A Study Of The Negative Meaning Of Da X De Construction Based On Construction Grammar

The Chinese fixed structure da X de can express two different pragmatic effects: antiexpectation and non-antiexpectaion.However,researches concerning this structure mainly focus on the former one which occupies a higher percentage compared with the latter one.Meanwhile,these studies tend to explain the reasons of generating this antiexpectaion pragmatic effect by statically analyzing the parts of speech of da,X as well as de and statically describing the semantic features of the three items.Only a few scholars have progressed the antiexptectaion pragmatic effect into negative meaning and explored the mechanisms accounting for the negative meaning production from a dynamic perspective.Construction Grammar focuses on periphery and regular linguistic phenomena simultaneously and integrates semantics,syntax and pragmatics in meaning analysis,providing a verified perspective for Chinese meaning analysis.Therefore,based on Construction Grammar,the present paper investigated the mechanisms and process of the negative meaning production in the construction.Based on the related linguistic data from BCC(BCLU Corpus Data),the present thesis classifies da X de construction quantitatively and qualitatively and discusses the mechanisms explaining the negative meaning production of the construction within the framework of Construction Grammar.According to the analysis,the author finds that firstly the negative meaning of da X de construction comes from the semantic frame contradiction,lexical coercion,constructional coercion,pragmatic coercion as well as the inheritance hierarchies between the subordinate construction and superordinate construction.Secondly,among these mechanisms,the semantic frame contradiction is derived from the conflict between the semantic frame activated by X and the actions presented in the subsequent clause.Thirdly,the metaphorical mapping of da and the coercion of the meaning of X lead to lexical coercion.Fourthly,constructional coercion and pragmatic coercion are relevant to context,with pragmatic coercion being mainly driven by the speech acts and pragmatic effects expressed by da X de construction.Additionally,the inheritance of the subordinate construction from the superordinate construction is one of the mechanisms generating the negative meaning of the construction.In view of the fact that the mechanisms explaining the negative meaning of the construction involve semantics,metaphor,context and other factors,the negative meaning of da X de construction is the coeffects of both the internal factors and external factors.The present study unveils the mechanisms for generating the negative meaning of da X de construction,making an attempt to explore Chinese linguistic phenomena by virtue of Construction Grammar and proving the explanatory power of Construction Grammar.