| In recent years,due to its complexity and particularity of meanings,the verbdirectional construction “V Shang” has attracted much interest in the linguistics field.From the perspective of the macro-event theory,a systematic interpretation of the construction “V Shang” with the approach of cognitive construction grammar can deepen its semantic research and expand the research scope of macro-event theory at the syntactic-semantic level of Mandarin Chinese.Previous studies on the case of “V Shang” mainly focus on its semantic types and syntactic characteristics.There are few studies on the macro-event types represented by the “V Shang” construction and its cognitive semantic features from the perspective of macro-event theory.The research of this thesis starts with Talmyan two-way typology and his macro-event theory,and discusses the macro-event representation of “V Shang” construction and the cognitive motivation of constructional semantic expansion,aiming to solve the following three problems: Firstly,how many types of macro-events can be characterized by the verbdirectional construction “V Shang” based on the corpus? Secondly,when the construction“V Shang” corresponds to different types of macro-events,what are their cognitive semantic features? Thirdly,what is the cognitive motivation behind the expansion of polysemous nodes of “V Shang” construction in a constructional network when it represents different macro-events from the perspective of Cognitive Construction Grammar?Based on the relevant corpora retrieved from the CCL corpus,this study discusses the macro-event representations of “V Shang” and its semantic features and explains both the macro-and micro-level cognitive motivation behind the expansion of the polysemous node of the “V Shang” construction network from the perspective of the language view and coercion theory of cognitive construction grammar.The analysis draws the following conclusions: First,the Chinese construction “V Shang” can express the directional meaning,the state change meaning,and the virtual temporal meaning.When describing the meaning of direction,“V Shang” represents a motion event;when expressing the meaning of state change,“V Shang” construction represents a state change event;when expressing the virtual temporal meaning,“V Shang” construction represents a temporal contouring event,or a realization event,or an action correlating event.Second,the five sub-constructions of “V Shang” differ in three levels,namely figural entity,activation process,and core schema.Third,the semantic expansion of “V Shang” construction in representing macro-events can be described as the influence of the two-way interaction between construction coercion and lexical coercion.At the macro level of macro-event representation,construction coercion causes “V Shang” to expand and extend its semantic categories based on the prototypical meaning [+displacement],which is a process of decategorization.At the micro-level of macro-event representation,lexical coercion affects the core schema of a framing event,resulting core schema being highlighted in a framing event.From the perspective of macro-event theory,this study systematically interprets the cognitive semantics of Chinese construction “V Shang”,which deepens its semantic research and expands the research scope of macro-event at the syntactic-semantic level of modern Chinese. |
