A Study On The Cognitive Mechanism With The Compact Structure Of An English Complex Sentence

This study makes an attempt to probe into the cognitive mechanism with the compact structure,a peripheral member in the category of English complex sentences,from the perspective of Cognitive Linguistics.Traditional grammarians hold that the compact structure and the prototypical English complex sentence might merge in that it is semantically unimportant to determine whether these two constructions are functionally equivalent.Nevertheless,a preliminary study shows that a compact structure may be subject to more restrictions than its corresponding counterpart.Thus,the differences between the compact structure and the prototypical complex sentence are revealed in formal,pragmatic and semantic aspects respectively,and subsequently,the cognitive mechanism underlying such disparities is studied in terms of grounding,Figure/Ground,attention distribution and intentionality within the theoretical framework of Cognitive Construal which plays a significant role in explaining the linguistic phenomenon that one single situation is capable of giving birth to diverse linguistic expressions.At last,based on the preceding dissections,the intrinsic features of the compact structure are unveiled via a constructional approach to grammar.It is found that a prototypical English complex sentence and its derived compact structure are actually two highly abstract schematic constructions with fundamentally different construction meanings.In an unmarked sentential context,the ungrounding subordinate clause in a compact structure which bears unknown properties to be determined functions as the Figure and the main clause as the Ground,whereas the differential functional assignment of Figure/Ground that takes place in its prototypical counterpart works the other way around.Meanwhile,along with the conversion from the Ground into the Figure,the subordinate clause in a compact structure also turns into the foreground of the attention,and the formal linguistic device adopted to realize this attention-distribution process is the marked linguistic entities which are more difficult to conceive and construe.Videlicet,the compact structure is more cognitively effort-consuming in spite of its structural compression.In addition,the macro-level cognitive subject's intentionality which embodies a self-interest propensity exerts a powerful impact on the subjective selection between the compact structure and its prototypical counterpart by controlling the micro-level cognitive construal to get at work in a particular fashion.The thesis concludes by claiming that the research is about to be of some implication to the studies on the English complex sentences especially with respect to translation and second language acquisition.Besides,since this research employs the theories of Cognitive Linguistics as the theoretical basis,the conclusions drawn are likely to lend some support to the valid explanatory power of Cognitive Linguistics.It is also hoped that the study might shed some light on the foreign language teaching(especially the grammar teaching)in our country in relation to the English complex sentences.