A Study On The Cognitive Mechanism Of Semantic Processing Of English Verbal Nominalization

In English,nouns are one of the most important parts of speech.Many nouns are often formed by nominalization,which is a frequent case in English and it is also a very important grammatical means.Through nominalization,words of other parts of speech can express the concept and meaning of nouns.That is to say,a word is likely to have several challenging meanings.The native speakers will not be confused with these newly acquired meanings,but it is often difficult for second language learners to understand them.Nominalization usually refers to the nominalization of verbs or adjectives.The so-called nominalization refers to the conversion between different parts of speech.Is it arbitrary or justified? If it is justified,how can we explain its rationale?How does the meaning of different verbs change in the process of nominalization? What are the semantic characteristics of different types of nouns? The above problems will be the focus of this dissertation.On the basis of previous studies,this dissertation will use qualitative analysis and introspective analysis to make a cognitive interpretation of English verbal nominalization under the theoretical framework of Event-domain Cognitive Model,based on construal operation and related cognitive theories,and further explore the semantic motivation and cognitive mechanism of verbal nominalization of English.This dissertation divides English verbs into behavioral verbs and mental verbs.It focuses on the process of semantic profiling and derivation of each type of verbs in nominalization,and tries to summarize the semantic characteristics of different types of nominals,so as to provide some help and enlightenment for English teaching and learning.The two dimensions of time and space are the starting point of human cognition of the world.Only on the basis of these two dimensions can human form realistic interaction.Human conceptualization of the world can be divided into two main parts:entities and relations.In the language system,the object occupying a certain space is represented by noun category,while in the time dimension,the extended relation is represented by verb category.Nouns profile the spatiality of the subject mainly through quantifiers.Verbs profile actions with temporality which is mainly reflected by tenses.Verbal nominalization is a process of action concept materialization,and its essence is the spatialization of action temporality.The creativity of human thinking and the flexibility of language system are the fundamental reasons for the emergence of verbal nominalization.According to the analysis and summary of the examples of verbal nominalization,the conclusions of this dissertation can be summarized as the following three aspects:First of all,the behavior verbs with high transitivity and high frequency are usually nominalized in the form of zero-derivation.They maximize the scope of objects that linguistic symbols can represent in the smallest unit,which reflects the economy principle of language.In addition,the transformation of zero-derivative nominalization into human basic behavior creates conditions for the presentation of static entities.The typical verbs coexisting with zero-derivational nominals are have,take,bring,give,etc.Secondly,most verbs are named and materialized by adding derivative suffixes to represent various entities are existent relationships.The most prominent function of derivational nominalization is to transform the extended action in time dimension into the entities existing in spatial dimension,which greatly increases the representation of nominals.The materialization of derivative nouns can compress the information related to verbs into derived nouns,which makes them more general.Derivative nouns can refer to materialized actions or processes,results and instruments of the action.Finally,gerund is mainly between entities and actions.It is the member that retains the most verb attributes in the verbal nominalization continuum.This kind of nominal mainly corresponds to the known experience in life,so the situation it represents is already and abstract.When it appears as an object in a sentence,it usually appears in harmony with the static predicate verb,such as finish,enjoy,avoid and so on.From the perspective of cognitive linguistics,this dissertation makes a more systematic and in-depth study of nominalization on the based of conceptual materialization,hoping to find the semantic processing mechanism of verbal nominalization,so as to better understand and memorize its meaning.In addition,it is also hoped that this study can provide reference for nominalization whose conclusion can help Chinese students better understand verbal nominalization.