A Cognitive-semantic Study On The Fake Objects In Chinese Verb-resultative Constructions

This thesis looks into the fake objects(FOs)in Chinese verb-resultative constructions(VRCs)from the perspective of Cognitive Grammar.Fake objects(for example,liang-ba-dao in yeye kan dun le liang-ba-dao),as a kind of noncanonical arguments,refer to any object that bears non-transparent semantic relation to the predicate verb.In most cases,the objects of VRCs denote the patient of predicate verb However,the occurrence of fake objects violates this semantic requirement.Hence,the following questions may arise:what is the nature of fake object and what’re the semantic conditions required in the choice of fake object.These questions are worthy of further inquiryMost of the previous studies on the fake object are guided either by formal linguistics or functional linguistics,and both explanations have some flaws.The studies based on formal linguistics aimed to explain the fake object by means of pure syntactic notions,which ignored the role of meaning in restricting the choice of fake objects.The studies based on functional grammar,particularly construction grammar,left an in-depth semantic analysis of fake object untouchedDifferent from the previous studies,this thesis is guided by the theoretical tools of cognitive grammar,particularly construal,active zone and categorization,and aims to provide an in-depth cognitive-semantic account for the fake object in Chinese VRC Three findings have been obtained in this thesis.First,the fake object denotes a conceptually specified autonomous "thing" and serves to elaborate the schematic landmark of verb-resultative structure(VR-structure)Second,a small percentage of FOBody Pan can be omitted without changing the original meaning,and the omissibility of fake object is closely related to the schematicity of the landmark of VR-structure.If and only if the landmark of VR-structure is endowed with an extremely high degree of specificity in conceptual terms,the fake object can be omitted.Otherwise,in order to construct a VRC,the fake object plays an essential role in specifying the landmark of VR-structures,and thus it cannot be omitted.Finally,the choice of fake object is restricted by three semantic requirements.First,an acceptable fake object must be capable of undergoing the change of state in conceptual terms.Second,it must bear a semantic association with the causing subevent of VR-structure.Third,by analyzing VRCs from a top-down perspective,the thesis has found that once a Chinese VRC with fake object is constructed,an acceptable fake object must hold a conceptual correspondence with the conceptually highlighted non-trajector portion of the causing subevent.If and only if a fake object meets all three semantic conditions,it can serve as an acceptable and legitimate subpart of the verb-resultative construction.It was found that the fake object in Chinese VRCs is a complex linguistic phenomenon,and a pure syntactic analysis cannot provide a comprehensive interpretation for its appearance.The author hopes the cognitive-semantic account of fake objects in present study may shed some new light on the investigation of this phenomenon.