A Cognitive Semantic Study Of English "Be+V-en" Construction

Passive voice is an essential grammatical category of English verbs.A lot of studies have been made on it at home and abroad from different perspectives,including traditional grammar,transformational grammar,functional approach,and cognitive grammar.Many linguists regard the“Be+V-en” Construction(the BVC,for short)as the marked form or the prototype of the passive voice of English verbs.In fact,the prototype of the passive voice and the predicative structure are subsumed into the BVC category.Few studies have been made in detail on the BVC,especially from the meanings of the BVC and its meaning construction and motivations.This thesis makes efforts to probe into the BVC in terms of cognition with an aim to deepen the study of the BVC,which has jumped out of the prerequisite of the BVC equivalent to the passive voice.This thesis employs a unified framework of grammaticalization,canonical event model and cognitive construal,and tries to answer the following three research questions.(1)What are the semantic features of the BVC?(2)What is the grammaticalization of the BVC?(3)How are the passive meanings and non-passive meanings of the BVC constructed?This thesis has convincingly argued for the following three major viewpoints.First of all,there are mainly two kinds of meanings of the BVC,passive meanings and non-passive meanings included.According to thepresence or absence of the agent,passive meanings are further divided into explicit passive meanings and implicit passive meanings;to whether the result of action continuing or not,passive meanings can also be classified into perfective passive meanings and imperfective passive meanings.Therefore,logically,four categories of passive meanings concerning the BVC are formed as follows: explicit perfective passive meanings,explicit imperfective passive meanings,implicit perfective passive meanings and implicit imperfective passive meanings;while non-passive meanings of the BVC mainly cover attribute,resultant state,emotional reaction and location relationship.Secondly,the BVC developed from “copula be + predicative adjective” construction denoting resultant state to “auxiliary be + V-en”manifesting dynamic meanings.The construction had the static and adjective meaning,to be exactly,perfective meaning.The emergence of have-perfect made the BVC reanalyze into the marked form of the passive voice;moreover,the occurrence of progressive aspect reinforced the dynamicity.The form of the BVC has changed from“beon/wesan/weotan +(inflectional)V-en” to “be +(uninflectional)V-en”.The mechanisms of reanalysis and analogy have played crucial roles in the evolution of the BVC.Lastly,the essence of the passive meanings of the BVC is agency and affectedness: if agent is followed by the end of construction,explicit passive meanings are called;otherwise,it is called to contain implicit passive meanings.In the whole event of action,if all the process are highlighted,imperfective passive meanings occur;if only the final result or state is prominent,perfective passive meanings emerge.The agentmakes an influence on the patient.Non-passive meanings of the BVC are mainly due to the nature of stativity,and there is no agent-patient relationship between participants and also there is no mutual influence caused by each other.The motivations for the BVC mainly consist of the following four factors: bodily experiences,knowledge structure,the principle of economy and perceptual prominence.