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构式义与词汇义间压制的构式语法分析

Constructional Coercion between Constructional and Lexical Meanings Examined from the Perspective of Construction Grammar

【作者】 陈伟

【导师】 文旭;

【作者基本信息】 西南大学 , 英语语言文学, 2008, 硕士

【摘要】 如题所指,本文主要用构式语法的研究方法研究压制。语言学家们已经普遍认同压制与构式是密切联系的。从广义上说,压制现象普遍存在于各种人类语言,它构成了基本句型。本文的第三章就集中讨论了各种构式中压制的普遍性并对压制过程进行了细致的描述。在仔细研读了各种有代表性的定义过后,采用了其中较科学的定义。该定义详述了转喻在压制过程中所起的不可替代的作用。另外,修辞、语义和句法要求也会对压制构成影响。有关这些因素对压制产生的影响在以往的研究中都有体现,本文第二章中将作简要概括。认知语言学的近期研究频频使用压制一词,压制从前是和计算机语言学密切相关的,用来研究自然语言中句法层面的语义与其词汇层面的语义之间的冲突。其中一些对词汇义与构式义之间协调的外延性进行了实例研究,其他的则对词汇义与构式义之间的冲突进行了实例研究。在构式语法的近期研究中,压制被用于描述协调句式与词汇填充项这一连续性过程。可以看出它并不是有关词项运用过程中凭空产生的一项闻所未闻的语法功能,但它确实是从词汇义与构式义相互制约的关系中衍生出的一个概念。可惜,学者们对压制和构式两个概念的界定各执一词,而且构式语法对各种构式的研究才刚刚起步。本文正朝着这个方向继续探索,并试图把构式义压制与构式语法的核心概念相联系。构式语法对典型的压制过程中搜集到的英语压制现象的资料进行了详细的构式类型化分析。举“我姐姐步行上班”为例,它正是压制的典型产物。英语表达沉淀下来的语法规则中也不乏对压制的运用。构式语法假定一种语言的构式并非一些毫无关联的词项集合而是有等级规则的,因此构式间相似或同级的都会被构式间的联系所影响。这些联系往往表现为一致、遗传和压制。为了解决构式的歧义问题,本篇学位论文采用假定从一构式到另一构式形式与语义特征的存在遗传关系这一假说,这样也就找到了近义与歧义的根源。就像Goldberg所指出的那:“一个给定的构式的结构是从语言中其他构式遗传得来的”。而压制又是另一个关于语言描述手段的弹性机制。本文中我们用压制来解释连词成句的可能性,而语义限制的相互排斥为连词成句设置了障碍。笔者认为特定条件下的构式义促使构式中词的选派发生变化。也就是说兼容性的冲突是通过特定词项适应构式义来解决的。这一机制不仅解决了语义冲突或构式义与词汇义之间的冲突,也解释了连词成句的规则及不规则现象,于是具有了极大普遍性。另外,压制提供给先前冲突构式中的词位的再次解读是基于认知和语用中隐喻或转喻机制的。虽然Michaelis没有明确的揭示出这层关系,但在下面的这句引证中却是很明显的,它把压制定义为语用层面上所激发的再次解读:“压制效应是由读者协调整句构式及其词项的需要所触发的(Michaelis 2004:7)”。这些认知和语用层面的程序和机制构成了语言使用者普遍存在的语言创造性的基础(这些语言使用者往往同时扮演说话人和听话人的角色),这些语言使用者正是一直以来语言变化的推动力。举个简单易懂的例子来说,一个单词的隐喻的一开始在一个压制成功的构式中是可见的,但这一隐喻可能会逐渐独立于构式之外而成为真正意义上的隐喻,而这又可能会引起改词项的语义变迁。压制这一概念在笔者做了仔细研究后得出它并不是一种新近发现或闻所未闻的认知或语用层面上的运作机制,更准确的说,它是一个比较有解释力的概念,它是对说话人和听话人的自然语言在认知和语用层面上的运作机制的高度概括。有了压制这一概念的提出,有关构式的各种概念与语言变迁及语法化之间重要的协同作用能得到充分解析也就指日可待了。

【Abstract】 As the title suggests, this dissertation is intended to study coercion from the perspective of Construction Grammar. Coercion and constructions are closely related to each other, which has been accepted by almost all linguists. In a broad sense, coercion is prevalent in human language, it structures the basic sentences. Chapter three is mainly about the universality of coercion among different constructions and the detailed process of coercion. After surveying some representative definitions, we have formulated our own working definition which in our opinion is more elaborated. Metonymy, which plays an irreplaceable part in the mechanism of coercion, has been attached great importance. Without doubt, the operational mechanisms should include other aspects, such as rhetorical, semantic and syntactic. We will survey the previous accounts of coercion in chapter two.Recent work in cognitive linguistics has hired the term coercion which was formerly associated with computational linguistics to apply to a number of instances in the study of natural language in which there is an incongruity between the semantics of a syntactic frame and the semantics of lexical items found in it. Some of these instances illustrate areas which could well be described as extensions of boundaries in which the harmony between lexical and constructional aspect has been penetrated; others illustrate mismatch between them.In recent Construction Grammar studies, the notion of coercion has been employed to describe the successive process of reconciling the meaning of a morph syntactic construction with the meaning of lexical filler. It has been shown that a new grammatical function does not arise homogenously in all uses of the lexical item concerned, but its origin is bound to specific linguistic lexical meaning or constructional meaning. However, the notions of coercion as well as construction differ greatly among scholars, and research into the impact of constructions in Construction Grammar scenarios has only begun.This dissertation advances in this direction as it links the notion of coercion of constructional meaning with central concepts of Construction Grammar. Data from coercion phenomena of English, which are typically found in coercion processes, are analyzed as specific types of constructions in Construction Grammar. Take My sister walks to work as an example. It is the product of coercion. Coercion can be illustrated in its application to the grammar of English expressions.Construction Grammar assumes that the constructions of a language are not just a collection of unrelated items but are hierarchically ordered, so that similar or common features among constructions can be motivated by their relationship to other constructions. These relations are described via the notions of unification, inheritance, and coercion. In order to solve the problem of polysemy of constructions, this dissertation postulates inheritance relations whereby both formal and semantic features may be transmitted from one construction to another,and thus similarity relations as well as polysemy may be accounted for. As Goldberg (1995: 70) points out: "A given construction is motivated to the degree that its structure is inherited from other constructions in language".A further concept that adds to the flexibility of the descriptive tools is the notion of coercion. In this dissertation we use the term coercion to account for the possibility to unify constructions, which due to mutually exclusive semantic restrictions, should not allow unification in the first place. The author argues that constructional meaning under certain conditions induces a shift in the designations of content words used in the construction. This means that conflicts of compatibility are solved by the reinterpretation of certain lexical items in terms of their fit for the constructional meaning. This mechanism does not merely serve to resolve semantic conflicts or conflicts between constructional meaning and lexical meaning. Instead, it is employed to interpret regular as well as irregular combinations of constructions with lexical items, and thus allows a powerful generalization.In addition, coercion, understood as the reinterpretation of lexemes in previously incompatible constructions, is based on cognitive and pragmatic procedures like metaphorical or metonymic extension. Though Michaelis does not explicitly mention this connection, it becomes quite evident in quotes like the following, which defines coercion as a pragmatically motivated interpretation: "Coercion effects are triggered when the interpreter must reconcile the meaning of a morphosyntactic construction with the meaning of a lexical filler" (Michaelis 2004: 7).These cognitive and pragmatic procedures constitute the basis of the general and ubiquitous linguistic creativity of language users (who are always speakers and hearers at the same time), which has long been known to be one of the driving forces of linguistic change. Thus, to give just one straightforward example, the metaphorical extension of a word, which first becomes visible in a coerced construction, may become generalized and independent of that construction (via the creativity of the speaker/hearer), which results in semantic change of that linguistic item.The concept of coercion, as we have analyzed thoroughly here, does not refer to a newly discovered cognitive or pragmatic procedure; instead, it seems to be a useful notion to refer in a summarizing way to the linguistic results of the cognitive and pragmatic procedures speakers and hearers resort to in using their language. It is this area in particular where important synergetic effects between constructional concepts and principles of language change and grammaticalization are to be expected.

  • 【网络出版投稿人】 西南大学
  • 【网络出版年期】2008年 09期
  • 【分类号】H314
  • 【被引频次】8
  • 【下载频次】892
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