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Adjective Selection Constraints in the English Resultative Construction

Author: LvPeng
Tutor: XieYingGuang
School: Chongqing Normal University
Course: English Language and Literature
Keywords: resultative construction scale scale adjectives coercion
CLC: H314
Type: Master's thesis
Year: 2013
Downloads: 34
Quote: 0
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Abstract


Selection constraints exit in the choice of adjective complements in the EnglishResultative Constructions. For example, we can say Jack hammered the metal flat, butusually we cannot say*Jack hammered the metal long. The topic involves threeaspects and has long been a hotspot of language studies. Firstly, it contains the studyof English adjectives. Secondly, it refers to the study of the English ResultativeConstruction. When both of them intersecting with each other, we get the research ofthe hot issue which is the study of the adjectives in the Resultative Construction. For along time, Linguists have focused on these three aspects. This thesis places emphasison the research of the adjective selection Constraints in the English resultativeconstruction.Different schools of linguists, from both home and abroad, have discussedselection constraints in the English resultative construction from differentperspectives. But most of them deal only with surface description, and of course,some of them have attempted to explain the issue in more detail. Still, some problemsremain unsolved. For example: first, some scholars simply make research of theseparated language phenomena, failing to reflect all the language facts; second,scholars have failed to make a satisfied explanation for this phenomenon; third, theresearch point of view is not comprehensive, lacking research results based on corpusand typological studies.Adopting the theories of scale structure of adjectives and coercion, this thesisre-examines the adjective selection constraints in the English resultative construction.Firstly, this thesis reviews and summarizes the studies taken by scholars fromdomestic and abroad on the adjective selection constraints on the English resultativeconstruction. Secondly, this thesis attempts to apply the scale structure of theadjectives to analyzing adjectives used in the resultative construction. At the sametime, this thesis also utilizes the schematic approach showing the relationship betweenthe verb and the adjective. Furthermore, this thesis extends the types of the scalestructure to make a more detailed explanation of the scale structure of the gradableadjectives. In the end, this thesis applies coercion theory to solving the semantic conflicts between the construction and the lexical items. This thesis mainly focuses onthe interaction between the verb and the adjective in the English resultativeconstruction, especially, it has discussed in detail the verb overriding the adjective,which is a kind of lexical coercion. At the same time, this thesis also explains in detailthe operation process of the coercion mechanism, thereby, definitely increasing itspersuasiveness. In this way, we have enlarged the scope of adjective selection in theresultative construction and overcome the shortcomings of former studies.

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