| The conceptualization of time is a multidimensional process where we perceive time,human beings and the outside world;and it is a result of interaction between the individual cognition behavior and the collective cognition behavior.In linguistics,the concepts of time have always been an important issue which has been greatly concerned in linguistics.However,most of the previous studies are either concentrated on the field of metaphor or metonymy,and there is the absence of comprehensive and systematic research on the cognitive mechanism of the conceptualization of time.In addition,prepositions are regarded as the function words in the language system,and they are the parts of core vocabulary.Prepositions are used with the high frequency and rich semantics in the language usages,since they can be employed to refer to the meanings of place,time,position and location.Owing to the fact that prepositions are abstract concepts,and their usages can reflect the basic cognitive nature of human being.Therefore,this study proposes that the prepositions can participate in the conceptualization of time and reflect the perceptive nature of conceptualization of time.In order to test the mentioned proposal,the present study aims to work on the functions of prepositions in the conceptualization of time and then intends to present a general comprehension of the cognitive models of conceptualization of time.To achieve these purposes,this study mainly investigates the following questions:1.What prepositions in English are involved in the conceptualization of time?2.What are the similarities and differences of these prepositions in the conceptualization of time?3.Why are there some differences in the conceptualization of time in terms of prepositions?In order to answer these three questions,based on the encyclopaedic semantics,Conceptual metaphor and metonymy,Image schema and polysemy,this paper combines the qualitative and quantitative methods to collect,organize and analyze various data inCOCA corpus,trying to present the ways,features and the cognitive motivations in the construals of temporal semantics in prepositional category,and to give a systematic and comprehensive exploration of the cognition mechanism on time.The results are as following:(1)In English,there are 15 target prepositions involved in the conceptualization of time,while the temporal semantics are not at much scale in the target corpus,accounting for 19.97% in the whole usages.In terms of their usages related to temporal semantics,the 15 prepositions can be ranged as following: during > before >after > over > at > for > in > by > through > upon > from > on > about > to > with,while the prepositions during,before and after are in the top three related the temporal usages accounting for 95.2%,57.9% and 56.9% respectively.From the perspective of prepositions,it is found that the temporal meanings in the usages with prepositions are mainly rooted in the three temporal aspects of time: short time,period of time and abstract time,which make it possible for the prepositions to conceptualize time in the time domain.(2)Although the temporal usages are not in a large scale in the whole usages of the15 prepositions,the cognitive conceptualization of time in the target expressions renders some out-standing similarities and differences in the language structure.The similarities mainly stand in the three aspects: the tense system,quantity in time and proclitic temporal words.And the differences are prominent in the conceptualization of time in prepositional category.In terms of metaphorical extension,the prepositional expressions in temporal semantics imply the features of direction and schematization,with 11 prepositions featuring in direction and 12 prepositions featuring in schematization manifesting three types: point schema,line segment schema and radial schema.However,line segment schema is more salient(49.8%)among the three types.In terms of the metonymic interaction,the features are mainly presented in two aspects:formula and relationship.And the ways of formula are based on event,activity,and features of entity;while the relationship is based on the part-whole and part-part orientation.At last,there are also two models about the features in the metaphor-metonymy interaction,which is metaphor-metonymy and metonymy-to metaphor,while the former is more out-standing than the latter in the target usages with an overwhelming account of 82.1%.(3)In the process of construing the concepts of time in the prepositional usages,the working mechanism of the differences in the conceptualization of time has a cognitive motivations at conceptual level,which generates some differences in the deconstruction of meanings of time and its semantic representation in language.First of all,the ability of participants to construe the time stands in the top.Based on the embodiment of moment and duration of time in the outside world,the participants can map the subjective experience to the prepositional category,resulting in a metaphorical and metonymic extension of temporal meanings,which makes the participants a primary motivation in the process of producing differences in the target expressions.At the same time,the active functions of polysemy in prepositions and the abstractness of time are also influential factors which promote the realization of the conceptualization of time.Since the notion of time is rather abstract,based on the functions of polysemy,the prepositions rely on the three aspects in time system——the point of time,period of time and abstractness of time,trying to make the notion of time accessible and reachable from the grammatical level with the involvement of metaphor and metonymy.However,the cognition and deconstruction of the meanings of abstract time can not solely rely on the single-level participation of a certain subject,since the construing of time and its language representation involves extensive cross-linguistic or even cross-filed conceptual cognition and psychological experience.Thus,the motivation for differences in the cognitive conceptualization of time is a shared effect of the combination and interaction of human subjective initiative,the role of polysemy of prepositions and time.On the basis of the previous research,this study tries to find out the neglected aspects of researches on the cognition and perception of time,such as the view of metonymy and metaphor-metonymy interaction.In addition,taken the perspective of prepositions into consideration,the present cognitive study of time give a systematic exploration and illustration on conceptualization of time to a certain extent,which contributes to making up for a lack of semantics researches on time,and then to promote the further development of teaching on prepositions with some value by its theoretical insight and methodological significance. |
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