N-V Conversion From The Cognitive Linguistics Perspective

N-V conversion is one of the commonest types of conversion in word-formation. It refers to the phenomena that the word is originally a noun, which used as a verb in the expressions, without any change in its form. N-V conversion is a very frequent phenomenon in languages. It gives rise to new meanings and functions of the words, makes the sentences more lively and vividly, and helps people easily to understand and acquire language. This thesis applies metaphor and metonymy theories to explain the phenomena of N-V conversion in Contemporary Chinese. It tries to find out the linguistic causes and cognitive mechanism of N-V conversion. The thesis firstly raises two diverged views on parts of speech, i.e. a fuzzy view and a fixed view. This thesis prefers the fixed views on parts of speech as its academic background. Next, it makes a literature review on different approaches to N-V conversion, including morphological, lexical, semantic, cognitive approaches, etc. Thirdly, it introduces the Langacker's model of word classes and gives a brief definitions of noun and verb, which are the main word classes involving in the thesis. Next, it discusses the linguistic causes and cognitive mechanism of N-V conversion by metaphor and metonymy theories. The thesis holds that THING's participation in RELATION provides the basis for the overlapping between noun and verb, and construal completes the process of functional shift. The process of N-V conversion is essentially the process of concept change and transformation. Metaphorical and metonymic construals play an important role in the process of N-V conversion. Metaphorical construal creates similarities between different concepts, and puts the properties of source domain mapping onto the target domain. The mechanism of metaphorical construal is a mapping from the properties of source domain to the target domain, or vice versa. It often uses concrete concept to explain and understand abstract concept. During the process of N-V conversion, Metaphorical construal applies a parent noun to express a thing or a concept of a denominal verb. It actually embodies a conceptual action to an obvious, vivid, and visual action. Metonymic construal mainly applies Action ICMs and metonymic perspectivization to achieve N-V conversion. This thesis discusses the metonymic ICM, with reference of Zoltán K?vecses and Günter Zoltán (1999)'s metonymic conceptual framework, it classifies the phenomena of N-V conversion in Contemporary Chinese into six categories, such as (i). INSTRUMENT FOR ACTION, (ii). AGENT FOR ACTION; (iii). OBJECT FOR ACTION; (iv). LOCATION FOR ACTION; (v). RESULT FOR ACTION; (vi). MANNER FOR ACTION. The process of N-V conversion is actually a substituting process, which gives prominence to the most salient parts in the expressions. At last, the thesis describes the syntactic and semantic characteristics about denominal verbs during the process of N-V conversion and discusses the economy of N-V conversion, which is achieved by way of semantic incorporation.