A Study Of Metonymy Concerning The Lexicalization Of English And Chinese "V+O" Construction

Based on the relevant theories of lexicalization and metonymy, a theoretical framework ofmetonymy concerning the lexicalization of “V+O” construction is put forward to demonstratethat words composed by a verb morpheme and an object morpheme are the result oflexicalization, the essence of which is metonymy.With the methodology of introspection and the data in English and Chinese used for caseanalysis, this thesis aims at solving three questions:1) It is expected to verify that metonymy isthe cognitive mechanism of the lexicalization concerning “V+O” construction.2) It is expectedto explain the operation of metonymy in the lexicalization of “V+O” construction.3) It isexpected to demonstrate the correctness of the above assumption with English and Chineselinguistic instances.Through exploration, results of the research are concluded as follows.1) Metonymy is theessence of the lexicalization of “V+O” construction.2) The lexicalization goes through twophases: mergence of the syntactical components, which in nature is metonymic mapping whosetarget domain is “VO”. Consequently, the whole syntactical structure is backgrounded and“VO” becomes the most prominent; in the second phase, the construction metonymically mapsonto “Subject” within the same cognitive domain leading to referential transfer. Nominalizationis the result of chains of metonymic mappings which semantically access to “Agent”, the rolesequivalent to “Agent”, or the roles activated by “Agent”. Adjectivization is the result ofmetonymic chains which finally map onto the properties of the target domains ofnominalization.3) English and Chinese nominalization of “V+O” construction are discovered tobe identical in the following aspects. Both can be categorized into the patterns of SUBJECTFOR AGENT, SUBJECT FOR EXPERIENCER FOR RESULT, SUBJECT FOR AGENTFOR ACTIVITY, SUBJECT FOR AGENT FOR INSTRUMENT, SUBJECT FOR AGENTFOR RESULT, SUBJECT FOR AGENT FOR PROFESSION. Verb morphemes and object morphemes sometimes change in order and sounds. Nonetheless, they also have severaldifferent points: English lexical category is more steady than Chinese. With certain tensemarkers, English has more types of forms. When used to signify the meaning of keeping fromthe bad to protect the good, it has several expressions with “V+O” structure. There exist thenouns whose abbreviations are “V+O” construction. In addition, Chinese has more patterns withSUBJECT FOR MOVER FOR RESULT and SUBJECT FOR AGENT FOR TIME. In termsof adjectivization, both English and Chinese have the patterns of SUBJECT FOR AGENT FORPROPERTY, SUBJECT FOR EXPERIENCER FOR PROPERTY’, SUBJECT FOR AGENTFOR ACTIVITY FOR PROPERTY’’,“SUBJECT FOR AGENT FOR RESULT FORPROPERTY, SUBJECT FOR AGENT FOR INSTRUMENT FOR PROPERTY’’. As the mostprominent items, certain features of verbal and objective components are extracted to bemapped onto “Property” to be more abstract. However, English adjectives are more steady thanChinese. English adjective forms are more abundant. Chinese lexical category is easy to convertin certain contexts.By revealing the dynamic cognition of the lexicalization of “V+O” construction, this thesismakes up the blank and contributes to the studies of the cognition of the interface betweensyntax and lexicon. There still exist several questions for further research, such as other types oflexicalization like “V+V”,“N+N” constructions, and the verbification and adverbialization of“V+O” construction, can be further discussed.