（外国语言学及应用语言学专业论文）基本层次范畴对英语同源宾语结构的诠释.pdf

华 中 科 技 大 学 硕 士 学 位 论 文 华 中 科 技 大 学 硕 士 学 位 论 文 iii 摘摘 要要 英语中存在一种特殊的语言现象，有些动词后面接上词形相似、语义相同的名 词作为宾语，这类结构在语法上称为同源宾语结构。我们很难确定能构成同源宾语 结构的动词是否是一个有规律的动词集合，但是我们发现同源宾语结构的出现确实 在语义、句法等方面有一定的限制。因此，同源宾语结构的特殊性和复杂性使得很 多学者对其语义、句法等特征进行了研究。以往大量对英语同源宾语结构的研究都 侧重在句法、语义等方面，而忽略了认知这一角度。本文将从认知语言学中的基本 层次范畴这一角度入手，以期给英语同源宾语结构一个崭新的认知诠释，帮助读者 更好地理解同源宾语这一语言现象。 认知语言学认为语言不只是来自客观世界，也不只是简单的语法现象，语言的 形成受制于多种因素，包括外在的物质世界、生理和感知能力、认知能力的发展以 及认知结构等，因此我们不能够脱离客观的物质世界和人的认知能力去分析各种语 言现象。目前认知语言学研究主要以三个路径为代表：语言的经验观，突显观和注 意观。而基本层次范畴理论基于人类的经验，是基于经验观之上的认知语言学的主 要分支。认知语言学家认为，我们是依靠基本层次范畴而得以认识世界和解读世界 的，这些基本层次范畴能让我们付出最小的认知努力而收获最大量的信息。基本层 次范畴最自然、感知辨认最快、功能反应层次最高、习得命名较早、知识组织最有 效、所用词语最短且使用最频繁。 基本层次范畴理论为英语同源宾语结构的分析与研究提供了新的视角，本文首 先根据所阅读的有关同源宾语结构的文献，总结归纳了英语同源宾语结构在句法， 语义等方面的特征， 然后从所阅读文献中搜集到同源宾语结构及其动词， 通过 bnc 语料库进行验证并提取真实的语料进行研究分析，总结同源宾语的认知特征，接着 根据 croft 提出的理想化认知模式推出了同源宾语结构的认知模式，然后从认知语 言学中的基本层次范畴理论出发，运用其中的“意象的形成”(mental imagery)、 “名 动互含假说” (stereotypical relation of nouns and verbs)和 “完形原则” (gestalt principle) 华 中 科 技 大 学 硕 士 学 位 论 文 华 中 科 技 大 学 硕 士 学 位 论 文 iv 分析同源宾语的动词及其所指的事件与基本层次范畴之间的关系，最后得出如下结 论：同源宾语结构的动词属于基本层次范畴词，并且同源宾语结构所描述的事件属 于基本层次范畴的事件。 本文运用基本层次范畴理论去诠释同源宾语结构，可视为一次全新的大胆尝 试，其目的在于为探讨常见的语言现象开辟了新的途径，证实认知语言学及基本层 次范畴在人们认识世界和解读世界中的重要性。并且随着认知语言学中理论的发 展，对同源宾语结构的认知研究也会不断深入与完善。 关键词：关键词：同源宾语结构 同源动词 基本层次范畴 华 中 科 技 大 学 硕 士 学 位 论 文 华 中 科 技 大 学 硕 士 学 位 论 文 i abstract this thesis aims to analyze english cognate object construction, including the cognate verbs and events, from the perspective of basic level category. cognate object is a special language phenomenon in english. when an object is lexically cognate with its verb, and it tends to repeat the meaning of the verb, such construction is called cognate object construction. it is difficult to confine the occurrence of cognate objects in english to a regular small subset of verbs as is the case in other languages. cognate object constructions are relatively infrequent across languages and, when present, they are restricted to a limited range of semantic and syntactic domains. this thesis intends to analyze cognate object construction from a new cognitive perspectivebasic level category, with the hope of giving a novel explanation to cognate object construction and helping people understand this language phenomenon better. cognitive linguistics is different from the traditional explanation of grammatical structure and word meaning. it is an approach to language that is based on our experience of the world and the way we perceive and conceptualize the world. today modern linguistics is presented by three main approaches: the experiential view, the prominence view and the attentional view of language. the theory of basic level category is based on human beings experience and the main branch of cognitive linguistics on the experiential view. it is at the basic level of categorization that people conceptualize things as perceptual and functional gestalts and the basic level is where the largest amount of information about an item can be obtained with the least cognitive effort. basic level category is the most natural and rapid access to cognitive perception, it is the level which is first named and understood by children, and also with the shortest primary lexemes. the theory of basic level category gives a new perspective to analyze the cognate 华 中 科 技 大 学 硕 士 学 位 论 文 华 中 科 技 大 学 硕 士 学 位 论 文 ii object construction. firstly the thesis summarizes and analyzes the special syntactic and semantic characteristics of english cognate object construction according to many scholars literature. and then presents the cognate verbs and cognate object constructions collected from magazines, books and bnc. by analyzing the data collected, the thesis summarizes the cognitive features of cognate objects and then draws a cognitive model of cognate object construction in terms of the idealized cognitive model. the thesis also interprets the relation between basic level category and cognate verbs and the events belong to the basic level event category. in a whole, this thesis can be regarded as a tentative and a pioneering attempt to study english cognate object construction from the perspective of basic level category. the significance of this research is that it initiates a new perspective to probe into the common linguistics issues and at the same time addresses the importance of cognitive linguistics, especially the basic level category. in the future, the research is hoped to go deeper in this field with the development of the theory of cognitive linguistics. key words: cognate object construction cognate verb basic-level category 独创性声明独创性声明 本人声明所呈交的学位论文是我个人在导师指导下进行的研究工作及取得的 研究成果。尽我所知，除文中已经标明引用的内容外，本论文不包含任何其他个人 或集体已经发表或撰写过的研究成果。对本文的研究做出贡献的个人和集体，均已 在文中以明确方式标明。本人完全意识到，本声明的法律结果由本人承担。 学位论文作者签名： 日期： 年 月 日 学位论文版权使用授权书学位论文版权使用授权书 本学位论文作者完全了解学校有关保留、使用学位论文的规定，即：学校有权 保留并向国家有关部门或机构送交论文的复印件和电子版，允许论文被查阅和借 阅。本人授权华中科技大学可以将本学位论文的全部或部分内容编入有关数据库进 行检索，可以采用影印、缩印或扫描等复制手段保存和汇编本学位论文。 保密 ，在_年解密后适用本授权书。 不保密。 （请在以上方框内打“” ） 学位论文作者签名： 指导教师签名： 日期： 年 月 日 日期： 年 月 日 本论文属于 华 中 科 技 大 学 硕 士 学 位 论 文 华 中 科 技 大 学 硕 士 学 位 论 文 1 introduction in linguistics, we can see such a phenomenon-an object is lexically cognate with its verb, and it tends to repeat the meaning of the verb, and this kind of construction is called cognate object construction (coc). from the article the cognitive characteristics of cognate object (qu chunfang, 2005), we can know that cognate object originated from 19th century, and it can be defined in various ways. for example, in latin, it is termed as fifura etymologica, it can be also termed as cognate accusative or internal object in some grammar books. also, the grammar researcher beth levin (1993) defined it as cognate prepositional phrase construction, while diane massam (1990) thought it should be defined as thematic object. moreover, many authors, such as, quirk et al (1985), sally rice (1987), hou jinxiang(2003),ect, have given definitions to cognate object. although their descriptions are different, the essence is the same-the object is lexically cognate with its verb. so here in this thesis, summarizing their definitions, we can say that a cognate object is a verbs object that is cognate with the verb. more specifically, the verb is the one that is ordinarily intransitive (lacking any object), and the cognate object is simply the verbs noun form. for example, in the following sentences: (1)she lived a happy life. (2) she smiled a sweet smile. in sentence (1), life is the cognate object of the verb live, and also in sentence (2), smile is the cognate object of the verb smile. they are lexically cognate with their corresponding verbs, and tend to repeat the same meaning of their corresponding verbs. cognate objects exist in many languages, including various unrelated ones; for example, they exist in arabic, chichewa, english, german, hebrew, icelandic, and russian. it is so special and complicate that a lot of scholars are attracted to study on it. however, till now most researches have been done on grammatical or semantic basis. 华 中 科 技 大 学 硕 士 学 位 论 文 华 中 科 技 大 学 硕 士 学 位 论 文 2 here in this thesis i provide a novel study from the point of cognitive linguistics. the cognitive linguistic approach is quite different from the traditional explanation of grammatical structures and word meaning. it advocated that what the words of a given language mean and how they can be used in combination depends on the perception and categorization of the real world. therefore it focuses on the conceptual nature of our mental representations and argues that language is governed by general cognitive principles, rather a special-purpose language module. today there are three main approaches in the cognitive linguistics: the experiential view, the prominence view and the attentional view. the experiential view is built upon psychological studies of cognitive categories, which lead to the prototype model of categorization. its main claim is that instead of the postulating logical rules and object definition on the basis of theoretical consideration and introspection, a more practical and empirical path should be pursued. for example, one can ask language users to describe what is going on in their minds when they produce and understand words and sentences. as experiments have shown, people will not only state that a car has box-like shape, that it has wheels, doors, and windows, that it is driven by an engine and equipped with a steering wheel, an accelerator and brakes, and that it has seats for the driver and passengers. more likely than not, it will also be mentioned that a car is comfortable and fast, that it offers mobility, independence and perhaps social status. some people may connect the notion of car with their first love affairs, or with injury if they were one involved in an accident (ungerer this can be called parasitic categorization. superordinate categories have one or several category-wide attributes which also apply to the respective basic level categories, but if they are to be highlighted, the superordinate categories, it has also the collecting function to the lower level categories that superordinate categories assemble lower level categories with respect to a certain attribute (or certain attributes), and this process can be repeated on several levels to create a full-scale hierarchy of lexical categories. the subordinate level categories members have high mutual resemblance; they have low distinctiveness from members of neighboring categories. subordinate categories are much less informative relative to their immediate hyperonymic category. subordinate categories are frequently polymorphemic, the most common pattern being modifier head. usually superordinate level categories are the most general one. basic level categories are members of superordinate level categories. subordinate level categories are the most specific ones. basic level category tends to rest in middle of typical general-to-specific categorical hierarchies. the basic level category can be used into the objects. for example, if i run across a tree on a trail, i could call it a tree, a pine tree”, a leaf-bearing tree, or a ponderosa pine, but i am most likely to simply call it a pine. category more general than pine is likely to be mentally represented as superordinate category, while category 华 中 科 技 大 学 硕 士 学 位 论 文 华 中 科 技 大 学 硕 士 学 位 论 文 7 more specific is likely to be represented as subordinate category. figure 1-1 an example of object category hierarchy from the above examples, we can know that the superordinate categories have fewer defining features than basic level categories. and subordinate categories have lower distinctiveness from members of neighboring categories. basic level categories display higher-class inclusion than superordinate and subordinate categories. the basic level category can also be used into the actions. for example: figure1-2 an example of action category hierarchy. move walk limp march strutstride wanderamble hobblestamppace stroll superordinate category basic level category tree pine ponderosa pine white pine jack pine subordinate category 华 中 科 技 大 学 硕 士 学 位 论 文 华 中 科 技 大 学 硕 士 学 位 论 文 8 table 1-1 some potential subordinates of the action category walk ( ungerer devouring the food are just the specific process in the event of having a dinner, and they do not have the gestalt properties. rifkin (1985) once made experiments and found that informants could produce large numbers of attributes for basic level event categories such as breakfast, lunch, seeing a movie, but it was much leaner for the related superordinate events as meal, entertainment and subordinate such as quick breakfast, birthday party did not have more significant attributes than the basic level category. basic level categories are cognitively more important than either superordinate categories or subordinate categories. nevertheless, the basic level category plays an especially salient part in human beings mind. it has the acquisition priority. therefore the object, actions and events on the basic level category occupy an important position in the cognitive process on human beings. 1.1.2 characteristics of basic-level category in cognitive psychology, a basic level category is a family of events, objects, patterns, emotions, spatial relationships, or social relationships that are cognitively basic. dog, chair, ball, and cup are examples of basic level categories. basic level categories share a variety of properties with one another. among other similarities, they are the level first named and understood by children, the level with the shortest primary lexemes, the first level to enter the lexicon of a language, the level at which subjects are fastest at identifying category members, the level at which most of our knowledge is organized, the level that most faithfully mirrors natural kinds, and the highest level at which a single mental image can reflect the entire category. if we summarize early interpretation by roger brown and paul kay, the primacy and centrality of the basic level category can be traced back to mainly three factors (brown 1958, 1965; kay 1971): 华 中 科 技 大 学 硕 士 学 位 论 文 华 中 科 技 大 学 硕 士 学 位 论 文 10 first, the generic or basic level is where we perceive the most obvious differences between the organisms and objects of the world. this becomes clearer when we first have a look at the lower and higher levels of categorization. the subordinate level categories alsatian, collie and greyhound each contain category items which closely resemble the items in the neighboring categories. for instance, all specimens of alsatians, collies and greyhounds have a tail they wag when they are happy, they all bark, all of them like to chase cats and posts men. making distinctions between these categories may therefore seem almost pedantic. the superordinate category animal, on the other hand, embraces such a disparate variety of items (elephants, mice, whales, etc.) that the similarities are very small indeed. against this background, basic level categories like dog seem to strike a balance. each kind of dog shows a great deal of similarity with other kinds of dog, yet all dogs are distinguished from cats, lions, etc., by what seem to be the characteristics of dogginess (barking, tail wagging, etc.). in other words, the cognitive category dog, and the basic level in general, normally correspond to the most obvious discontinuities in nature (kay, 1971). the other two factors which are thought to be responsible for the primacy of the basic level can be dealt with more briefly. one is the common overall shape, which is perceived holistically and can be seen as an important indicator of gestalt perception. if we categorize organisms and objects on the basic level, it is obvious that all category members have a characteristic shape. this shape not only unities all kinds of dogs, but also distinguish them from the members of other basic level categories, such as elephant, mouse and whale. if we approach organisms and objects on the superordinate level, the level of mammal, reptile or insect, there is no common shape for the category which, to take the case of mammal, applies to dogs, elephants, mice and whales. since a common shape does not exist, it cannot; of course, he used to distinguish mammals from the reptiles and insects. in contrast, categories on the subordinate level, the level of species like alsatian and terrier, do have a common characteristic shape, just like basic level 华 中 科 技 大 学 硕 士 学 位 论 文 华 中 科 技 大 学 硕 士 学 位 论 文 11 categories, and this shape is shared by all kinds of alsatians or by all kinds of terriers. however, this shape is less helpful in distinguishing alsatians from terriers because, both being dogs, the differences in shape are much smaller than between dogs and elephants or whales. (ungerer in fact they are zero-related. in (b), the verb and noun are again related both semantically and morphologically; they are not zero-related but also are not related by regular affixation. the two words share the same root, event if there are morpheme-internal differences between that root morpheme in the verb and in the noun (e.g. sing/song, live/life, die/death). the words in (c) also are related both semantically and morphologically; they are derived by means of regular affixation (the nominalizing suffixing). finally, the verb and noun in (d) are related semantically but not morphologically. the various types of relations in above examples can be categorized according to the criterion of morphological derivation: the author will refer to (a)-(c) as 华 中 科 技 大 学 硕 士 学 位 论 文 华 中 科 技 大 学 硕 士 学 位 论 文 13 morphological cognates for they are related morphologically and semantically, and to (d) as semantic cognates in that they are related not morphologically but semantically. while the oeds definition of cognate object allows all of the constructions above, there is much disagreement in the literature as to which of these should properly be considered cognate objects. macfarland (1994) pointed out that, sweet (1990) seems to allow type (a) and (d) to be cognate objects; poutsma (1926) allows types (a), (b), (d) to be cognate objects; jespersen (1927) regards types (a), (b), and (c) as cognate objects; visser (1963) thinks that all four types are to be cognate objects. quirk et al. (1985) seem undecided; their examples include only types (a) and (b). however, they say that “in this type of object, the noun head is semantically and often morphologically related to the verb”; by this definition, quirk et al., like visser, seem t