A Cognitive Analysis On The Semantics Of FOR And TO As Particles

The number of particles is small,but particles can produce a lot of different meanings.Thus,research on particles has been a hot topic over the decades.Traditional structuralists and transformational-generativists have overlooked the interrelation of multiple meanings in particles,Scholars have not well explained the derivation process of these meanings.In contrast,cognitive linguists believe that particles have their semantic network.In this network,the distinct senses are all associated with a central meaning which is called the primary sense.Under the guidance of this view,cognitive linguists have proposed different theories to explain the polysemy of particles.For example,Prototype Theory,Conceptual Metaphor Theory and Image Schema Theory.In this stage,many cognitive linguists conducted research on particles and obtained great achievements.However,research in this field still leaves room for improvement.Tyler and Evans proposed Principled Polysemy Model based on the above three theories.This model is a relatively perfect and objective theory of semantic research.This thesis aims to put an interpretation on the polysemic network of English particles FOR and TO on the basis of Principled Polysemy Model,and to compare the semantic resemblances and differences between the two particles.Firstly,the thesis identified the primary sense and proto-scene of FOR and TO.Based on the reference to four authoritative dictionaries and 400 examples collected from COCA(American Contemporary English Corpus),the thesis observed that the primary sense of FOR is the Purpose sense,and the primary sense of TO is the Towards sense.During this process,the thesis followed the five criteria for determining the primary sense in Principled Polysemy Model in order to minimize the subjectivity of judgment.Secondly,the thesis identified the distinct senses of FOR and TO on the basis of the above observed results.In the semantic network of FOR,12 distinct senses were organized into 3 semantic clusters.In the semantic network of TO,10 distinct senses were organized into 2 semantic clusters.For each distinct sense,the thesis provided explanations for its derivation,supplemented and supported by the evidence from both language and life experience.Finally,the thesis made a semantic comparison between FOR and TO and found that in some contexts the two particles were synonyms,while in other contexts they had very different meanings.This phenomenon could be explained from the cognitive perspective.By applying the cognitive theories to the analysis of the semantics of the particles FOR and TO,the thesis provides a way to a better understanding of the internal relationships among different senses in particles,which,in turn,can promote us to study and distinguish particles from the perspective of cognitive linguistics.