A Contrastive Study Of Semantic Multifunctionality Between Come/Go In English And Lái/Qù In Chinese From The Perspective Of Lexical Typology

Deictic motion verbs indicate motion concerning the deictic center,which is canonically the position of the speech act participants but may also be shifted into another location where the viewpoint of the conceptualizer is situated.They are frequently used in different languages.As far as the verbs lai(来)/qu(去)in Chinese and come/go in English are concerned,numerous academics both at home and abroad have made significant study advancements regarding the verbs lai(来)/qu(去)in Chinese and come/go in English.However,there is still room for advancement regarding the research perspectives and contents.In terms of research perspectives,previous research are rather straightforward and lack typological and contrastive analysis.As for research concerns,prior research primarily focused on their grammatical and pragmatic characteristics but neglected the semantic multifunctionality as content words.Furthermore,there are few studies on the fundamental cognitive mechanism underlying the similarities and differences in usages of deictic motion verbs across languages.Given this,this thesis conducts a contrastive analysis of the semantic multifunctionality of deictic motion verbs in English and Chinese from the perspective of lexical typology.The specific research questions of this thesis are as follows:(1)What are the similarities and differences of multifunctions between come/go in English and lai(来)/qu(去)in Chinese?(2)What are the semantic maps of come/go in English and lai(来)/qu(去)in Chinese?(3)What is the cognitive mechanism behind the semantic extension of these two pairs of deictic motion verbs in English and Chinese?The main findings of this thesis are as follows:First,the colexification phenomena of the concepts COME and GO across the world languages has been shown according to the survey in the apparatus of CLICS~3.Then,through comparison and integration analysis,it is found that 27 different but related meanings are integrated into the semantics of motion verbs come and lai(来),and 31 different but related ones are sorted into the semantics of motion verbs go and qu(去).Comparing and integrating all the distinct but related meanings between come and lai(来),go,and qu(去)presents a better picture of the similarities and differences between the multifunctionality of these two pairs of deictic motion verbs.Second,the conceptual spaces of concepts COME and GO are obtained after being verified and adjusted by the typological language data.Based on the multifunctions of corresponding linguistic items of concepts COME and GO in English and Chinese,the corresponding semantic maps of lai(来)/qu(去)in Chinese and come/go in English can be drawn in the conceptual spaces of the deictic concepts COME and GO.Finally,this thesis explores the cognitive mechanism behind the semantic extension of these two pairs of deictic motion verbs.The deictic motion verbs in English and Chinese have experienced regular extensions based on their literal meanings,representing the expansibility,extensibility or similarity of related concepts in certain specific cognitive domains.Nevertheless,the two pairs of deictic motion verbs indicating COME and GO still differ regarding semantic extension in exact cognitive domains.The semantics of verbs come and lai(来)can extend in nine cognitive domains,including TIME,SPACE,MANNER,RESULT,DIRECTION,MOVEMENT,STATE,PURPOSE and FUNCTION.However,the semantics of verbs go and qu(去)can extend to only six cognitive domains,containing TIME,SPACE,MOVEMENT,STATE,PURPOSE and FUNCTION.It is found that conceptual metaphor and metonymy are the cognitive mechanisms of similarities in semantic extension and generalization of these two pairs of deictic motion verbs.The difference in semantic extension is caused by profiling different elements of their motion events under the influence of metonymy,which reflects diverse ethnic cognitive models of conceptualization in English and Chinese.It is also a true portrayal of the cognitive differences formed by various nations under the influence of environmental and social factors.This thesis contributes to revealing the cognitive commonness of human beings through cross-language comparison and can also be helpful to foreign language teaching and lexicography compilation.