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The CG-based Approach To The Analysis Of The Chinese BA Construction

Posted on:2006-06-16Degree:MasterType:Thesis
Country:ChinaCandidate:F LiFull Text:PDF
GTID:2155360152482809Subject:English Language and Literature
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The Chinese BA construction is a most controversial but frequently used particular sentence pattern with its most salient characteristic of word order, in which the NP behind the morpheme BA is put before the verb.In view of the deficiency and inadequacy of the previous research, this thesis reexamined the Chinese BA construction in the construction grammar (CG) framework with the attempt to formalize the construction components and their relationships. In the process of representing the Chinese BA construction, we cannot avoid surveying various relations between argument roles and participant roles, which will embody the claim that profiled participant roles should be fused with argument roles that are realized as direct grammatical functions.Based on the analysis of the actual corpus data and Goldberg's (1995) definition of constructions, the Chinese BA construction can surly be considered as an independent argument structure construction, which is both associated with the twoargument roles ------ causer and theme and characterized by the basic meaning:CAUSING TO BE TOTALLY AFFECTED. And the meaning of an actual expression of the Chinese BA construction, according to CG, is the result of the interplay between lexical and constructional meanings. So lexical and constructional meanings can reinforce each other, if compatible and carry out a grammatical expression; if conflicting, in order to get a grammatical expression, they will coerce each other and result in polysemy. But owing to all kinds of limit, the description of the circumstances will have to be left for further research under which constructional meaning will coerce lexical meaning, rather than be coerced by lexical meaning, or conversely, lexical meaning will coerce constructional meaning, instead of being coerced by constructional meaning.In the end it will come to seem clear to us that the CG approach can provide satisfactory accounts at a level of simplicity and elegance that other theories may not be able to attain.
Keywords/Search Tags:semantic analysis, the Chinese BA construction, CG framework
PDF Full Text Request
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