A Cognitive Grammar Study On The Co-occurrence Of Antonyms In Mandarin:

In recent years,the research on antonymy has shifted from paradigmatic relation to syntagmatic relation.The co-occurrence of antonyms has gradually become a hot topic in the study of antonymy.Foreign scholars mainly study the frequency,syntactic structure and discourse function of the co-occurrence of antonyms.Domestic studies mainly focus on those aspects such as its meaning characteristics,structural forms,pragmatic and discourse.In general,the trend is as follows.Combined with theories of cognitive linguistics,the relevant studies deduce the formation mechanism of the co-occurrence of antonyms.However,the research on the motivation of its semantics and syntactic function is relatively insufficient.Considering the results of previous researchers,this study holds that in different contexts,there are cognitive motivations for the polysemy and syntactic functional transformation of the co-occurrence of antonyms.This study takes the disyllabic antonymous compound‘duoshao' existing in mandarin as the research object.In addition,the research method adopted in this study is the combination of description and interpretation.In the aspect of description,this paper adopts the research method based-on corpus to analyze the semantic type,syntactic function and pattern collocation of the disyllabic compound —‘duo shao'.The data results of each aspect are analyzed quantitatively and presented in the form of charts.From the results of the study,The semantic types of‘duoshao'are mainly divided into three categories,the ‘quantity' meaning of the noun nature,the‘more/much' meaning of the adjective nature,and the ‘slightly' meaning of the adverb nature.Among them,‘slightly' meaning appears most frequently.Moreover,its grammatical function can be divided into attributive,object and adverbial,among which the main one is adverbial.On the basis of detailed description,this study gives an explanation from the perspective of subjectification theory of cognitive grammar.Starting with the semantics of disyllabic compound,three kinds of image schemas of ‘duoshao' areinferred.Then,through analysis and demonstration,it is concluded that three kinds of image schemas embody the objectivity and subjectivity of construal respectively.Finally,the subjectification theory of cognitive grammar is used to explain the causes of this objectivity and subjectivity and the transformation between the two.From the results of the interpretation,the cognitive subject's construal of ‘ duoshao 'undergoes a process relatively objective to completely subjective.During this conversion process,the semantics of ‘duoshao' has changed.The differences in the syntactic functions of ‘ duoshao ' are also caused by the imparity of profile highlighted in the process of construal.Therefore,there exists cognitive motivation in the change of semantic meaning and syntactic function.This study explores the cognitive motivation for the polysemy and transformation of syntactic functional of ‘duoshao' in different contexts.It is expected to provide a new perspective for the research of Chinese antonymy to deepen the understanding of the nature of Chinese antonymy.