On The Wayway Construction From The Perspective Of Lexicalization Patternsatterns Theory

The WAY Construction, in the form of “NP V one’s way PP”, refers to such a situation that the figure goes through a certain spatial path, or the figure achieves a particular goal with the help of some certain methods or means. Talmy’s theory of lexicalization patterns isolates elements separately within the domain of meaning and the domain of surface expression(the word surface refers to overt linguistic forms simply, not any derivational theory), which is conducive to the deep exploration of the complex relationship between linguistic forms and meanings. A lot of studies show that the meaning of verb roots is an important factor to determine the syntactic structure, and the internal semantic elements of verb roots significantly affect its syntactic manifestation. So the performance on the syntactic forms can be explained from the perspective of the verb roots’ meaning.The study focuses on the constraints of verb roots in their application to WAY Construction based on Talmy’s theory of lexicalization patterns, as well as the reason why there exist these constraints on the verb roots. The research analyzes the verb roots in Translational Motion and Non-translational Motion in detail. In other words, there are several kinds of verb roots that cannot be applied to the construction at will, and they have to obtain some certain semantic elements, like Indirect Manner. Meanwhile, the study analyzes the reason why there exist some constraints on the verb roots. In another word, this thesis studies the lexicalization pattern of the WAY phrase, as well as the interaction between WAY phrase and verb roots.The current research comes to the conclusion as follows:Firstly, the verb roots in the WAY Construction should be one of the four Aspect types basically. Then, the verb roots should conflate the semantic elements Motion and Indirect Manner(Motion should be either Translational Motion or Inherent Motion).Moreover, the verb roots which belong to one of the four Aspect types and conflate Inherent Motion and Manner will also be acceptable when the prepositions in the construction conflate the Path.Secondly, the reason why there exist some constraints on the verb roots when they are applied to the WAY Construction lies in the influence of WAY phrase on the verb roots. The special structure “one’s way” and verb roots are in a mutually dependent and reinforcing relationship. The WAY phrase “one’s way” does not offer the verb roots semantic elements, but restricts the lexicalization pattern of verb roots, aiming to be consistent with it and conflate the same semantic element.