A Study On The Constructions Of Four-character Structures With Antonymous Localizers

There are many phrases consisting of localizers in the Chinese language,and the four-character structure is a special one,especially the form which contains two antonymous localizers,such as: “Dong X Xi Y”,“X Qian Y Hou”,“X Shang Y Xia”,“Nan X Bei Y”,“Li X Wai Y” and so on.These Four-character Structures with Antonymous Localizers(FCSWAL)are usually composed of one set of antonymous localizers and two same,similar or opposite components.Since they possess distinctive constructional characteristics and compositional ways,and are frequently used in language application by people,they have aroused heated discussion recently.Some scholars,such as Li Yuming,Luo Wei,and Fang Jingmin,have already analyzed some of these forms from the perspectives of pragmatics,syntax and semantics.Nonetheless,these studies ignores the generative mechanisms of their semantic characteristics and the cognitive mechanisms in the process of understanding.At the same time,they rarely conduct a comprehensive and systematic analysis based on corpus.Therefore,some issues are still worth exploring.With the introduction of construction grammar in the past few years,some scholars start to introduce construction grammar into the study of the Chinese language.Exploring the role of construction in language evolution and using construction grammar to describe,analyze and explain language facts have become hot research topics in linguistic field nowadays,especially in the study of words and phrases,for example,the studies of compound words,three-character words,and Chinese terms.These studies show that using the construction grammar to analyze language facts becomes more and more common and necessary.Series of four-character antonymous localizers which structures are composed of one invariable pair of antonymous localizers are considered as the research object in this thesis,and for a better research,a corpus is necessary.Hence,the author collects 356 items from the Modern Chinese Dictionary,BCC and CCL so as to build a corpus.Andthen,under the guidance of Cognitive Linguistics knowledge,along with some relevant theories(the Conceptual Blending Theory,Conceptual Metaphor and Conceptual Metonymy),the properties,meanings,and cognitive mechanisms of the constructions of four-character antonymous localizers are discussed step by step.The author hereby attempts to conduct a systematic analysis of the research based on the corpus.There are two research questions of this thesis :(1)What are the types and properties of the Constructions of FCSWAL in the Chinese Language? And(2)What are the cognitive mechanisms for the Constructions of FCSWAL in the Chinese Language?In order to answer these questions,this thesis uses the methods of description and analysis.Firstly,the author divides the Constructions of FCSWAL in the Chinese Language into three categories by sorting and analyzing the collected corpus.Then,the author analyzes these constructions' grammatical characteristics one by one through describing what components these constructions can act as in sentences,and this analysis shows that the FCSWAL constructions can be used as subject,object,adverbial and other components.Next,this thesis analyzes and explains the constituent forms by using some examples.After that,semantic generation mechanisms for the FCSWAL constructions as well as meanings of them are summarized.Finally,it is concluded that the formation of the FCSWAL constructions is the result of the generalization of semantics and metaphor.Furthermore,at the end of this thesis,the author summaries some shortcomings and expects further explorations into the Constructions of FCSWAL in future research for the sake of better studying and spreading of Chinese.