Cognitive Study Of The Compound Sentences In Modern Chinese

Language is the most important tool of social communication and cognitive thinking. In the world, different kinds of languages have diversity as well as universals because the cognitive thinking in the humankind has something in common. From the view of the cognitive style of human, Cognitive Linguistics is a new subject of linguistics, which reveals the inherent regularity of the language phenomenon. The theories in the Cognitive Linguistics have an important influence on the study of Chinese. Based on three important theories that are “Prototype Theory”, “Image Schema” and “Iconicity” in Cognitive Linguistics, the paper analyses some phenomena of the compound sentences in modern Chinese and explains the inherent regularity from the view of the cognitive style, and then describes its applied value.There are five chapters in the paper.Chapter One is the introduction, which gives a specific description on the source of the paper, the status of the research, theoretical basis and the source of the corpus.Chapter Two first makes a specific instruction on the classification of the system of complex sentences in modern Chinese – “dichotomy” and “trichotomy”, and then points out that “trichotomy” is more suitable in the truth of the complex sentences in modern Chinese. Then, in the view of the “Prototype Theory” in Cognitive Linguistics, it makes a more specific classification and description of the compound sentences in modern Chinese in order to have a preliminary understanding of the semantic.Chapter Three is based on the “Image Schema” theory in Cognitive Linguistics and chooses two important schema types, which are “Gestalt Schema” and “Prominence”, in the theory. Then, it makes analyses and descriptions on the hidden, on and repetition phenomenon of the relation words in the compound sentences in modern Chinese, which is good to make the research go further.Chapter Four is based on the “Iconicity” theory in Cognitive Linguistics and thinks that there is a link between the form and content in language symbols, which has reasons and can be demonstrated. On one hand, in the view of the “Sequence Iconicity” principle, the order of the sentences in the compound sentences in modern Chinese is consistent with the order of the things in the true world. However, sometimes in a certain context, the order of the sentences can be reversed because of some psychological reasons, which is contrary to the “Sequence Iconicity” principle. On the other hand, in the view of “Quantity Iconicity” principle, the complexity of the forms of the sentences in the compound sentences in modern Chinese is in control of the meaning that needs to express.Chapter Five is the conclusion, which makes a summary to the paper. The theory of the language comes from the facts in the languages, and applies to the practices in the language. Therefore, to study the compound sentences in modern Chinese from the view of Cognitive Linguistics has a certain applied value. It also explains the defects and shortcomings of the paper, and then explains the prospects of the future research of the paper.