A Cognitive Study Of Middle Sentences In Modern Chinese

The middle sentence is one of the cross-language grammatical categories.A lot of achievements have made on the researches in this area up to now.Most of the previous studies have been focused on the English middle sentences in syntactic and semantic features,sentence generation,semantic restrictions.There are relatively few cognitive studies that have been done,let alone a systematic cognitive exploration on middle sentences in modern Chinese.There has been a controversy on whether middle sentences in modern Chinese exist or not and on how to define this grammatical category.Besides,comprehensive investigations on defining criteria and classification of middle sentences in modern Chinese can be hardly found.What's more,previous researches seldom make a systemic comparative study of the similarities and differences of the main subtypes of middle sentences in modern Chinese.Even fewer studies have provided comparatively unified and thorough cognitive explanations of the cognitive processes and motivations of conceptualizations of middle sentences in modern Chinese.This dissertation aims to address three questions based on previous studies:(1)what are the new defining criteria and re-classifications of middle sentences in modern Chinese?(2)What are the similarities and differences,and the relationships between the subtypes of middle sentences in modern Chinese?(3)How are middle sentences in modern Chinese semantically conceptualized?What are the motivations of their conceptualizations?Based on the theories of cognitive linguistics and cognitive psychology,this paper has made studies on the new defining criteria,re-classifications,analyses of features and the cognitive processes and motivations of conceptualizations of middle sentences in modern Chinese,mainly combined with a qualitative study.In addition,synchronic and diachronic methods are employed in this paper,on the basis of a large number of reliable corpus data from CCL and BCC.This dissertation concluded the new defining criteria for middle sentences in modern Chinese by investigating the prototypical features of middle sentences from semantic,pragmatic and syntactic aspects.And middle sentences in modern Chinese have been accordingly classified into three subtypes based on the new defining criteria.The semantic and syntactic similarities and differences have been compared between the three subtypes of middle sentences in modern Chinese.And we have also conducted an explanation of the cognitive processes of conceptualizations and their motivations.Our findings are as follows:(1)Semantic,pragmatic and syntactic characteristics of middle sentences in modern Chinese interrelate with each other,which constitutes an integrated whole.We have generalized the prototypical features of middle sentences in modern Chinese by taking semantic,pragmatic,syntactic factors into consideration:Semantically,middle sentences in modern Chinese involve the concept of self-involvement,modality and genericity.Pragmatically,they all have commentary function,evidentiality function and communicative function.Syntactically,they definitely take the argument structure with the non-agentive argument as the subject and the agentive argument implied.There is usually a verb-object combination in a broad sense between the subject and the main verb in the middle sentence,which bears a non-eventive aspectual feature.Hence this dissertation argues that there exist middle sentences in modern Chinese,which include three subtypes of sentences as "NPnon-agentive Vx+XP,"NPnon-agentive+ ADVx+V and"NPnon-agentive+AUXx+V".(2)The similarities between the three subtypes of middle sentences in modern Chinese can be described as the following:Semantically,they all express the commentary meaning on the part of the speaker with attributes of entities.Pragmatically,they share commons on their expressive functions,textual distributions and pragmatic intentions.Syntactically,they also possess the same argument structure and temporal characteristics.And the differences between three subtypes of middle sentences in modern Chinese are as follows:Semantically,the subtype "NP non-agentive+Vx+XP,elaborates more details of action designated by the verb than the subtypes "NPnon-agentive+ADVx+V" and "NPnon-agentive+AUXx+V" do.Syntactically,the modifier XP locates at the end of "NP non-agentive+Vx+XP",but the ADVx and the AUXx locates in the middle of"NPnon-agentive+ADVx+V" and "NPnon-agentive+AUXx+V" respectively.Diachronically,instances of "NPnon-agentive +Vx+XP" all reflect the evolutional path of "serial-verb sentences�patient-topic sentences�the middle sentences".However,instances of "NPnon-agentive+ADVx+V" and"NPnon-agentive+AUXx+V" evolve irregularly during the course of language development.(3)The affordance concept and epstemic modality could be the cognitive basis of middle sentences in modem Chinese.The affordance concept implies an interrelationship between an animal and its environment,which corresponds to that between the implied agent and the entity designated by the non-agentive subject in middle sentences.The cognitive subjects(the human beings)usually observe their experiences of interaction with things and the world from a perspective of self-involvement,and they express epistemic modality by utterence,which reflects views and attitudes of the speaker towards possibility and certainty of propositions designated by sentences.Actually,the epistemic modality would have an effect on the form and meaning of middle sentences in modern Chinese.(4)The conceptualization process of middle sentences in modern Chinese contains procedures of the resultant force of arguments,summary scanning of action experience and metonymic coercion from the result of the event.The argument structure of middle sentences in modern Chinese represents asymmetry importance of the non-agentive argument and the implied agent in the relative cognitive domain.This argument structure is also the result of foregrounding and backgrounding,which involves demotion of the agent in the force dynamic model.Middle sentences in modem Chinese activate cognitive domain of the force dynamic model,in which the implied agent corresponds to the agonist and the non-agentive argument corresponds to the antagonist.In the process of force application and resistance,the non-agentive argument produces force of letting,which facilitates or hinders the force from the agonist.Under the influence of the speaker's subjectification of the subject and the VP as well as their relationship,the non-agentive subject plays a dominant role in the fore dynamic pattern against the implied agent.And the demotion of the agent of Chinese middle sentences is realized in such a force dynamic pattern.Middle sentences in modern Chinese possess properties of noneventiveness and generic meaning,which are also results of people's summary scanning of the action event designated by VP in the relative domain.According to habitual actions and interaction with other entities in the world,people generalize regularity and experience,which involve construal operation of summary scanning.During the course of people's generalization and conceptualization of the generic meaning,they take the process of interaction and perception as a whole,but take particular occurrences as subevents of the process with the perspective of summary scanning.The same results of cumulated action embodiments are abstracted and highlighted with people's perspective of summary scanning when they observe the action event indicated by the middle verb.Hence,we can conceive of the state meaning and the noneventiveness of middle sentences in modern Chinese.But there is a conflict between the state meaning indicated by middle sentences in modern Chinese and the action meaning indicated by the verbs.The semantic conflict is eliminated by coercion from middle sentences in modern Chinese upon the action meaning indicated by the verbs.The elimination of the semantic conflict is realized when people refer to the result by action through conceptual metonymy,since the result of the action bears a contiguity relation with the action in the same cognitive domain.(5)In addition,factors contributing to the conceptualizations of middle sentences in modern Chinese are the motivations of language economy and iconicity,the motivations of subjectification expressions,and the motivations of cultural prominence.Our major contributions lie in the following aspects:Firstly,we have figured out a set of new unified defining criteria integrated with semantic,pragmatic and syntactic facets of middle sentences.What's more,we have explicitly pointed out that 4 NPnon-agentive+Vx+XP","NPnon-agentive+ADVx+V" and "NPnon-agentive+AUXx+V" are included in middle sentences in modern Chinese.Thus,we have provided an approach to the controversy over questions concerning defining criteria and classifications of middle sentences in modern Chinese.The new defining criteria for middle sentences in modern Chinese can be applied to middle sentences in other languages,such as English middle sentences.Secondly,we have made a comparative study of the similarities and differences between three subtypes of the middle sentences in modern Chinese,according to their semantic,pragmatic,and syntactic features.This finding provides a more comprehensive perspective for the study of overall characteristics of middle sentences in modern Chinese.In addition,we have also discussed the diachronic evolution and inheritance linking of the subtypes of Chinese middle sentences,which could be helpful and insightful for the understanding of issues about diachronic evolution and classification of Chinese middle sentences.Thirdly,we have provided a unified cognitive explanation of the processes and motivations of conceptualizations,and a reasonable cognitive explanation for the interrelationship between form and meaing of middle sentences in modern Chinese,which could enhance the explanatory power of cognitive grammar and force dynamic theories on middle sentences in modern Chinese.