Cognitive Research On The Verbal Use Of Nouns In "Zuo Zhuan"

N-V conversion is a common and complex linguistic phenomenon in pre-Qin Chinese and even modern Chinese.Previous studies focused on mainly how to describe this phenomenon,but less involved deeper explanations.Zuozhuan(《左传》)is an important historical document of the pre-Qin period with high corpus value.It,from the perspective of cognition,is very meaningful for understanding the semantic basis and cognitive mechanism of N-V conversion of archaic Chinese by analyzing the conversion of Zuozhuan(《左传》),using related theories of prototype category,conceptual metonymy and conceptual metaphor.N-V conversion is a kind of prototype category,whoes members are divided into typical and atypical.Denominal verbs and multi-category words are the two extremes of a continuum.It is difficult to distinguish between the atypical conversion and the multi-category word.Some multi-category words are originated from the used conversions.Denominal verbs are pervasive.Almost all subcategories of nouns in Zuozhuan(《左传》)can be used as verbs whether they are animate nouns,inanimate noun,aterial nouns,abstract nouns,or local nouns,time nouns,and proper nouns.Conversion will be restricted in varying degrees by the functions and semantic features of nouns and human cognitive abilities.Therefore,some subcategories have more conversion than others.We conclude 13 types of semantic relations of N-V conversion in Zuozhuan(《左传》),such as Agent-triggered Action,Experiencer-triggered Action,Patient-triggered Action,Dative-triggered Action,Result-triggered Action,Instrment-triggered Action,Mode-triggered Action,Material-triggered Action,Time-triggered Action,Locativetriggered Action,Orientation-triggered Action and so on.In addition,the semantic relationship of the three words is unknown.The phenomenon of N-V conversion is the result that metonymic thinking and metaphorical thinking interweave together.Meanwhile,it is conceptual metonymy that is the most basic cognitive mechanism in the process of conversion.For this complex linguistic phenomenon,we will be able to draw a reasonable explanation on the basis of a large number of descriptions,carrying out detailed analysis from different perspectives with relevant theories.