The syntactic coercion between "N1Adv shi N2" and "S bi N1 hai N2" constructions

Authors

  • Ying Li

    School of Foreign Languages, Xihua University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18063/fls.v2i1.1202

Abstract

Though many researchers have studied "N1Adv shi N2" and "S bi N1 hai N2" constructions, none of them have done some research on the correlation between them. In view of it, this thesis analyzes the syntactic coercion of the construction "N1Adv shi N2" on the construction “S bi N1 hai N2" from the perspective of the Cognitive Construction Grammar. The findings are: the latter inherits from the former the characteristics of nouns as adjectives, generic reference of nouns, and no negation, etc., but blocks the characteristic of personal names with specific reference; the latter partially inherits from the former some characteristics of nouns, such as the nouns referring to people, but blocks the information of geographical and personal names. In addition, the metonymic thinking model link proposed in this thesis has complemented the four types of links between constructions by Goldberg.

Keywords:

Cognitive Construction Grammar, S bi N1 hai N2, N1Adv shi N2, coercion of construction, inheritance of construction, syntax

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