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A Construction Coercion-based Approach to the English Resultative Construction with Fake Objects

Author: ZhangZongNi
Tutor: XieYingGuang
School: Chongqing Normal University
Course: English Language and Literature
Keywords: the English resultative construction fake object construction coercion
CLC: H314
Type: Master's thesis
Year: 2013
Downloads: 32
Quote: 0
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Abstract


Fake objects of the English resultative construction are objects which bear nosemantic relation to the main verbs, such as the pub in They drank the pub dry and us inThe professor talked us into a stupor. The English resultative construction with fakeobjects, as one member of English resultative family, has been studied from syntactic,semantic and pragmatic perspectives. This thesis adopts a constructional coercion-basedstudy to analyze the resultative construction with fake objects, which is divided intofour types. By the analysis of the four types of the resultative construction with fakeobjects, the thesis explores the cognitive mechanism of the formation of the resultativeconstruction with fake objects.As a nonprototypical resultative construction, the resultative construction with fakeobjects is the result of construction coercion. This thesis mainly concentrates on theanalysis of the four types of the resultative construction with fake objects on the basis ofthe notion of construction coercion. The major findings of the thesis are shown as thefollows: First of all, some frequently used simple verbs are not always permanentlytransitive or intransitive. Once they are embedded into the resultative construction andhave some incongruity with the construction in semantics or syntax, they will becoerced by the construction and have to make some semantic or syntactic adjustments inorder to coordinate with the resultative construction. They may change their argumentstructure, get the transitive property, the causative property and take fake objects such asus in The professor talked us into a stupor. Or with the change of their property, fakeobjects appear, such as the pub in They drank the pub dry. Fake objects may be nounphrases such as the pub in They drank the pub dry or reflexives such as itself in The dogbarked itself hoarse. Whether the verbs choose noun phrases as their objects orreflexives as their objects is decided by construction coercion. By coercion, someproperties of the construction are transfered to the verbs and its objects.

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CLC: > Language, writing > FOREIGN > English > Grammar
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