A Study On The Semantic Integration Mechanism Of English De-adjectival Nominalizers

There are two major processes in the course of forming words: compounding and derivation.Derivation is the morphological process of deriving a new word from an existed one by adding a prefix or suffix.An de-adjectival nominalizer,by its literal sense is a noun-forming suffix that is attached to the end of an adjective to form a new noun form.It is argued in this study that new forms of derivatives by means of nominalization is not a matter of change of word class.The occurrence of nominalizers semantically contributes to the final conceptual expressiveness of composite structures.This process reveals the particular mechanism of semantic integration between the stems and the nominalizers themselves.This study pays particular attention to such integration mechanism by which the construction and interpretation of English de-adjectival nominalization are proceeded.The subject matter of this study is chiefly concentrated on the suffixes-ce,-cy,-ity and-ness which are viewed as the most widespread and productive de-adjectival nominalizers in Modern English.In order to show the inherent mechanism of how concepts and meanings are integrated in semantic structures between previous adjective stems and the de-adjectival nominalizers,this study starts as follows.Chapter 1 serves to introduce the background,aims and significance,as well as hypothesis and methodology which revolve around the subject of this study.Chapter 2 offers a literature review which is associated with the study of word formation as a whole along with the research of the affix in specific.Chapter 3 introduces the Conceptual Blending Theory to prove to be capable of justifying the process of semantic integration in nominalization.Then this chapter presents an outline of English noun-forming suffixes which copes with aspects of definition,development,types and functions.A further theoretical system is inspected in accordance with the concepts given in Cognitive Linguistics.This cognitive system consists of three dimensions: category,domain and construal.In Chapter 4,the subjects of de-adjectival nominalizers are respectively examined.An outline of the semantic categorizes of adjectives are firstly represented.Then the next following section is concerned with the semantic integration mechanism of individual de-adjectival nominalizer with semantic integration networks.Building on the interpretation of blended semantics is that noun-forming suffixes evoke various knowledge structures that encode conceptual contents,and such suffixes which are characterized by similar conceptions are particularly classified in pertinent domains.A further investigation follows with a nominal pair of nouns sharing the same adjective stems but differing in terms of the suffixes in the end.The members involved in the same nominal pair are used in rivalry in that an cognitive operation of conceptualization is conducted by the speakers in alternate ways to interpret the derived word,which takes for granted that noun-forming suffixes assigned to the end of stems show clear boundary of individual roles.The grasp of semantic integration mechanism of English de-adjectival nominalizers provides further improvement of the comprehension of English vocabulary,especially derivational words.Specifically,it aims to acquaint our students who learn English as a foreign language with the nature of word formation at a semantic level.A knowledge of the semantic integration networks of English de-adjectival nominalizers will not only help our students understand overall explanations of words in nature,but will have a further guess of other words' meanings with the same suffixes involved,thus having a continuous expansion of vocabulary in the future.