A Study On The Semantic Extension Of Verb Take From The Perspective Of Cognitve Linguistics

The use of the English verb “take” is relatively high.When the verb “take” and other components form a phrase or phrasal verb,the meaning changes and forms an extension of the meaning.This paper studies the semantic extension of the English verb “take” from the perspective of cognitive linguistics.This study analyzes the semantic extension of the verb “take” based on the prototype category theory and the basic-level category theory.Then multiple semantic extensions of the verb “take” are derived and their semantic extension phenomena are explained and illustrated.The corpus used in this study is from the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Advanced English(5th edition)and the Corpus of Contemporary American English(COCA),and the semantic meanings related to the verb “take” are extracted for the study.The prototype theory is influenced by the family resemblance proposed by the British philosopher Wittgenstein.The theory holds that the members in the category have similarity,and the members with greater similarity are the prototype in the category.In the framework of prototype theory,this study finds that the semantic extension of the English verb “take” takes place from its prototype meaning.Firstly,the prototype meaning of the verb “take”,“to move or go with someone or something from one place to another” extends four specific meanings in the category of non-prototype meanings,“MOVE”,“HOLD”,“TRANSPORTATION” and“SWALLOW”.Secondly,specific meanings are extended again to form three kinds of abstract meanings in the category of non-prototype meanings,which respectively represent “ACTION”,“INFLUENCE”,and “EMOTIONAL RELATIONSHIP”.According to the above analysis of specific meanings and abstract meanings formed by semantic extension of verb “take”,it is found that the semantics of specific meanings extended early are closer to the prototype meaning,while the semantics of abstract meanings extended late are far away from the prototype meaning.Therefore,the phenomenon of semantic extension at multiple levels is formed.The basic-level category theory was first proposed by Roger Brown(1965).Theory points out that the basic-level category is the highest level that reflects the whole category and can be used to perceive the difference between things.In the framework of basic-level category theory,the semantic extension of verb “take” is influenced by human cognition.The first accepted and most widely used semantics form the basic-level category in the semantic system.In the semantic category of verb“take”,there are 19 semantics belonging to the basic-level category.All of them are mapped to the action domain.The semantics in the basic-level category are highly abstracted upward and forms the superordinate category in the semantic category of the verb “take”,that is,an abstract concept “to move something from a defined point to another direction”.The basic-level category extends down again to the subordinate category after adding specific features.The semantic of the verb “take” in the subordinate category is mapped from the action domain to the influence domain and extends 13 semantics such as “SUBTRACT”,“ACCEPT”,etc.The semantics of the verb “take” reflect the characteristics of prototype meaning in the middle level,and gradually become abstract semantics as it extends up and down.This creates a vertical pattern that extends up and down from the middle level.Based on the analysis of the semantic extension of the English verb “take” under the prototype theory and the basic-level category theory mentioned above,it is found that its semantic extension is both in the form of multi-level extension starting from the prototype meaning,and in the form of extension from the center upwards and downwards.The semantic meanings of the English verb “take” extends from the prototype meaning “to move or go with someone or something from one place to another” to the meaning of “MOVE”,“HOLD”,“SWALLOW”,etc.