| This thesis probes into the characteristics of Chinese V +Non-patient NP and at the meantime,investigates the motivations and mechanisms which trigger and fulfill the constructionalization of Chinese V + Non-patient NP,based on constructionalization theory.Researches on Chinese V + Non-patient NP of Chinese vary from each other.Some classified the objectives,analyzed the agent-patient relationship between predicates and objectives or applied syntactic approaches.However,few of them have explored into the fundamental causation of the irregular patterns.Thus this thesis provides a new perspective of exploring the change of Chinese V + Non-patient NP.This thesis is aiming at the constructionalization of Chinese V +Non-patient NP which mainly explores two questions:(1)What are the characteristics of the constructionalization of Chinese V + Non-patient NP?(2)What are the motivations and mechanisms of the constructionbalization of Chinese V + Non-patient NP?From the perspectives of construction grammar and constructionalization,this thesis adopts the corpus-based approach and it is conducted in four aspects.Firstly,based on the limitation of previous studies,this thesis adopts constructionalization theory and synchronic analysis which are successiveand dynamic in exploring the change of Chinese V + Non-patient NP.The second part is theoretical study mainly based on construction grammar and constructionalization theory.The third part is the analysis of the constructionlization characteristics of Chinese V + Non-patient NP-productivity,schematicity and compositionality adopting diachronic and synchronic methods.From diachronic perspective,the two types of constructions are discussed separately in different periods of Chinese.From synchronic perspective,this thesis compares the three characteristics of English V + Non-patient NP with Chinese V +Non-patient NP and intends to find out the difference between them and key factors leading to the formation of Chinese V + Non-patient NP.In the fourth part,it mainly concerns with the motivation and mechanism of constructionalization of Chinese V + Non-patient NP which also is a case study on two major types-吃(eat)/睡(sleep)+ Non-patient NP.According the overall analysis of studies mentioned above and taking all possible factors into considerations,there are several major findings:Firstly,through conducting this thesis,the characteristics of Chinese V + Non-patient NP is clearly presented.From diachronic analysis,it shows Chinese V + Non-patient NP possesses high productivity,high schematicity and low compositionality.From synchronic perspective,by comparing the characteristics of both English and Chinese V +Non-patient NP,this thesis finds out that the conceptualization degree of English and Chinese verbs is different.The conceptualization of English tends to be clear and specific thus the expansion of semantic meaning is restricted while the conceptualization of Chinese is vague and not specific which causes the semantic meaning acquiring high degree of compatibility.High degree of semantic possibilities allows the occurrence of Chinese V + Non-patient NP.Secondly,the major motivation of the constructionalization of Chinese V + Non-patient NP which is constructional context is clearly illustrated in different language changing periods.In the first stage,it is the untypical context that leaves impact on the change of this construction.In this period,the untypical context is a factor which contributes to the innovative usage of a construction.It is one of the factors which contribute to the innovative usage of the construction and also contribute to the new usage of an existed construction.In the second stage,it is the critical context which contributes to the generation of new constructions and also causes the neoanalysis of linguistic constructions.In the third stage,the contextual constraints are gradually weakened and constructional changes take the priority.Constructionalization Context as the motivation of constructionalization has been widely but vaguely discussed in previous studies.The constructionalization of Chinese V +Non-patient NP is motivated by constructionalization context andfulfilled by neoanalysis and analogization.This thesis is aiming to make a comprehensive and systematical analysis of the constructionalization characteristics of Chinese V +Non-patient NP in different change periods and present the major motivation which helps to fulfill the constructionalization of this construction in every stage of changes.In addition,this thesis applies the latest linguistic theory – constructionlization combining synchronic methods by comparing English and Chinese V + Non-patient NP to analyze constructionalization characteristics of Chinese V + Non-patient NP and digs into the motivations and mechanisms of constructionalization. |
