An Analysis Of The Meaning Of The Non-Canonical VO Constructions In Mandarin Chinese

This thesis aims to study the formative mechanism,the meaning and the applicability of the mechanism of the non-canonical Verb-Object constructions in Mandarin Chinese from the perspective of the Cognitive Grammar.Many linguists have always been studying this kind of VO constructions because of some differences between the canonical VO constructions and the non-canonical VO constructions.In recent years,there are three main kinds of achievements about the non-canonical VO constructions like "chi shi tang".From the frame of Generative Grammar,the first viewpoint is that the movements of the verbs are important in explaining the language phenomena,for example,"chi shi tang".This view doesn’t study the semantic characteristics of the whole construction.Another proposition explains these constructions with the metonymy.However,this point cannot be testified with the syntactic transformations and interrogative sentences.From the perspective of semantics,Xing Fuyi advances a new conception called "Dai Ti Object"(1991).This viewpoint fails to give a deeper explanation to the complicated relation of the constituents of the whole construction.Additionally,Dong Yuezhang investigates the mechanism of the construction with the Cognitive Grammar.Nevertheless,Dong doesn’t completely finish the study of this topic that needs further investigations about the applicability of the mechanism and the inner relations of the non-canonical VO constructions.From the perspective of the Cognitive Grammar,this thesis aims to make more efforts to study the non-canonical VO constructions like "chi shi tang".In the process of the analyses,there are three main theories needed in this thesis as follows:profile;categorization and partial compositionality.After the analyses,the author holds that the meaning of the "chi" in "chi shi tang" is different from its stereotypical meaning,which means that this "chi" is placed in the edge of the category of the transitive verb "chi".Additionally,the reason why the extension meaning of "chi" is allowed by the grammatical rules is the differences of the profiles in some language contexts.Moreover,the present study analyzes the inner relations of the constituents in this construction with the partial compositionality.In addition,the author analyzes the inseparable feature of the constituents by some exemplifications.Furthermore,this study makes an analysis about the meaning and the applicability of the mechanism of the "chi shi tang".From the present study,the mechanism and the meaning of the non-canonical VO construction "chi shi tang" in Mandarin Chinese are analyzed in detail.Moreover,the author,as well,testifies the applicability of the mechanism with the purpose of solving the similar problems of the non-canonical VO constructions.