A Study Of Shua X Construction Based On A/D Alignment Model

According to Modern Chinese Dictionary(7th Edition),shua has two kinds of tones:the first tone and the fourth tone.The shua with the fourth tone is often used in dialects,so it is not the research object of the thesis.Actually shua with the first tone can serve as a verb or a noun.When it acts as a verb,it has two meanings:to paint or wash off with a brush;to weed out.In Modern Chinese Dictionary(7th Edition),the recorded phrases with verb shua,have??,??,??and??.However,in recent years,the new expressions with verb shua have emerged in an endless stream such as??,??,??,??,???,??,??and so on.Given these evidences,it could be easily concluded that shua X 1construction truly has certain productivity.At the same time,it is obvious that most of the meanings of shua X construction in the new expressions seem inconsistent with its conventional ones recorded in the dictionary.For this phenomenon,the thesis tends to make an analysis based on 592 items of shua X construction collected from the BCC(BLCU Corpus Center)and some internet search engines.Within the framework of Cognitive Grammar,under the guidance of encyclopedic view of meaning,the thesis aims to explore the cognitive foundation of integration of components and semantic construction of shua X constructions by adopting A/D alignment model and to further probe the semantic relationship of shua X constructions and the motivations for the generalization and popularization of new expressions of shua X construction.For the purpose of investigation,the thesis has made a qualitative and quantitative analysis on the syntactic,semantic and pragmatic features of shua X construction.The findings are as follows: In syntax,according to the word class of X,shua X can be divided into four types: �shua + n� �shua + adj� �shua + v� and �shua + m + q�;based on the structure of components,shua X can be classified into four kinds: verb-object structure,verb-complement structure,modifier-head structure,serial verb structure;in terms of syntactic function,shua X can serve as predicate,attribute,subject and object.In semantics,the meanings of shua X construction are summarized into 14 types.In pragmatics,shua X not only can be widely used in many fields,such as social life,network broadcast,online and electronic games but is with various communicative intentions.The diachronic evolution also proves that shua X is dynamic.Based on the above observations,this thesis explores the cognitive foundation of shua X construction by probing the integration mechanism of components and semantic construction of shua X construction.Then the semantic relationship of shua X construction and the motivations for the generalization and popularization of new expressions of shua X construction are also explored.The study finds: firstly,the integration of shua and X is achieved by the correspondence between the substructures profiled by shua and X.Shua as a verb,generally acting as a dependent component,profiles a schematic substructure as an elaboration site,which can be successfully elaborated by the concrete semantic profile of X.Hence,given the correspondence between the two substructures,a composite structure [SHUA X]2 is formed.Secondly,during this process of integration,when combining with shua,X will designate a certain or relevant aspects rather than the whole domain by profile or profile shift;in turn,due to the difference of X or of contexts of the same X,shua will experience different profile or profile shift to make the composite structure rational,by which different meanings of shua X construction are formed.Thirdly,by exploring the semantic relationship of shua X construction,it is found that the new meanings of shua X construction are formed by inheriting semantic components of the conventional ones.Based on these semantic components,a semantic network of shua X construction is formed.Finally,the thesis analyzes the motivations for the generalization and popularization of new expressions of shua X from the aspects of intralinguistic motivation and extralinguistic motivation,and sums them up as the joint effect of language economy,social need and people's psychological states.