| This study is based on the following considerations: firstly,English ergative verbs whose causative/inchoative alternation is the exchanged form between its transitive and intransitive constructions to describe the same action event by the same ergative verbs.Most scholars prefer to conduce the contrastive analysis between English and Chinese ergative verbs.Besides,some assert to explore the relation between two constructions.However,there are a few scholars who probe into the original generation mechanism of the alternation from multiple perspectives of semantic,syntactic,syntax-semantic interface and cognitive view and take the typical semantic features of BREAK verbs as the starting point.Secondly,syntactically,a crowd of scholar support that there has an existence of “derivative relationship” between two constructions.As a result,they give two completely opposite views,namely,“causativisation” and “detransitivization”.Yet others advocate a “non-derivational view”.More importantly,the first keynote of this study must answer to three indispensable questions as whether the relation exists or not,then what’s the relation and on what kind of basis.Besides,semantically,though many scholars have found a great deal of different necessary semantic components,which one is the most essential semantic component that leads to an alternating phenomenon will be the second focus.Finally,causative/inchoative alternation is bound with human cognition,so the study sets to provide an integrated mechanism for generating it.Our study suggests:(1)At syntactic level,there exists a common root view but not a derivative relation.Because it generates from the combination between lexical verbs root and its corresponded light verbs,which consist of dynamic [CAUSE] and static[BECOME].Thus,the whole generative derivation process is truly linking from lexical verbs root and its light verbs.(2)At semantic level,it works out that the break verbs group can be divided into three sub-classes.In fact,the most essential semantic component among three sub-classes all leading to this alternation with [CHANGE OF STATE],which provides the exchanging forms under the condition of the same “event”type.(3)At syntax-semantics interface level,argument structure matches syntactic and semantic contents to integrate them as a complete construction.(4)At cognitive level,causative and inchoative constructions are focused on the figure,which protrude sentence’s keynote and the entire energy of its constructions by action chain changing the state of the target to make causative/inchoative alternation.The contributions are summarized as follows: On the one hand,from theoretical viewpoint,it explores causative/inchoative alternation from a multiple perspective,providing an integrated view for subsequent research.On the other hand,a little specific theoretical point is obtained through semantic analysis as three sub-classes like break,split and tear,which is a complementary to the theoretical research in the future.In terms of practical contributions,the study provides a comprehensive approach to study alternative constructions and it is a new way to study other alternative structure as well.At the same time,it can help students learn the generation of ergative alternative effectively,which in turn would provide more strategies for teachers. |
