Cognitive Constructional Approach To "V Dao" From The Perspective Of Macro-event

"V Dao" is a frequently-used polysemous verb-complement construction in modern Chinese.The diversified ways of form-meaning pairing cause many controversies around its verb-complement type.Previous research has been conducted from the perspective of syntax,semantics and language acquisition,focusing on its verb valency,textual function and acquisition errors.However,there has been little comprehensive research on the "V Dao" construction in terms of cognition.Based on the macro-event theory,the present study first explored the cognitive semantic features of the "V Dao" with the help of the LCMC corpus,and then,within the framework of cognitive construction grammar,elaborated the cognitive motivation behind the expansion of the "V Dao" constructional network.The research findings are as follows:(1)Based on the data from LCMC corpus,five types of macro-events can be identified in terms of different conceptual domains where the core schemas of different "V Dao" constructions are characterized,namely motion event,state change event,realization event,temporal contouring event and actional correlating event.These five types of framing events can be represented by five subschemas,including "V DAO [+ Motion]"(36.96%),"V DAO [+ State Change]"(32.04%),"V DAO [+ Realization]"(16.20%),"V DAO [+ Temporal Contouring]"(10.50%)and "V DAO [+ Actional Correlation]"(4.30%);(2)The verb-argument structure of "V Dao" constructions corresponds to their framing event components and the cognitive semantic features of five types of "V Dao" constructions vary at three levels: focus entity,activation process and core schema;(3)The motivations behind the expansion of "V Dao" constructional network are constructional coercion,lexical coercion,and the two-way interactive coercion between lexeme and construction,through which the overall semantic incongruity of the "V Dao" construction is resolved,and various cognitive semantic features are highlighted to meet the different needs of both speakers and listeners in verbal communication.From the perspective of macro-event theory,the systematic inductive interpretation of the "V Dao" construction network contributes to the syntactic and semantic interface research of "V Dao",and provides cognitive rationale for its diachronic expansion mechanism.The research also helps Mandarin learners to understand the connotation relationship of "V Dao" structures,guides Chinese teachers to conduct the teaching of Chinese verb-complement structures,and promotes the spreading of Chinese language and culture in a more extensive and effective way.