Ordering Preference And Cognitive Motivations In Meaning Extension Of The Construction “You X You Y”

The construction “you X you Y”,one of thirty-four half-fixed “sizige”(four-character patterns)included in Chi nese dictionary,has gained in increasing popularity over the past two decades.Previous studies(Xiang,2000;Meng,2015,2016)however,attached more importance to its forms,syntactic properties and pragmatic values.There are some unsolved issues and some a spects of the construction are worth an in-depth exploration.Based on the limitations of previous studies,two questions the thesis aims to address are as follows:(i)Is there order preference between X and Y in the construction? And if yes,what are the factors governing the ordering of XY?(ii)Obviously,the construction exhibits polysemy,so what meanings can be generalized from the construction? How are other construction meanings connected with the prototypical meaning? What are the cognitive motiva tions in the extension of the construction meaning?From the perspective of cognitive linguistics,the results of the exploration of the above questions are as follows.Data shows that the construction does favor an order over the other.Iconicity,the connection between linguistic expressions and the structure of cognitive experience,is the key factor influencing ordering preference of XY.To be specific,they are iconicity of closeness,iconicity of temporal sequence and iconicity of cultural values.Besides,whether XY is a phrase independent of the construction,which excludes the cases where XY can form a compound like “gaoai”(tall short)and “pangshou”(fat thin),also plays a part in the order of XY.For those where XY is a phrase independent of the construction,the order of XY remains the same.It is found the construction exhibits polysemy.T he construction meanings are generalized based on semantic transparency.The standard of generalization is set for the convenience of analysis of cognitive m otivations in meaning extension of the construction.Thus for those where construction meanings are totally transparent,they retain the compositional meaning like “you de you cai”(have moral have talent).When the construction meaning is partly predictabl e,some indicate exhaustiveness or a sense of diversity.And some express an abstract concept with a concrete entity.Apart from denoting the existence or possession of X and Y,cases of the kind aim to express the abstract concept that the lies in the com bination of X and Y.For example,“you shan you shui” means beautiful scenery and “you fang you che” indicates being in fairly good financial condition.As for those where meanings are completely opaque,their meanings are hard to generalize,but they also convey abstract concepts with concrete entities,such as “you xue you rou”,“you ming you xing” and “you shou you jiao”.In addition,the construction exhibits polysemy,not only in the construction as a whole,but also in the specific instance in differe nt contexts.The prototypical meaning is the literal meaning of the construction,co-existence or possession of X and Y,which is totally transparent.And the cases of the kind account for a small proportion.The literal meaning of the construction serves as input for partly predictable meanings and unpredictable meanings,so what are the cognitive motivations in the meaning extension? This is one of research focuses of the thesis.The analysis shows that metonymy and metaphor play an outstanding role in meaning extension of the construction,especially metonymy,which is in volved in most cases.Besides,metaphor also plays a special part.Metaphor-based metonymic inference is quite common in many instances.It is noteworthy that the cognitive motivation of the interpretation is not only instance-specific,but also context-bound.For a specific“you X you Y”,its meaning is highly dependent on the context,so is the meaning extension.