A Cognitive Contrastive Study Of English And Chinese Middle Constructions Under Generative Lexicon Approach

As a typical syntax-semantics mismatch structure,the middle construction has been widely concerned by Chinese and foreign linguists because of its complex argument configuration and special semantic interpretation.Many scholars have conducted the studies of the syntactic and semantic features of the middle construction from the perspectives of generative linguistics,functional linguistics and cognitive linguistics.However,as a cross-linguistic universal structure,the defining features,typical features,constituents and representation need to be explored within a holistic framework,and on this basis,the semantic constraints and cognitive motivations of English and Chinese middle constructions also need to be analyzed further.Therefore,this thesis introduces generative lexicon theory and conducts a contrastive analysis of the English and Chinese middle constructions,it aims to address the following three questions.(1)What are the similarities and differences in the syntactic-semantic features of English(EMCs)and Chinese middle constructions(CMCs)?(2)What are the constraints on the generation of English and Chinese middle constructions?(3)What are the cognitive motivations behind the legitimacy of the middle construction?The thesis adopts corpus-based analysis,introspection and contrastive descriptive analysis methods to conduct the research and carries out in the following four steps.First,the relevant corpora are collected from the existing English and Chinese corpus,they are BNC,COCA,COHA,CCL,CNC and CCUC,and the cross-linguistic defining features and typical features of English and Chinese middle constructions are analyzed.Secondly,the constituents and representations of the English and Chinese middle constructions are summarized.Again,the semantic constraints of qualia structure on the generation of middle construction are explored.Finally,the motivations affecting the legitimacy of middle construction are illustrated from a cognitive perspective.From the above studies,the present study draws the following three findings.(1)The middle construction is the syntactic and semantic realization in different language,as long as the defining features such as active form of passive meaning,non-agentive subject,genericity,non-eventiveness and modality are satisfied,this structure can be identified as a middle construction,while detranstivity,affectedness constraints and tense-aspect restriction can only be regarded as the cross-linguistic typical features.From this,the English and Chinese middle constructions have certain similarities and differences in syntactic components.1)The semantic types of middle subject allowed by the Chinese middle construction are richer than those of English,and thus the representations of the Chinese middle construction are more flexible.2)The middle subjects in English and Chinese bear subject responsibility features,but since Chinese and English have different characteristics,the Chinese middle construction is less constrained by subject responsibility than English.3)The semantics of the adjunctive modifiers in both English and Chinese middle constructions point to NP,or the state presented by “NP+VP”.On the whole,the constituents of the Chinese middle construction enjoy more freedom,while the representations are richer than those of the English middle construction.(2)There are commonalities and differences of the semantic constraints of the qualia structure of generative lexicon theory on English and Chinese middle constructions.The commonalities are mainly reflected in the following three aspects: 1)The qualia structure of the subject noun in the semantic constraints of the English and Chinese middle constructions embodies that the establishment of the middle construction requires that the qualia roles of middle subject have semantic compatibility and cocomposition with the predicate part.2)The middle construction is designed to highlight whether the intrinsic properties of the subject noun are conducive to the realization of the action act or state presented by the predicate part,while the qualia roles of the noun further affect the achievement of the state of “VP+NP”.3)Generative lexicon theory advocates that semantics is contextually modulated in actual language use to achieve the goal of dynamic semantic generation.In the process of generating the middle construction,the certain qualia role of middle subject is activated and salient in the contextualization and further foregrounded through the predicate,thus diluting the role played by the agent,and co-constructing with other components to complete the expression of the middle semantics and to generate a legitimate middle construction.The differences lie in the fact that the English middle construction is influenced by the subject responsibility,then its generation is subject to more obvious qualia structure restrictions and contextual constraints than the Chinese middle construction;while the Chinese grammatical relations lack exposed markers contrast with English,so the generation of the Chinese middle construction only needs to satisfy the defining features,and on the basis of the grammaticality of the middle affixes following the middle verb,then it undergoes a proper contextualization process,when the qualia role of the subject noun and the predicate part are compatible semantically,the Chinese middle construction is legitimate.(3)One of the most important feature of generative lexicon theory is that it adheres to an experiential cognitive credo,and the legitimacy of middle construction also entails certain cognitive motivations.At first,the conceptual construal plays an important role in the process of its generation.On the one hand,the middle construction simplifies complex syntacticsemantic expressions to reflect the principles of linguistic economy and cognitive economy,on the other hand,prototypical categories distinguish between typical and atypical middle constructions,then the dynamic development of middle categories constantly gives rise to new middle constructions.Moreover,the context modulation and subjective perspective change can activate the temporary qualia role of the subject noun to make it responsible for the middle event,thus increasing the acceptability of the middle construction.The activation of the qualia role in different contexts cannot be achieved without the key role played by cognitive salience in the conceptualization.This thesis elucidates the cross-linguistic defining and typical features of English and Chinese middle constructions,contrasts the similarities and differences in the constituents and representations of the English and Chinese middle constructions,and explores the semantic constraints and cognitive motivations under the qualia structure of generative lexicon theory,which breaks through the traditional verbcentered path of sentence pattern study and provides a referable research perspective for the syntactic research path,and further verifies the powerful explanatory power of combining generative lexicon theory and cognitive linguistics to conduct syntactic research.