Constructionality Of The English Consonant Structure And Its Linguistic Status

The English consonant structure(ECS for short)is a linguistic existence that has never got the recognition it deserves and also has yet to acquire its linguistic status.This thesis aims to identify the submorphemic status of ECS and to prove its constructionality in the light of constructionalization.As a special type of language structure,ECS cannot be identified with derivational morpheme,or with inflectional morpheme,or with root morpheme.By demonstrating the differences between ECS and the morphemic unit,we argue that it would be inappropriate to view the consonant structure as belonging to the category of morpheme.Instead,we contend that the English consonant structure is a kind of submorpheme.Submorphemes,like morphemes,are constructions in the sense that they are all likewise pairings of linguistic form and meaning.Having identified the submorphemic status of ECS,we illustrate in this thesis the characteristics of such a kind of submorpheme and prove its constructionality as form-meaning pairs in the light of the constructionalization theory.More specifically,we show that ECS is characterized by schematicity,productivity and compositionality.With respect to schematicity,ECS is schematic in that it contains slots or empty positions in its structure which can be filled up by other letters to form a complete word,and that all the words which share the same ECS have some abstract meaning in common.Concrete words that are instances of an ECS constitute the lower level of a hierarchy the top position of which is occupied by the ECS.With respect to productivity,ECS is demonstrated,in a large class of cases,to be a resourceful structure from which abundant semantically-related words derive by completing the schematic structure with proper letters.As for compositionality,it is self-evident that ECS is constituted by letters and every consonant structure has its own unique meaning.The meaning of ECS as a whole correlates with the meaning of componential letters,but the entire meaning of the structure is not a sum total of the meanings of all the individual componential letters,which indicates that some aspect of its form or meaning is strictly unpredictable.The research is of some theoretical and practical significance.Firstly,we examine the ECS in the light of constructionalization,which integrates Construction Grammar,grammaticalization,lexicalization with the evolution of language.This proves to be a new perspective for the study on the constructionality of the consonant structure.Secondly,the study is also of some significance to the research of Construction Grammar.To prove the constructionality of the consonant structure can not only broaden the scope of Construction Grammar,but also expand the denotation of the general linguistic term ‘construction'.That is to say,we can integrate the previous researches on consonant structure with the contemporary linguistic theories.Furthermore,it will offer some insights into the arbitrariness feature of the English language when the submorphemic status of ECS is determined.ECS exists undeniably in English.And the investigation in this regard reveals that it exists abundantly.The pervasive and prevailing existence of ECS in the English language bears proof to the largeness of the extent to which English is a motivated language.The degree of motivatedness of this language,especially in terms of its word formation,is much bigger than expected possibly due to the neglected fact that ECS is submorphemic.