On "S Bi NP Hai NP" Construction In Mandarin Chinese: A Cognitive Perspective

Within the framework of the conceptual blending theory combined with construction grammar, this thesis has made an analysis of"S bi NP hai NP"structure in Mandarin Chinese, aiming to discover the cognitive generation mechanism of this construction. It holds that this non-canonical bi comparative is achieved by the blending of the comparative structure"S bi NP hai AP"and the tautological structure"NP shi NP". In mandarin Chinese, the prototypical sentence structure"S bi NP hai AP"is often adopted to express comparative meaning. The comparative standard NP is often introduced by the preposition"bi". As the main purpose is to discriminate the differences between two related things or to emphasize the characteristics of the subject by comparing it with another object, the comparative result is required to be gradable, which is often revealed as AP. Therefore, the usage of NP comparative result (S bi NP hai NP) seems to violate the convention of Mandarin grammar. However, there is a tendency that"S bi NP hai NP"structure is widely employed to emphasize certain characteristics of the subject NP by comparing it with the object possessed with those typical features, so as to achieve rhetorical effect by using this concise, vivid and humorous expression.This thesis has first defined"S bi NP hai NP"as a construction (SNNC) for its form and function are not strictly predictable from its component parts. The form of SNNC is non-predictable because the degree adverb hai modifies an NP and the same NP appears twice in a comparative sentence. Besides, its function cannot be predicated from either the comparee NP or the standard NP because the comparative function of this whole structure is revealed by the composition of all the components in it. As a form-function pairing, this construction involves a subject, a standard NP and the NP comparative result. It is often employed to emphasize the characteristics of the comparee NP by comparing it with a typical standard. The thesis has also proved the necessity of positing SNNC.Besides, the thesis has discussed the degree adverb hai and the characteristics of NP in SNNC. There are various ways of expressing comparative meaning in Mandarin Chinese, while the comparee and the standard NP in SNNC should be restricted to NP phrasal comparatives. The specialty of these bi comparatives is one necessary precondition for the usage of SNNC. The degree adverb hai is obligatory so as to convey the degree of comparee NP exceeds that of the standard NP. Moreover, the descriptive features are the evaluative contents so that nouns with typical semantic characteristics can collocate with degree adverb to profile their gradable meanings. The NP with descriptive features is the other vitally important precondition for expressing comparative meaning by SNNC.Moreover, as a phenomenon which gives rises to blends, analogy can be applied for the diction of words to meet the need of communication. The predicative NP in tautological structure is the statement of describing the features, properties or characteristics of its subject, which is similar with the predicate NP in SNNC. The existence of tautological structure can be dated back to thousand years ago in ancient Chinese. The language users would analogize its way of diction that is to describe the characteristics of NP with the same NP, by creating a new expression to utter the comparative meaning.