A Cognitive Approach To English Verb Periphrasis

Generally speaking, periphrasis can be defined, as the substitution of longer, multi-word expressions for single words. It is generally studied in rhetoric; it is also studied in syntax, in such areas as verb conjugation (with temporal auxiliaries), comparative forms (with more), and interrogatives (with do). At the same time, it should be the object of study of semantics.In this thesis I'd like to narrow it down to the scope of English verbs, as the usual case where a single verb (the original verb) is substituted by a multiword structure made up of a more general verb (the general verb) plus the noun paronym of the original verb, i.e., a nominalized verb (the verbal noun). For instance, we prefer to say have a bath instead of bathe, take a walk instead of simply walk. This phenomenon is especially popular in oral English, and seems somewhat abnormal in that a simpler form abdicates for a complicated one, which is against human desire for economic use of language. Many linguists have mentioned this seeming abnormality in their works of syntax, pragmatics and rhetoric, attempting to provide motivations for this kind of abnormality. However, a systematic explanation of this linguistic phenomenon in the field of semantics is still lacking so far as we know, and it seems that the meaning change during the process of verb periphrasis is too subtle to be captured by common semantic analysis. This thesis aims to carry out an investigation on the nature of this kind of periphrasis from a cognitive perspective, attempting to find the psychological reality behind it.The intention of the thesis is two-fold. On the one hand, it attempts to make up for the inadequacy in previous studies of English verb periphrasis, extending the scope of our research to periphrastic expressions with verbs other than take and have; on the other hand, it proposes a tentative study ofEnglish verb periphrasis from a cognitive point of view by analyzing the cognitive structures of the general verbs common in use and the nominalization process of the original verb in the uniform framework of cognitive grammar, in the hope that this is an efficient and explanatory way to disclose the nature of forms and meanings of English verb periphrasis. We think the meaning of the original verbs is enriched by the use of the multiword structures during the process of periphrasis. That is to say, the meaning conveyed by the original verb is not equal to that conveyed by the periphrastic form. Our point goes as follows:Firstly, we probe into the meaning conveyed by the general verbs through the analysis of their cognitive structures. This is the main content of Chapter III, in which Langacker's symbols, improved by Ungerer, are used to illustrate the similarities and differences among the seven commonly used . general verbs. Through the analysis, we come to see that the general verbs in the periphrastic form of English verbs are meaningful, and their meaning decides the kind of verbal nouns that can collocate with them to form periphrastic expressions. Actually these verbs indicate the basic patterns of the interactions between human beings and the objective world.Secondly, we deal with the meaning brought by the nominalization of the original verb during the process of periphrasis. The original verbs each incorporate a series of component states, that is, a series of relations, which constitute a latent region. When the region is solidified, the corresponding verbal nouns are derived. Verbal nopns derived from dynamic verbs are similar to count nouns and verbal nouns derived from static verbs are similar to mass nouns. Our analysis shows that in spite of their different internal structures, both kinds of nominalization involve a shift of profiling from the individual relations to the region made up by these relations. Both the regions profiled by count nouns and mass nouns are bounded, and this...