A Study On Semantic And Functional Transformation Of “si” (Death) In Chinese From The Perspective Of Cognitive Linguistics

Semantic and functional transformation of words is a common feature of all languages and has been one of the hot topics in language research.Being a common word in modern Chinese,“si”(death)has gone through the process of semantic transformation for many times and has had a variety of meanings,which has enriched the cognitive ability and expressive ability of Chinese language.Beginning with the study of the semantic and functional transformation of the Chinese word “si”(death),This thesis aims to explore the paths to the semantic and functional transformation of the Chinese word and find out the general rules of semantic and functional transformation.As the research object is the semantic and functional transformation of a single Chinese word “si”(death),we have not found any relevant foreign research thesis.Domestic researches mainly focus on the classification of various meanings of “death”,the causes of grammaticalization,the differences and characteristics of meaning of “si”(death)in different syntactic positions,and the intuitive research on the causes and paths of semantic transformation,but the latter is not systematical.Therefore,we know little about the development process of semantic transformation and functional transformation of Chinese word “si”(death),which requires a more accurate and in-depth research.The generation and transformation of meaning is one of the most important problems in the development of cognitive linguistics.In order to solve the problem,cognitive linguistics has put forward prototype category theory and metaphor theory.Prototype category theory and metaphor theory emphasize the motivation of semantic transformation of words when guiding us to study semantic transformation of words.it shows that the semantic transformation of words is not arbitrary,but based on human rational thinking.According to prototype category theory and metaphor theory in cognitive linguistics.We have sorted out and analyzed all kinds of relationship between the meanings of modern Chinese word “si”(death)deviating from its original meaning--new meanings after semantic transformation--and its original meaning,and found that these new meanings are directly or indirectly related to the original meaning of “si”(death).Our study finds that the relationship between these new meanings and the original meaning of “si”(death)can be reasonably explained by the prototype category theory and metaphor theory in cognitive linguistics.This discovery proves from the reverse side that prototype category and metaphor are the main ways of semantic and functional transformation of Chinese words,which fully demonstrates that the semantic and functional transformation of Chinese words conforms to the cognitive law of human beings,having strong motivation.