A Construction Grammar Approach To "Hen+N" Construction In Modern Chinese

In modern Chinese grammar system,adverb�Hen(?)�should conventionally modify adjective,such as�???�h?n sh�n li�ng(very kind),�???�h?n y?ng j�n(very handsome).Therefore,the collocation of�adverb of degree+noun�was considered to be abnormal and unacceptable from the perspective of traditional Chinese grammar.For years,whether it is accepted in grammar has become the focus of linguistic study.Until recently,many scholars have done numerous researches on this construction from the grammatical,semantic,pragmatic and cognitive angles.Yet,there are few people who are devoted to verifying it in terms of Construction Grammar,let alone particularly focusing on one of the most typical example of this kind--�Hen(?)+N�construction.On the basis of previous studies,this paper adopts Goldberg's construction grammar and coercion theory to analyze and investigate the�Hen(?)+N�construction,such as�???�h?n zh?ng gu�,�???�h?n sh? n?.This thesis attempts to answer the following questions:1.What is the constructional meaning of�Hen(?)+N�construction?2.What are the semantic,syntactic,pragmatic features of this construction?3.What are the selectional constraints on nouns in�Hen(?)+N�construction?This thesis sorted out 10,000 sentences from BCC(shortened by BLCU Corpus Centre)and 384 of them were chosen as examples for analysis.Major findings are listed as follows:Firstly,�Hen(?)+N�construction is a form-meaning pair so it does have an independent constructional meaning,that is emphasizing certain attributes of the object designated by the noun.Secondly,from semantic perspective,the semantic meaning of the noun admitted into this construction has a conversion from its nominal concept to its imagery;when used after�Hen(?)�,this kind of noun refer to the attribute meaning or social and cultural meaning the object possesses rather than itself.Besides,the cognition of human always tends to concern more about the most outstanding property which is easy or quick to perceive and understand.From pragmatic perspective,the author finds it is much more concise and vivid by using refined words to express abundant information so that it can better meet the needs of new media communication.Meanwhile,it is in accordance with the politeness principle for people tend to use indirect ways to express their implications.From syntactic aspect,this construction is like most adjectives,its grammatical roles can be adverbial modifier,predicative,complement and attribute.Lastly,after examining some functions of coercion theory,the author summarizes some selectional constraints on nouns admitted in�Hen(?)+N�construction,which can be seen as follows:First,the noun is rich in conventional attribute meaning or social and cultural meaning;second,one or more of these conventional attributes of the entity designated by the noun are salient;third,sometimes it is difficult to find an adjective to accurately describe the attributes of an entity,so the�Hen(?)+N�construction offers a solution;fourth,the interpretation of the noun in this construction also depends on the specific context,the purpose of speaker and personal construal.To some extent,this study sets an example for using construction grammar to present thorough explanation for special linguistic phenomena,testing the practicability and superiority of construction grammar through a better interpretation of the�Hen(?)+N�construction.It also encourages further researches to unearth the creativity of Chinese language.