A Cognitive Study Of The “X+hua(化)” Derivatives In Modern Chinese

High productivity, high frequency and various semantic categories of the “X+hua(化)” derivatives in modern Chinese makes it difficult to achieve consistency in the previous studies. Three major perspectives predominate prior studies of the “X+hua(化)” derivative: 1) the formal structure; 2) the syntactic function; 3) the semantic feature. They do not examine the construction of the continuum, the word class, or the semantic generative mechanism of it.In view of this situation, this paper examines 626 “X+hua(化)” derivatives in modern Chinese for their semantic generation according to cognitive linguistics by using an inductive method. The first part is to construct a continuum for the category of “X+hua( 化)” derivatives according to the prototype category theory. The second discusses the word class of “X+hua(化)” derivatives with special reference to the word class of its root word “X”. The third explores the semantic generative mechanism of the central, middle, and peripheral member of “X+hua(化)” derivatives by adopting the word concept frame theory and the conceptual metonymy theory.The study reveals that because the “X+hua( 化)” derivative is defined here as changing or transforming something to attain the character and state that ‘X’ indicates, “Adj+hua( 化)” is the central member of the “X+hua(化)” derivative as the “Adj” is usually scalar and gradable, “N+hua(化)” the middle and “V+hua(化)” the peripheral. According to the word distribution, syntactic function and semantic feature, it’s generally considered that the “X+hua(化)” derivative is a verb based on the word class of its root “X”, and then the verb converts to an adjective or a noun in certain context. The semantic generative mechanism of “X+hua(化)” derivatives splits into two types: the central member is the indicative pattern, while the middle and peripheral are the metonymic pattern.This study seeks to enrich the study of the “X+hua(化)” derivatives in modern Chinese, to offer theoretical evidences to its prototype category, to anticipate the future development of “X+hua(化)” derivatives, and, finally, to make contributions to the teaching and learning of this derivative.