions,with the sense of“move further from the original place”as the center position surrounded by other five senses.On the basis of genuine data from COCA,the present analysis conducts a comprehensive exploration of“v+away”constructions.Through computing collostruction strength between verb and the target construction,identifying the central sense of particle“away”adopting the criteria proposed by the principled polysemy model,and analyzing the formation mechanism of“v+away”constructions under the framework of conceptual integration theory,this thesis summarizes the role of verbs and particle in the target construction,enriches researches on grammatical constructions under the framework of conceptual integration theory and provides a new perspective for the analysis of verb-particle constructions.