A Contrastive Study Of Nominal Possessive Constructions In English And Chinese:A Cognitive Approach

Possessive category,serving an extremely important grammatical and semantic category,mirrors human's cognitive structure and language universals.It affects the grammatical and semantic phenomena of language,and attaches special significance to the grammatical systems of world languages.Possession has been,for a long time,one of the foci of researches in such domestic and overseas linguistic circles as traditional structural linguistics,formal linguistics,functional linguistics,cognitive linguistics and linguistic typology.Pertinent to the conceptual structure of possessive construction,however,opinions in linguistic circles have been divergent so far.Pioneers mainly studied,in addition,nominal possessive constructions in a single language in the past researches,and research scopes range from syntax,semantics,pragmatics to cognitive linguistics and grammaticalization,but researches are still inadequate more or less on the contrastive analyses of nominal possessive constructions in different languages,especially in terms of cognition,grammaticalization and typology.We believe that,therefore,it is necessary to conduct a further contrastive study on nominal possessive constructions in different languages.The thesis focuses on nominal possessive constructions in English and Chinese,within the prerequisites of such theoretical viewpoints in cognitive linguistics as categorization,Aristotle's Classical Theory,Rosch's Prototype Theory and Langacker's Cognitive Reference Point Model.Based on the achievements of pioneers,this thesis systematically and thoroughly examines the deep conceptual structure,syntactic expressions and semantic relations of nominal possessive constructions in English and Chinese.The schematic analysis of cognitive reference point,besides,is carried out in this thesis in typical or atypical nominal possessive constructions in English and Chinese to completely describe and explain these unique nominal possessive constructions,and better reveal the resemblances and imparities as well as cognitivemechanisms hiding behind them.The major findings of the study are as follows:i)Possession,one of cognitive concepts,exists ubiquitously in the experiential world of human beings mirroring to some extent the resemblance of human's cognitive structures.Possession,a vital grammatical and semantic category,natures a binary asymmetric relationship between the possessor and possessee.Possessive constructions are the external linguistic manifestations of possession.Possessive relations encoded in possessive constructions are the semantic connotations of possession.ii)In English nominal possessive constructions [[X POSS] Y] and [Y PREP X],the selection of the two forms is subjected to the animacy to some degree.In Chinese nominal possessive constructions [XY] and [[X DE] Y],the covert and overt “DE” is intimately associated with animacy and alienability.The prototypical possessive relations encompassing ownership,kinship and whole-part relations,in addition,profile the conceptual connotation of possession,and other peripheral semantic relations are the metaphorical extensions of the prototypical ones.The ambiguities of nominal possessive constructions in English and Chinese,furthermore,are invoked either by the superposition of possessive relation and attributive relation or by the superposition of possessive relations of different kinds.And the construals of semantic relations by the analyses of semantic features of possessor and possessee and the reference to cognitive contexts or domains,moreover,jointly direct a plausible way to decode the ambiguous phenomena of nominal possessive constructions in English and Chinese.iii)Resemblances in English-Chinese nominal possessive constructions are mainly exhibited in basic constituents,cognitive sequence,prototypical possessive relations and ambiguities.In terms of the basic constituents,a complete nominal possessive construction encompasses a possessor X,a possessee Y and a possessive maker regardless their ellipses.Human beings tend to construe the construction abiding by the sequence from the possessor to the possessee,that is to say,the cognitive sequence is irreversible.With respect to semantic relations,besides,the prototypical possessive relations are ownership,kinship and whole-part relations in both languages.In regard to ambiguities,furthermore,they derive from either the superposition of possessive relation and attributive relation in a construction or the superposition of possessive relations of different kinds in a construction.iv)Imparities in English-Chinese nominal possessive constructions are chiefly embodied in word order and ellipsis.In terms of word order,the possessor is always preposed the possessee in Chinese [XY] and [[X DE] Y].It is,however,not always the case.The possessee bears the possibility preceding the possessor in English [Y PREP X],that is to say,the word order can be inverted in English nominal possessive constructions.With respect to ellipsis,in addition,such basic constituents as possessor,possessive marker and possessee may be to some degree omitted,but possessive markers can seldom be omitted in English nominal possessive constructions.It is,however,not true of that in Chinese nominal possessive constructions.It receives,furthermore,a general concensus that English is a kind hypotactic language with abundant morphological markers.Chinese,in contrast,is a kind of paratactic language with lesser morphological markers.The morphological markers,thus,restrict overwhelmingly the ellipses of basic constituents in English nominal possessive constructions.v)The cognitive mechanisms hiding behind these resemblances in English-Chinese nominal possessive constructions are the cognitive reference point ability and conceptual metaphors.The reference point ability assumes that the conceptualizer can establish mental access to potential targets in certain cognitive domain in virtue of a reference point.Human beings tend to construe at first the salient or familiar entities,by which they then mentally establish contacts with non-salient or unfamiliar entities.The reference point ability,thus,embodies to certain extent the universality of human cognition.Metaphor,besides,is also a vital cognitive model.It can account for the extension of semantic connotation of possessive constructions,namely,the prototypical possessive relations profile the conceptual connotation of possession,and other non-prototypical semantic relations are the metaphorical extensions of the prototypical ones.This study has both theoretical significance and practical significance.The cognitive research on nominal possessive constructions in English and Chinese,on the one hand,defines the conceptual structure of possessive category,and analyzes such aspects as syntactic forms,semantic relationships and ambiguous phenomena of nominal possessive constructions in English and Chinese,and uncovers the cognitivemechanisms hiding behind them.It broadens the research scope of possessive category,and verifies,to some extent,the explanatory power of the main theoretical viewpoints in cognitive linguistics to nominal possessive constructions in English and Chinese.It provides a theoretical reference,on the other hand,for the further study of the resemblances and imparities of nominal possessive constructions in English and Chinese as well as the universals of different languages.This study also has,in addition,certain practical values,which make contributions,more or less,to second language acquisition,foreign language teaching and translation between English and Chinese.