A Study Of Chinese Evaluative Exclamation "Zhe N + V De" Based On Construction Coercion

Chinese structure "Zhe N + V De" has been widely used in such informal occasions as the Internet social exchanges,daily conversations because of its brevity,economy and productivity characteristics.It conveys the language user?s subjective evaluation on the present event or state.Nevertheless,the previous studies only touched the static descriptions of "Zhe N + V De".Without interpreting the cognitive mechanism of "Zhe N + V De",the preexisting studies are fragmentary.What?s more,a lack of closed corpus makes them less convincing.Based upon Construction Grammar(CxG),this paper will manage to adopt Construction Coercion Theory(CCT)from Goldberg in order to interpret the cognitive mechanism of "Zhe N + V De".With the precondition of the establishment of an enclosed corpus with 2054 examples after an exhaustive on-line searching of BCC,this thesis will be in an attempt to the quantitative analytical approach and detailed explanation,aiming at unveiling its constructional meanings,the underlying cognitive mechanism,coupled with the phonological,syntactic,semantic and pragmatic properties of "Zhe N + V De" so as to bridge the gaps.This thesis includes five chapters:Chapter One: "Introduction" introduces the motivation,methodology,the scope of study,data collection of the research and the layout.Chapter Two: "Literature Review" reexamines the domestic related studies on "Zhe N + V De" including origins,meanings and functions of Chinese characters "?" and "?" and phonological,syntactic,semantic and pragmatic study approaches of "N + V".We ultimately point out the shortcomings and limitations behind the related studies.Chapter Three: "Theoretical Framework" employs CCT in CxG with the objective to fill the gap in the previous studies.Chapter Four: "Data Statistics and Analysis" center on phonological,syntactic,semantic and pragmatic features of "Zhe N + V De",along with the description and classification of the collected data and the corresponding frequency distributions.After the in-depth data analysis,it has been mined:(1)Phonologically,the following subcategories of this construction can be seen: bi-syllable construction,trisyllable construction,quadrisyllable construction,pent-syllable construction and others,among which bi-syllable construction(N1 + V1)takes the proportion of 36.93%.Trisyllable construction ranks first in number with the rate of 47.03%.Another sub-type(N0 + Vx)with the third largest number gains an unusual feature of a substitution of an element(or elements)of a bi-syllabic or trisyllable verb for the noun slot,amounting to 4.28%.Apart from these,cases of quadrisyllable constructions(N3 + V1 or N2 + V2),poly-syllabic constructions and special constructions whose noun slots are letters or words take the proportions: 3.46%,3.36%,1.12% and 1.12% respectively.(2)Syntactically,two slots,"N" and "V" in "Zhe N + V De" construction are formed with the primary grammatical relationships: verb-object relationship and subject-predicate relationship,taking the percentages of 68.50% and 27.22% in the closed corpus.Apart from these,a peculiar subtype that no syntactic relationship exists between "N" and "V" has been grasped,and the quantity is 88,rating 4.28%.This structure,on the whole,can be treated as a complete sentence independent on other syntactic elements,or a clause with the feature of flexible positions.(3)Semantically,two dominant semantic relationships can be categorized between"N" and "V": "N" as a patient of the given action,which totals as many as 1407 examples in our enclosed database with the ratio of 68.50%.The other is "N" plays the role of an agent,taking the amount of 535 with the percentage of 26.05%.There is a seldom-seen subcategory that "N" plays special roles,such as time,position,instruments,etc..It takes a small proportion of 1.17%.An extraordinary case is that no semantic relationship exists between "N" and "V".As a whole,this construction harbors the following semantic meanings: the language user expresses his or her subjective evaluation on the present event or state.(4)Pragmatically,this construction with a simple structure gains rich pragmatic features characterized with brevity,economy and productivity.Whilst,coerced by discourse construction,"Zhe N + V De" is used as different pragmatic meanings in diverse discourse contexts.In most occasions,it reveals the language user?s negative emotional tendency beyond the expection,which exhibits the subjectivity.Chapter Five: "Conclusion" summarizes the whole thesis,listing the major contributions of this paper:Firstly,this thesis,for the first time,analyzes the Chinese evaluative exclamation "Zhe N + V De" with Construction Coercion Theory in Construction Grammar,and expounds its cognitive mechanism and constructional meanings.Secondly,a closed database has been established,and each of the constructs has been categorized,interpreting the phonological,syntactic,semantic and pragmatic features.All the data collected are classified and calculated from a diversity of dimensions.Limitations and suggestions for further relevant research conclude the thesis.