| Resultative construction is a kind of causatives as well as complex structures. As a special type of causatives, it is of importance in grammar system. Meanwhile, as a complex structure, it becomes a study field with increasing significance in cognitive and contrastive linguistics because of its complicated cognitive mechanism and distinct differences among different languages. Most of previous studies put their emphasis on the syntactic realization and semantic reference of R (result), which still could not explain English and Chinese resultatives in a unified way. And previous studies often have been confined in one language and the contrastive study between English and Chinese resultatives is still weak. The studies based on Construction Grammar are so traditional that the R study was too general without noticing the differences between English and Chinese resultatives. Therefore based on the Goldberg’s Construction Grammar theory (1995.2006) and from a synergic perspective, the present study makes its study objects as English and Chinese resultatives in a narrow sense. Different English and Chinese resultatives have been sorted according their thematic combinations and analyzed in "Synergy Schema’" with reference point R. In the last but one chapter a detailed contrastive study is made.Proposed by Xiong (2008a,2009),"Synergy" is originally a conception to avoid the paradox in Goldberg’s two definitions about Construction and is then developed in the present study. Synergy is defined as "the interaction between constructions and verbs with something added" while Synergic Mechanisms are those mechanisms of argument realization with something added. English resultatives are categorized into six types and Chinese resultatives into twelve types according to their different thematic combinations and according to "whether two semantic roles can share one syntactic position or not" we re-categorize them into "thm-pat","agt-pat" and "one-to-one" type. Then "Construction-Pattern’" Synergic Model and Synergic Schema are introduced. In Synergic Model "construction" is defined as "pairings of syntactic schemas (called A) with basic cognitive experiences (called G)" and "pattern" is defined as "the variants of constructions". In Synergic Schema, the definitions of construction and pattern, the synergic types, A and G are all clearly illustrated while R’s syntactic realization and semantic reference are illustrated through synergic mechanisms and thematic combinations. It is then found that two traditional mechanisms of argument realization can not explain the phenomenon that some NP in "thm-pat" or "agt-pat" resultatives can get thm or agt role from "fusion"(F) and in the meantime get pat role from "sole contribution"(SC). That is why the synergic mechanism "compromise"(C) is coined and its function is to make two different semantic roles share one syntactic position. Synergic mechanisms include SC and C but not F because there is nothing added in F. What is more, some synergic rules have been concluded:1) C only applies in where there are two semantic roles in one syntactic position;2) SC always provides pat and result role and R is realized by SC;3) F provides NPs for agt and thm but when SC also provides pat for the same NP, C is activated to realize the NP’s argument rather than F;4) F or C is dispensable but SC is a necessity, from which we can see there is at least one synergic mechanism SC in synergic resultatives.The present study is a contrastive study so that some similarities and differences between English and Chinese resultatives have been concluded. Three similarities are the followings:1) the same cognitive basis and cognitive ways;2) oblique objects in both English and Chinese resultatives can be realized into nuclear.argument and unaccusative verbs have the same syntactic performances;3) reflexive resultatives can be found semantic correspondence in Chinese resultatives. Five differences as well as the hidden reasons are the followings:1) the syntactic structure of English resultatives is VOR and Chinese VRO, whose reason is the Principle of Iconicity (and The Principle of Temporal Sequence) and Chinese Disyllabification Tendency;2) the separation of thm and pat in Chinese, whose reason could be the Principle of Iconicity, Topic-Prominence in Modern Chinese as a highly analytic language and Verb-Copy Constructions;3) Verb-Copy Constructions in Chinese could be attributed to the different expressions of English and Chinese causatives, the necessary copied verb when some NP can not be raised into the surface syntactic structure and its special semantic meaning "unexpectedness";4) ambiguities in Chinese "V LEI" resultatives, which can be explained by the different word type for R;5) Chinese Resultatives are much more flexible and abundant than English resultatives. |
