A Cognitive Study On The Chinese Synonymous Collective Partitives

As a special word class in the Chinese language, partitive is one of the “hot spots”in the study of the Chinese grammar. The researches done were generally from staticstate (defining and classifying) to dynamic state (relating it to other word classes or thesyntactic construction). Collective partitive, as one of its subcategories, has become asubject to be increasingly noticed. So far, studies are made mainly on the semanticfeatures and their collocations. A few studies are done within the framework ofconstrual, categorization, and metaphor theory.This study attempts to explicate the collective partitives by employing thegrounding theory. It focuses on:(a) Distinguishing features of collective partitives.(b)What’s the classification and sub-classification of collective partitives?(c) How toidentify typical pairs of synonymous collective partitives?(d) Functions andsignificance of collective partitives.(e) What’s the mental operation in the process ofmaking a choice between each typical pair of synonymous collective partitives?The study probes into the mental operation in the process of making a choicebetween each typical pair of synonymous collective partitives, based on an analysis ofexamples. Through investigation into them, conclusions are reached: collectivepartitive is one kind of grounding elements in the Chinese language, serving to directthe reader/hearer’s attention to author/speaker’s intended reference. Making adistinction of synonymous collective partitive implies the mental operation of groupingand reification.