A Study On Simple Assertive Construction In Modern Chinese From The Perspective Of Goldberg’s Construction Grammar

Simple assertive construction is a common and frequently used linguistic phenomenon in modern Chinese.Previous studies on this linguistic phenomenon are mainly divided into two perspectives: “traditional” and “constructional”.The traditional research mainly divides it into two categories: “identical” and “attributive”according to the referential content of the preverbal and postverbal elements,and analyzes its syntactic and semantic features.From the perspective of Construction Grammar,in accordance with the semantic relation between the preverbal and postverbal elements,it can be classified into three types: “specificational”,“predicational” and “identificational”.Two types of studies have made fruitful achievements on the syntactic and semantic features of simple assertive construction.However,these studies have not been in-depth enough on special simple assertive construction,for example,“A shi A”,nor have they investigated pragmatic features of simple assertive construction.In addition,the cognitive motivations of simple assertive construction are seldom mentioned as well.Based on that,this thesis,on the basis of previous studies,takes simple assertive construction in CCL Corpus of Peking University as the research object,and Goldberg’s Construction Grammar as the guidance,using description,explanation and introspective method,tries to answer the following three questions.(1)What are the types of simple assertive construction in modern Chinese?(2)What are the syntactic,semantic and pragmatic features of simple assertive construction in modern Chinese?(3)What are the cognitive motivations of simple assertive construction in modern Chinese?Research findings:First,based on the existing research results,simple assertive construction can be divided into “specificational assertive construction”,“predicational assertive construction” and “identificational assertive construction”.Since “A shi A” also expresses an assertion between the preverbal and postverbal elements,it is also a special kind of simple assertive construction.Second,simple assertive construction has rich syntactic,semantic and pragmatic features.In terms of syntactic features,in specificational assertive construction,the referentiality of the object is stronger than that of the subject.In contrast,in general predicational assertive construction,the subject is more referential than the object.In special predicational assertive construction(i.e.tautology),the object is more referential than the subject as the subject mainly refers to the conceptual meaning,while the object highlights its additional meaning.In identificational assertive construction,the subject and object refer to the same thing.When both the subject and the object express the descriptive meaning,the referentiality of them is weak.However,when the subject and the object imply the referential meaning at the same time,the referentiality of them is strong.From the perspective of information organization,the object of specificational and predicational assertive construction is often regarded as the focal information of the communicating parties,while the subject is often regarded as the given information of both parties.In identificational assertive construction,the subject and the object refer to the same thing,so the information focus is relatively flexible.In a certain context,both the subject and the object can become the focal information or given information.In terms of semantic features,specificational assertive construction expresses an assertion of“variable-value” between the subject and the object.Predicational assertive construction expresses an assertion of the property or category between the subject and the object.However,tautology only expresses the assertion of properties between the subject and the object.Identificational assertive construction implies an assertion of equality between the subject and the object.In terms of pragmatic features,in a specific context,specificational assertive construction,predicational assertive construction and identificational assertive construction usually contain the speaker’s emotion and attitude in addition to the meaning of assertion,so they are subjective to a certain extent.In addition,simple assertive construction is highly productive.Based on the replacement of the preverbal and postverbal elements,and if the structure formed by them conforms to the rule of grammar,then,a new simple assertive construction can be generated.At last,special predicational assertive construction “A shi A” is a kind of economical expression,which is simple in form but rich in meaning.Third,the cognitive motivations of simple assertive construction can be explained via Goldberg’s Construction Grammar.Three simple assertive constructions,specificational assertive construction,predicational assertive construction and identificational assertive construction,all express the same assertive meaning and have similar syntactic form,which are mainly inherited from their superordinate construction.These three simple assertive constructions are the concrete instances of their superordinate construction and express the concrete assertive meanings whch are derived from the semantic integration of each component of the construction.Specifically,the verb “shi” provides the assertive meaning for these three simple assertive constructions,and the semantic relations between the preverbal and postverbal elements determine the specific semantic types.