Research On The Subjective High-level Quantitative Construction "A To X"

This dissertation describes and analyses the subjective high degree construction of "A dao X",based on the Construction Grammar.The construction "A to X" is an independent and complete construction.The meaning of the construction is:the "A dao X" construction is a high degree description of the characters of "A" and expresses the speaker’s subjective high degree of evaluation to the described event or thing.Through the analysis of the sections of the construction,it is concluded that "A"in the construction is mainly made up of non-quantitative adjectives and "X" is relatively rich,which can be noun phrases,predicate phrases,adverb phrases,clauses and complex sentences."A dao X" is an expression form containing large subjective quantity,which has strong subjectivity.And it usually expresses unexpected feelings of the speaker.From the viewpoint of syntactic analysis,the construction is mainly used as predicate while a few can be used as subject,attribute,adverbial,complement as well as a single sentence solely.From the viewpoint of semantic analysis,the construction has the meanings of subjective evaluation and high degree.This dissertation also analyses the constructional polysemy based on the conceptual-integration theory.We confirm that through the cross-spatial metaphoric mapping of character domain and degree domain,this construction achieves identity association and emerges creative meanings in the integration space.From the perspective of the construction evolution,the construction of "A dao X"began to sprout from the pre-Qin period,developed in the Song Dynasty and matured in the Ming and Qing Dynasties,becoming the construction of high-frequency use.Based on the evolution of construction and metaphor theory,we confirm that the internal inheriting network of this construction through metaphorical connection.And it have extended from the spatial domain to the time domain to the action domain to the character domain.Finally,from the perspective of pragmatic analysis of the "A dao X",it can be confirmed that this construction not only has the pragmatic functions of subjective evaluation and emphasis,but also the textual functions of summary,connection and initiation.At the same time,through exploring the development process of the "A dao X",this dissertation summarizes the reasons of popularity:social environmental factors,public psychological factors and internal structure factor.