A Study On The Constructional Mechanism Of The English Co-extension Path Fictive Motion Construction From The Perspective Of Embodied-cognitive Linguistics

The English co-extension path fictive motion construction is a special motion event structure that characterizes a static spatial relationship with motion verbs.The structure is expressed as “NP1+VM+NP2/PP”,where NP1 refers to the moving entity with[+extension][-mobility] features,which is the object of fictive motion according to the spatial position of the referent;VM refers to the motion verb with the dynamic characteristic,and a typical VM contains motion manner and path information;NP2 refers to the referent,and when the motion verb cannot express path information,NP2 appears in the form of PP.Since the emergence of this structure,many domestic and foreign scholars have explored it from different perspectives,and all of them have made certain contributions.However,it is found that most of the scholars’ studies have focused on the semantic features and syntactic forms of the internal elements and psychological realities,and not much attention is paid to the interaction between cognitive processing and experiential basis.With the growing development of Embodied-Cognitive Linguistics,the emerging view of embodied cognition has gradually become a research hot spot,providing a new paradigm for many linguistic problems.Therefore,this thesis attempts to investigate the constructional mechanism of English co-extension path fictive motion construction from the perspective of Embodied-Cognitive Linguistics,starting from the interpretation of cognitive processing and embodied basis.This study adopts a combined descriptive and interpretative approach to describe the syntactic and semantic features of the English co-extension path fictive motion construction and classify it,using the Corpus of Contemporary American English as the corpus source.At the same time,the cognitive mechanism and experiential basis within the embodied cognitive view are used as the theoretical support to explain the cognitive process of this construction from three aspects: dynamic categorization,metaphorization,and subjectification;in addition,the experiential process is revealed from three perspectives: category division,mapping relationship,and subjective construal.Three conclusions are drawn from the study as follows: first of all,syntactically,this construction presents high intensity of constituent selectivity,low transitivity and compulsory prepositional insertion;semantically,the structures reflect high eventive dynamics and positive spatial extensibility;categorically,this construction can be divided into prototypical and non-prototypical fictive motion construction in light of [traversability] of the figure.Second,the cognitive processing of the construction consists of three processes: dynamic categorization,metaphorization and subjectification.In the process of dynamic categorization,the initial category is obtained through the initial categorization,and then the VM is decategorized and recategorized to achieve multiple collocations within the construction.In the metaphorization process,the MOVABLE ENTITY IS OBJECT metaphor and the“source-path-destination” image schema conceptually map the logical semantics of the construction,highlighting the change from the action domain to the state domain.Subjectification plays a key role in resolving syntactic restrictions and counter-constraining the figure and path.Third,the embodied basis of English co-extension path fictive motion construction reveals its conceptualization process,which includes the division of prototypical and non-prototypical categories,the acquisition of dynamicity,and the subjective perception through egocentricity.This thesis takes the Embodied-Cognitive Linguistics as the theoretical foundation,examines the cognitive processing and embodied basis of English co-extension path fictive motion construction and investigates the embodied-cognitive mechanism,which helps clarify the constructional mechanism behind this structure and presents the explanatory power of Embodied-Cognitive Linguistics.Moreover,implications on grammar teaching and translation research are discussed.