The Investigation On The Construction Of "Shenme XY(de)"

This paper presents a comprehensive and detailed examination of the construction of "shenme XY(de)",which appears frequently in modern Chinese,using the theory of constructional syntax to analyze its internal components,clarify its semantic and syntactic features,explore its pragmatic functions,and clarify its formation mechanism and motives,in order to form a systematic understanding of the construction.The text consists of six main parts,as follows:The first chapter is the introduction,which identifies the construction of "shenme XY(de)" as the object of study,further proposes to deepen the study of the negative usage of the question pronoun "shenme",clarifies the evolution of the question category to the negative category,and points out the research significance of the thesis;after that,it introduced the theory of construct grammar and the research results of the construction "shenme XY(de)".Finally,this paper briefly indicates the research method and the source of the corpus.The second chapter determines the construction and analyzes its meaning.Based on the criteria of construct grammar theory,it is argued that the construction of "shenme XY(de)" is a typical construction,and its meaning is summarized as the speaker’s negative evaluation of a part of the above text,which can be understood as "bie shuo/guan XY(de)".The third chapter explores the internal composition of constructions.Firstly,we analyze the construct constant "shenme",which is considered to have built a semantic framework for the negative meaning of the construction of "Shenme XY(de)",and laid the foundation for the subjective emotion expressed in the construction;secondly,by analyzing the variables "X" and "Y" of this construction,it shows that the variables of this construction tend to be filled by words,and phrases are less often used as variables,and the semantic relations between the two variables mainly include antonymy and analogy;finally,it is clarified that the constant "de" is a modal particle,whose function is to confirm the speaker’s negative attitude and moderate the negative tone,so as to reduce the degree of "face threat" to the listener.The fourth chapter describes the basic features of the construction.The construction of "shenme XY(de)" has three syntactic features: acting as a syntactic component,acting as a compound clause and forming a separate sentence;meanwhile,the semantic features of the construction are negativity,subjectivity and anti-anticipation,among which,the negativity is further divided into three types: comprehensive negation,emphatic negation and specific negation;the anti-anticipation is mainly reflected in both anti-speaker expectation and anti-recipient expectation.The fifth chapter examines the pragmatic functions of the construction.The study shows that the pragmatic functions of the construction of "shenme XY(de)" include four kinds of functions: evaluation,expression,instruction and focus.Among them,both evaluation function and expression function can be divided into positive and negative ones,and the most obvious and core function is the evaluation function;the instruction function aims to dissuade;the focus highlighting function can be divided into two categories: highlighting the focus "shenme XY(de)" and highlighting the focus "S".The sixth chapter discusses the formation and evolution of the construction.Firstly,from the chronological point of view,the construction of "shenme XY(de)" originates from the structure "V shenme XY(de)",which further clarifies that the formation period of this construction is the Ming Dynasty.Next,the formation mechanism of this construction mainly includes subjectivization,construction coercion and omission innovation.Finally,it is pointed out that economy principles,frequency of use and linguistic demand are the motives for the formation of this construction.The last chapter is the conclusion,which summarizes and composes the research results of this paper,and explains the innovations and shortcomings of this paper,as well as presents the outlook for future research.