A Comparative Study Of English And Japanese Nominal Possessives:A Cognitive Approach

Under the framework of Cognitive Linguistics,this thesis is devoted to studying the similarities and differences between English and Japanese nominal possessives applying Cognitive Reference-point Model and the Prototype Theory.Nominal possessives have long been one hot issue in the field of linguistics.Among others,English nominal possessives have attracted the comparatively earlier attention from traditional grammar and Transformational and Generative Grammar,and many achievements have been made,but the conceptual system of English nominal possessives has so received relatively insufficient attention.Meanwhile,studies on the comparison between English nominal possessives with other languages,especially with Japanese,still deserve further discussions.Cognitive Linguistics characterized by “Generalization Commitment” and the“Cognitive Commitment” devotes itself to the exploration of conceptual systems underlying language structures,and it has been proved to have convincing explanations for nominal possessives.Cognitive Reference-point Model and Prototype Theory are important components of Cognitive Linguistics theories.Therefore,under the framework of Cognitive Linguistics,the present thesis draws on Cognitive Reference-point Model and the Prototype Theory to compare the conceptual systems of English and Japanese nominal possessives,centering around the following two questions:(1)What is the cognitive relationship between the possessor and the possessed in English and Japanese nominal possessives and how are such relationships characterized?(2)What are the conceptual prototypes of English and Japanese nominal possessives?This thesis identifies itself as a combination of qualitative and comparative study.The data of the present thesis are mainly observed from English and Japanese grammar books and dictionaries.It is concluded that(1)the cognitive relationshipbetween the possessor and the possessed in English and Japanese nominal possessives can both be denoted by reference point relationship,which is characterized by possessive morphemes.However,if the possessed is cognitively prominent enough to access,the Japanese possessive morpheme ? can be omitted,but the English ones cannot be omitted;(2)the conceptual prototype of English nominal possessives is consistent with that of Japanese,which is an animate possessor preceding an inanimate possessed.However,Japanese nominal possessives are more general than English ones when the main participant of an incident is coded as the possessor and the possessed is the incident.The research significance of this study is mainly embodied in the following two aspects.On the one hand,it provides a new perspective for the comparative study of English and Japanese nominal possessives.On the other hand,it is expected to throw some light on the studies on the second language learning and acquisition with English or Japanese as the second language.