A Corpus-based Behavioral Profile Study Of English Periphrastic Causative Constructions

Construction grammar, represented by Goldberg, has become a relatively mature field of cognitive linguistics. Construction grammar holds the “principle of no synonymy”, which means that syntactically distinct constructions must be semantically or pragmatically distinct. Accordingly, different English periphrastic causative constructions tend to have distinct meanings. However, compared with the vast literature on morphological and lexical causatives, English periphrastic causative constructions have not received as much attention. Besides, most research focusing on qualitative features of English periphrastic causatives is not largely based on authentic data. Therefore, the thesis studies English periphrastic causative constructions based on the British National Corpus under the framework of construction grammar in an attempt to identify the behavioral profile of English periphrastic causative constructions.This thesis, integrating collostructional analysis with behavioral profile analysis, mainly explores English periphrastic causative constructions, which include CAUSE-type verbs, PREVENT-type verbs and ENABLE-type verbs. By applying collostructional analysis, it investigates the interaction between collexemes in the effect slot and constructions in terms of the semantic preference for the effect slot. Besides, the thesis, using behavioral profile approach, analyzes the morphological, semantic and syntactic features of English periphrastic causative constructions. Based on the behavioral features, hierarchical cluster analysis is also applied to investigate the similarities in a myriad of aspects between different constructions in each type of causative verbs.Through the collostructional analysis and behavioral profile approach, the thesis provides the major findings as follows:(1) Different English periphrastic causative constructions exhibit preferences for different classes of verbs in the effect slot. For example, in the CAUSE-type verbs, the typical collexemes in the effect slot in construction [X make Y V inf] are non-volitional verbs, while the typical collexemes in construction [X have Y Vpp] are verbs of service. Besides, the differences in typical collexemes of the English periphrastic causative constructions can, to some extent, reflect the typical semantic meaning of each construction.(2) Different English periphrastic causative constructions exhibit different semantic, syntactic and morphological patterns. Most of CAUSE-type verbs take animate causees except constructions [X get Y Vpp] and [X have Y Vpp]. Construction [X lead Y Vto-inf] prefers mental effects and animate causees. Similarly, animate causees are typical for construction [X make Y Vinf] and [X cause Y Vto-inf]. These two constructions also share some other features: both are typically used in simple present, simple past, to-infinitive, etc. Constructions [X persuade Y Vto-inf] and [X force Y Vto-inf] are both characterized by volitional verbs. Both construction [X get Y Vto-inf] and construction [X get Y Vprp] have predominant animate causers and prefer motion effects, while constructions [X get Y Vpp] and [X have Y Vpp] show strong preference for activity effects. The four PREVENT-type verbs are all characterized by a high percentage of animate causees as well as motion and activity verbs. Besides, they are all typically used in simple present, simple past, bare-infinitive and to-infinitive. Similarly, animate causees are typical of the four ENABLE-type verbs.Methodologically, the thesis can enrich the research of English periphrastic causative constructions. The thesis can also help Chinese learners to acquire English periphrastic causative constructions.