A Cognitive Research On R_AP Constraints In English And Chinese Resultative Constructions

Resultative construction is a relatively common construction and one of the most important structures in English and Chinese.Linguists have done a lot of researches on resultative constructions from different angles and the research focus is on the research generation,classification and semantic constraints of resultative constructions.There are selection constraints on R_AP in English and Chinese resultative constructions.Some adjectives can enter the resultative constructions and act as R_AP,while others cannot.It can be found that the previous studies on R_AP in resultative constructions are mostly limited to a single perspective and a single language,lacking of comprehensive studies and contrastive studies.Therefore,based on the semantic characteristics description of resultative constructions in the synchronic aspect,this thesis will conduct an in-depth research on R_AP in English and Chinese resultative constructions.This thesis aims to solve the following three questions:（1）What are the main semantic features of English and Chinese resultative constructions?（2）What factors really affect the selections of R_AP in English and Chinese resultative constructions?（3）What are the cognitive motivations and mechanisms of R_APconstraints in English and Chinese resultative constructions?Based on the research methods of corpus analysis,collostructional analysis and hierarchical cluster analysis,the thesis mainly carries out the specific researches from the following three steps.Firstly,this thesis takes causative events as network nodes,and classifies the semantic types of the collected resultative constructions according to the iconicity of semantic structures of resultative constructions and causative event structures,and analyzes the syntactic representations and semantic features on this basis.Secondly,starting from the complement structures,this thesis analyzes the collocation of R_AP and verbs in English and Chinese resultative constructions,so as to summarize the factors and related characteristics of R_APconstraints in resultative constructions.Lastly,the thesis explores the cognitive motivations and mechanisms of R_AP constraints in English and Chinese resultative constructions.The thesis consists of seven chapters:The first chapter is the introduction,which mainly introduces the background,purpose,research questions,methods,significance of this thesis,and presentation of the thesis organization.The second chapter is a diachronic review of resultative constructions.The third chapter introduces the theories used in this thesis.The fourth chapter is the semantic descriptions and explanations of resultative constructions.Chapter five discusses the R_AP constraints of English and Chinese resultative constructions.Chapter six focuses on the cognitive motivations and mechanisms of R_AP constraints.The last chapter is a summary of the thesis,together with the outlook and description of future research.Through the above research,this thesis draws the following three conclusions:Firstly,English and Chinese resultative constructions are the syntactic representations of the causative event structures.According to the iconicity of their semantic structures and causative event structures,the semantic types of English and Chinese resultative constructions can be divided into four categories:typical resultative constructions,quasi-typical resultative constructions,pseudo-typical resultative constructions and untypical resultative constructions.These four types all contain four main core elements:causers,undergoers,caused behaviors,and resultant states.Through analyzing the representations of these four types,the semantic features can be concluded.There are four semantic features in English and Chinese resultative constructions.The first semantic feature is causativity,it is the most prominent semantic feature in resultative constructions.Causers must be able to cause the results represented by the complements R.The second semantic feature is eventive which determines that causers can be dominant or recessive.The third semantic feature is directness which means that causers directly cause undergoers to produce specific results.The last semantic feature is affectedness,meaning that undergoers are directly influenced by causers,and because of the influences,the states undergo some changes and finally form certain results.Secondly,from the perspective of complement structures,English and Chinese resultative constructions can be divided into Control resultative constructions and Exceptional Case Marking resultative constructions,commonly abbreviated to ECM resultative constructions.Open-scale gradable adjectives can enter the Control resultative constructions in English and Chinese,a few can enter the ECM resultative constructions in Chinese whose complements are subject-oriented,and occasionally can enter the Chinese ECM resultative constructions whose complements are object-oriented.The maximum end-point closed-scale gradable adjectives and non-gradable adjectives can freely enter all kinds of English and Chinese resultative constructions.The minimum end-point closed-scale gradable adjectives can freely enter all kinds of Chinese Control and ECM resultative constructions,but a few of them can enter English ECM resultative constructions.The selections of R_AP in English and Chinese resultative constructions have monosyllabic tendencies.Thirdly,in English and Chinese resultative constructions,there are two main cognitive motivations.One is event-language mapping,the other is event-language delimiting.The event singularization delimiting constraints and the functional differences of complements jointly restrict the access conditions of R,and the differences of linguistic delimiting events between lexicon and syntactic means determine the asymmetry of the resultative constructions in English and Chinese.The semantic evolution of R_AP in resultative constructions is mainly caused by categorization and analogy.Resultative Constructions always follow people’s cognitive modes and experience modes in the process of semantic evolution,which leads to the expansion and generalization of the meanings of resultative constructions.Semantic analogy often expands,generalizes and forms an interrelated and integrated meaning network by means of construction radiation network.This thesis makes a contrastive study of R_AP in English and Chinese resultative constructions from a new cross-language perspective,which is helpful for a deeper understanding of the R_AP structures in English and Chinese resultative constructions and has certain value for further understanding and interpretation of the R_AP structures in English and Chinese resultative constructions.