| The English Verb-particle constructions are combinations of a verb and an adverb or preposition,and they are important in English.English Verb-particle constructions are polysemous,and it is gradually attracting people’s attention.According to traditional linguistics,the semantics of Verb-particle constructions is obscure.But cognitive linguists considers that semantics of Verb-particle constructions are not isolated from each other but are interrelated and analyzable.As a result,it has been studied from a cognitive linguistic perspective.However,many studies have focused only on semantics of particles.Few studies have used corpus-based empirical methods to examine semantics of verbs in this construction and barely systematically elaborate on mechanism of semantic extension of this construction.Therefore,this study collects 135 “v+out” constructions from British National Corpus(BNC)and tries to quantify semantic clustering of verbs that are significantly attracted by “v+out” constructions from a cognitive perspective.The research questions are:(1)What are the verbs that shows strong collostruction strength with“v+out” constructions?(2)What are the prototypical and extended semantics of “v+out”constructions?(3)What are the cognitive mechanisms of semantic extension of“v+out” constructions?To solve these questions,this study uses BNC and R software to conduct collostructional analysis,to figure out the collostruction strength of verbs and “v+out” constructions.Then,with the help of Oxford Advanced Learner’s English-Chinese Dictionary and Wordnet,the prototypical semantics and extended semantics of “v+out” constructions are explored.On this basis,the cognitive mechanisms of semantic formation and semantic extension of “v+out” constructions are explored by relying on the theories of Imagery Schema,Conceptual Metaphor and Conceptual Metonymy.The result of this study shows that:(1)there are 125 verbs that are significantly attractive to “v+out” constructions.And the remaining 10 verbs,“buy”,“write”,“see”,“think”,“give”,“lead”,“sit”,“open”,“play”and “live”,are repellent to the target constructions.These 125 verbs can be classified into 13 categories,they are contact verbs,motion verbs,change verbs,social verbs,possession verbs,communication verbs,perception verbs,cognition verbs,stative verbs,body verbs,creation verbs,consumption verbs and competition verbs.(2)By referring to the semantics of “out” in the Oxford Advanced Learner’s English-Chinese Dictionary and combining it with the types of verbs,prototypical semantics of “v+out” constructions was derived as “a dynamic process from inside to outside”.There are 15 types of extended semantics,such as“selection”,“removal”,etc.The semantics of “v+out” constructions can be broadly grouped into three categories,namely,“static exclusion”,“a dynamic process from inclusion to exclusion” and “final exclusion of a dynamic process”.(3)By examining the examples in corpus,this study finds that the semantics of “v+out” constructions occur not only in spatial domain,but can also be mapped to the domain of time,state,etc.The semantics of “v+out” constructions is the embodiment of human cognitive imagery which means the combination of base and profile produces different imageries and thus different semantics.The semantic extension is formed based on spatial image schema through the mechanism of metaphor and metonymy.This study presents a semantic analysis of “v+out” constructions from a cognitive perspective,in the hope that it can inspire the teaching of English vocabulary,lexicography and textbook writing in China. |
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