A Cognitive Linguistics Approach To The Unified Study Of -EE Nouns

The suffix–ee is not native in English but borrowed from French. As to some other suffixes such as–er, -ed and–ing we can see much literature studying them. However, for the suffix–ee there is little literature about it. The reason may lie in that the agentive–ee nouns always get in the way of the scholars when they study it. From the existent literature we can see most scholars think that the unified study of–ee nouns is impossible because the reasonability of the existence of agentive–ee nouns is unable to prove. This thesis holds that the existence of agentive–ee nouns is reasonable and the unified study of–ee derivation is possible.The scholars who have studied–ee nouns include Bengsson, Marchand, Bauer, Barker and Heyvaert (Heyvaert 2006:338). Their studies are operated from three different perspectives. Bengsson, Marchand and Bauer study–ee nouns from the syntactic perspective. Barker studies them from the semantic perspective. Liesbet's study is operated from the cognitive linguistics perspective. However, both the syntactic perspective and semantic perspective can not offer a sound explanation for the existence of agentive–ee nouns. Heyvert's study from cognitive linguistics perspective sheds light on this problem.Therefore the purpose of this thesis is to make a unified study of–ee nouns from the cognitive linguistics perspective. The specific method is to prove the reasonability of agentive–ee nouns and then put forward an unified meaning schema for–ee nouns.To make the study of the thesis become more perfect, the author of this thesis has made a comparison between–ee nouns and–er nouns, especially the agentive–ee nouns and their–er counterparts.