An Analysis Of “Fo Xi X” From The Perspective Of Construction Grammar

In 2014,“Fo Xi”(Fo meaning Buddha and Xi meaning set/group literally)made its first appearance on a magazine circulated in Japan and almost immediately the word went viral on the Internet and motivated some new expressions mainly in the form of “Fo Xi X”(X representing an additional element).In this relatively new structure “Fo Xi X”,“Fo” has lost its denotative meaning,and is used in its connotative meaning.All the previous studies on the“Fo Xi X”structure are mainly focused on either semantic description of its constituents or its distribution in a sentence as a syntactic component.Some studies are based on cognitive linguistics,but limited to meaning construal of the whole structure.Although there are descriptions of semantic features of the variable“X”,these descriptions do not explain why“佛系桌子”(“桌子”pronounced zhuo zi,meaning“table”)or“佛系开门”(“开门”pronounced kai men,meaning“open the door”)is implausible.According to construction grammar,a construction is a form-meaning pair in which either an aspect of form or an aspect of meaning is non-predictable.“Fo Xi”has already been verified as a construction,and this thesis aims to further clarify“Fo Xi X”as a construction and what semantic features“X”has in this construction from the perspective of construction coercion and lexical coercion of construction grammar so as to explain why“佛系桌子”or“佛系开门”is not acceptable.Specifically,this thesis is intended to answer the following questions based on construction grammar and the author’s self-constructed corpus:(1)What is the rationale for “Fo Xi X ” as a construction?(2)What kind of phrases can be accepted as the variables of “X” in the construction “Fo Xi X”?(3)What is the meaning of the whole construction?(4)Are there any variable constructions for “Fo Xi X ”?The main findings are as follows:(1)“Fo Xi X” is a construction in that the overall meaning of “Fo Xi” is not the sum of the denotative meanings of “Fo” and “Xi”,with “Fo” restricted to its connotative meaning and “Xi” having undergone the process of grammaticalization.(2)The author’s self-constructed corpus shows that the “X” in the construction “Fo Xi X” can have as its variables noun phrases and verb phrases that presuppose two possible results---either an ideal one or a less than ideal one,and involve much human efforts to bring out the ideal result.When preceding a noun phrase or a verb phrase,“Fo Xi” indicates that not enough human efforts have been made and hence the less than ideal result prevails over the ideal one.(3)The meanings of the construction “Fo Xi X” can be classified into two categories: the subjective evaluation and the additional expressiveness.The construction in itself is used to express people’s subjective evaluation and it is entirely contingent on human perception.When it comes to the additional expressiveness,this construction offers a more vivid description compared with other common adjectives or adverbs.(4)For the construction“Fo Xi X”,there is a variable construction“X Fo Xi”,in which“X”is an adjective or an adverb according to the author’s self-constructed corpus.In contrast to the less than ideal meaning of the“X”in the construction“Fo Xi X”,the“X”in the variation“X Fo Xi”either makes the meaning of the whole construction opposite to the meaning of“Fo Xi”as in“非佛系”and“伪佛系”,or emphasizes the high degree of“Fo Xi”,as in“太佛系”and“斗战胜佛系”.Hopefully,this research could provide a new perspective and method for the research and analysis of other Chinese constructions.