A Cognitive Grammar Approach To Deviation Of English Transitivity

Transitivity is an important linguistic category. Based on the inadequacies of previous researches on transitivity and transitivity deviation, this dissertation holds a cognitive view towards English transitivity deviation. The previous researches on transitivity and transitivity deviation failed to find out its nature, and have not touched upon the diversified ways of transitivity deviation or given enough analysis of the underlying factors. Therefore, previous researches also failed to offer a systematic explanation for the transitivity deviation, let alone the underlying cognitive mechanism. Starting from these inadequacies, this dissertation takes the cognitive linguistic theories, more specifically theories of Cognitive Grammar, as an approach to the analysis of English SVO structure with the aim of probing into the innate features of transitivity, specific judging criteria for transitivity deviation, the routes of deviation, the cognitive mechanism behind the deviation and the clasual factors influencing the deviation of transitivity.This research attempts to find answers to the following questions:(1) What is transitivity? What are the main features of transitivity?(2) What are the criteria for judging the trnansitivity deviation of English SVO clauses? How does the transitivity of English SVO clauses deviate from the prototype? What are the specific cases and underlying cognitive mechanisms of the deviation?(3) What roles do the dimensions of construal play in transitivity deviation?(4) How do syntactic elements of the English SVO clause affect the drastic transitivity deviation?To find answers to these questions, this dissertation first reviews the theoretical models, major findings and limitations of the transitivity and transitivity deviation studies, on the basis of which the dissertation claims the possibility and feasibility of applying a cognitive grammatical approach to the study of transitivity deviation of English clauses. In this approach, transitivity is a category showing prototype effects. It is a semantic concept, expressed from the clause as a whole. The semantic meaning of transitivity is the conceptualization of events and the relationshiop between participants expressed by the clause. The conceptual meaning of prototypical transitivity is the prototypical transitive event cognitive model. The transitivity deviation does not refer to the deviation of a verb’s transitivity, but to that of a clause’s transitivity.On the basis of the working definition, some innate features of transitivity and the semantic criteria for judging deviation degrees are summarized. The dissertation continues to analyze the specific cases of transitivity prototypes and the deviation of transitivity in the SVO clause, the underlying cognitive mechanisms of metonymy and metaphor, and the physicality of transitivity. In addition, it discusses transitivity deviation due to different ways of construal in a fixed scene, which serves as an evidence of the dynamicity of transitivity. Finally, the dissertation focuses on detransitivization, or drastic deviation, and the effect of syntactic elements of the SVO clause as an evidence of the multi-factorial feature of transitivity. In general, from the study of transitivity deviation, transitivity cab be seen as an important concept relating to semantic, syntactic, cognitive and pragmatic factors.The research has the following findings:(1) Transitivity functions as the semantic pole of the complex symbolic unit-SVO clause. The meaning of transitivity is the conceptualization of the expressed events and the relationship between their participants.(2) Transitivity is typically characterized by physicality, dynamicity and multi-factoriality. Physicality means that the conceptual meaning of transitivity is canonical transitive event model, which is the conceptualization of motion event involving physical energy. The core meaning of prototypical transitivity is physical, whose realization relies on the physical time, space, force and energy. Dynamicity means that the two cognitive models of the conceptual meaning of transitivity— billiard ball model and stage model— are both dynamic with temporal dimension. The billiard ball model concerns the cognitive time of motion event, while the stage model involves the processing time of observation and construal. As a result, transitivity is not the mirror reflection of event, but the result of on-line processing of the actual events within a certain time. In addition, the degree of transitivity is dynamically changing, either drastically or slightly deviated from transitive prototype. Multi-factoriality suggests that transitivity is determined not by the verb, but by the whole clause, a variety of whose elements exert effect on transitivity deviation.(3) The conceptual content of prototypical transitivity is the canonical transitive model, based on which the events and participants features could be defined. Event features include: [+perfective], [+punctual], [+dynamic], [+unidirectional], [+asymmetrical], [+causative], [+contact], and [+energy transfer]. Participant features include agent features: [+animated], [+human], [+volitional], [+agentive] and patient features: [+unanimated], [+existed], [+internal change], [+individuality], [+controlled]. These semantic features together serve as the criteria for determining the degree of deviation. The more features the clause loses, the further it deviates from the prototype. However, what is most crucial is the existence of the action chain for energy transfer.(4) Deviation of clausal transitivity includes the deviation within a cognitive domain and between different cognitive domains. Each domain, physical, psychological or social, has the prototype. Within a certain domain, the transitivity of the clause may deviate from the center outward by way of conceptual metonymy. Across domains, with the physical domain as the center, it deviates into psychological and social domains by way of conceptual metaphor. The track of deviation may be described through examining the absence or presence of semantic features on the participants and transitive events. With the loss of the semantic features, the action chain for energy transfer breaks and the transitivity of the clause will be significantly reduced.(5) Transitivity of the clause is not a direct reflection of the scene, but the result of construal by the cognitive subjects. The events of higher-level transitivity may be encoded into lower-level ones, while the events of lower-level transitivity may be coded into higher ones. For the same situation, the difference of specificity, prominence and perspectives may lead to the different coding of the clause, resulting in transitivity deviation. That is to say, human cognitive processing plays the role of monitoring the deviation of transitivity semantics and levels, which is a proof of dynamicity. At the same time, construal is by no means arbitrary, but under the effect of various factors which are: a. cognitive prominence, b. situational features, c. communicative need, and d. semantics of verbs. These features are closely connected to constitute the construal mechanism of transitivity mechanism.(6) Transitivity is not the feature of the verb, but that of the clause, thus under the effect of all the elements of the clause. The core elements of the clause include predicate verb, subject and direct object. The non-core elements include modifiers, adjuncts and negation. The de-transitivization of the clause is usually realized by breaking the action chain for energy transfer in terms of semantic conflict, semantic overlapping or semantic loss within the clause. In these cases the transitive clauses turn to be intransitive clauses, clauses of extremely low transitivity or ungrammatical clauses.The dissertation consists of seven chapters.Chapter One is introduction, which introduces the research background, research questions, significance, approaches and layout of the dissertation. Chapter Two critically reviews previous researches on transitivity. Chapter Three gives an overall sketch of transitivity and transitivity deviation from the perspective of Cognitive Grammar. Based on the definition of transitivity and its basic features, the semantic and syntactic features of prototypical transitivity are summarized. This chapter further sets up specific prototypical transitivity semantic features functioning as the criteria for judging the degree of transitivity deviation from the prototype. Chapter Four focuses on the cases of deviation and the two characteristics of transitivity, namely dynamicity and physicality. With physical transitivity as the prototype, mental and social transitivity is the metaphorical extension from physical one. The underlying cognitive mechanism of transitivity is analyzed, mainly metaphor and metonymy. In Chapter Five, the dynamic feature is explained from the correlation between the dimensions of construal and transitivity deviation. Dynamicity of transitivity include not only the dynamic deviation from the good examples to bad examples, but also the change of transitivity caused by construal operation against the same situation, namely, different degrees of transitivity deviated from each other. Therefore, high transitive situations might be construed as events of low transitivity, which are encoded as clauses of lower transitivity. Chapter Six discusses the effect of clausal elements(including core arguments and non-core arguments) on detransitivization, the drastic deviation of transitivity. It is thus indicated that transitivity is multi-dimensional under the effect of various factors. Chapter Seven summarizes the findings, conclusions and major contributions of the research and points out the limitations and directions of future research.