硕士论文--语一词多义现象的认知研究.doc

AcknowledgementsMany people have made invaluable contributions, both directly and indirectly, to my research. I feel deep gratitude to all those who have offered me support, help and encouragement during my study in Jiangsu University of Science and Technology. First of all, I am obliged to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor Professor Zhao Xia who has given me a lot of guidance in my study of cognitive linguistics, and made painstaking efforts to instruct me in the thesis-writing. Her kindness and efficiency will definitely exert profound influence on my future life and work. My deep thanks must go to Professor Cheng Shanzhen, Professor Zhou Shujun, Professor Ge Jihong, Professor Dai Yuqun, Professor Zhang Hongyan, Professor Xia Ganlin and Professor Jiang Wei, for their instructive lectures that I have attended. I should also express my genuine gratitude to my wife, my classmates and roommates who have helped me during these years.Last but not least, the thesis owes its existence, to a large extent, to a large body of related materials. My bibliography, in this respect can be regarded as the most genuine act of thanks to the authors of those materials.AbstractAbstractLexical polysemy is the most pervasive and the most important semantic phenomenon in English. Therefore, it has been the focus of linguists researches. The traditional studies are confined to the external reasons that cause the changes of meanings of polysemous words without taking account of their underlying cognitive mechanisms. They fail to reveal the essential nature of polysemous words. The polysemous phenomenon has attracted much concern of cognitive linguists too. Some of the cognitive researchers focused their minds too much on the classification of the semantic system of polysemous words (王德春,2002). Others lay their emphasis on the analysis of polysemous perception words or bodily-part words such as hand or heart. However, the research which systematically studies internal semantic relations of polysemous words and explains the nature of the development of the meanings of polysemous words is still rare in terms of cognitive linguistics.This thesis conducts a study of polysemous words from a cognitive perspective within the relevant theoretical framework of categorization and prototype, metaphor, metonymy and image schema, the goal of which is to find the formation process as well as semantic extension mechanisms of polysemy. Moreover, we intend to make a systematic explanation of the motivation behind the formation of polysemy and demonstrate connections of the related senses of a polysemous word.The thesis is organized as follows: chapter one is the introduction, the purpose and significance of this study is firstly given. Then the previous studies are briefly reviewed. Chapter two is about the theoretical foundation, namely the theory of categorization and prototype. The internal structure of polysemy is linked by prototype and family resemblance. In this chapter, a case study of polysemous interest is also attached. Chapter three is concerning the motivation mechanisms of meaning extension. The theory of conceptual metaphor, metonymy and image schema is introduced. Another case study of polysemous window is conducted to illustrate the explanatory power of the three meaning extension devices. Chapter four is mainly about a case study of preposition beyond. Chapter five is the conclusion of this thesis. The meanings of a polysemous word are tightly connected with human experience and the way in which human beings categorize and conceptualize the world. In this chapter, the answer to the questions of how polysemous words come into being and how meanings are extended is roughly given.Key Words: polysemy; cognitive mechanism; prototype; categoryIII摘要词汇多义现象在英语中是最常见也是最重要的语义现象，因此一词多义现象历来就是语言学家的研究焦点。传统语言学局限于多义产生的外部原因而没有重点考虑多义产生的认知机制，因而不能揭示多义现象形成的本质问题。多义现象同样也吸引了认知语言学家的关注。一些学者对词汇多义性有过论述，如有的研究过于关注多义词词义体系的划分。另一些则过多的研究了某些特定词（如感官词和身体部位词）的多义现象。然而，从认知语言学角度，系统地研究多义词内部的语义关系，从而阐释多义形成的本质的研究还不多见。 本文拟从认知语言学的角度出发，借助原型范畴理论、隐喻理论、转喻理论及意象图式理论等相关理论，对英语多义现象形成过程及其语义延伸机制进行剖析。旨在系统地探讨分析多义形成的认知机制及多义词相关义项之间的关联性。全文共分为五个章节，第一章为概述，首先介绍了研究目的和意义。然后简要回顾了前人对多义现象的研究。第二章介绍了研究多义现象的理论基础即原型范畴理论。多义范畴的内部结构是以原型和家族相似性为纽带的。在此章最后附带了对多义词interest的研究。第三章主要介绍了语义延伸的认知机制。多义现象的形成过程是由隐喻、转喻及意象图式促动的。Window的多义研究充分说明了语义延伸是三种认知机制促动的结果。第四章为介词beyond的实证性研究。第五章为结语。我们认为多义词义项是与人类经验及其对外部世界的范畴化、概念化方式密切相关的。最后简要回答了多义如何形成及义项如何延伸的问题。 关键词：多义；认知机制；原型；范畴ContentsContentsAcknowledgementsIAbstract (English)IIAbstract (Chinese)IVChapter One Introduction11.1Purpose and Significance of the Present Study11.2 A Brief Survey of Polysemy21.2.1The Definition of Polysemy21.2.2Polysemy and Homonymy21.3Literature Review41.3.1 The Traditional Approaches to Polysemy41.3.2 Cognitive Linguistic Researches on Polysemy81.4 Summary9Chapter Two Theoretical Foundation to the Studies of Polysemy102.1 General Ideas about Cognitive Linguistics102.1.1 Philosophical Foundation112.1.2 Three Approaches in Cognitive Linguistics112.2 The Theory of Categorization and Prototypes132.2.1 Cognitive Categories132.2.2 Cognitive Prototypes162.3 Core Senses and Meaning Extensions182.4 Polysemy as a Prototype Category192.4.1 Types of Polysemous Categorization192.5 Summary24Chapter Three Mechanisms for Sense Extension in Polysemy253.1 The Theory of Conceptual Metaphor253.1.1 The Ubiquity of Metaphor253.1.2 The Internal Structure of Metaphor: Mapping across Domains263.1.3 The Experiential Bases of Metaphor273.1.4 The Classification of Metaphor293.2 The Theory of Metonymy323.2.1 The Internal Structure of Metonymy: Mapping within One Domain323.2.2 Classification of Metonymy343.2.3 Metaphor versus Metonymy363.3 Metaphorical and Metonymic Sense Extension373.3.1 A Case Study：Window383.4 Image Schema423.4.1 Internal Structure of Image Schema423.4.2 Types of Image Schema443.4.3 Central Image Schema and its Elaborations443.4.4 Metaphorical Extension of Image Schema493.5 Summary51Chapter Four Case Studies544.1 Spatial Concept and Prepositions544.2 A Case Study of Beyond554.2.1 The Central Image Schema of Beyond554.2.2 Metaphorical Extension of the Central Image Schema -beyond-574.2.3 Summary59Chapter Five Conclusion61Bibliography63Published Papers66Chapter One IntroductionChapter One Introduction1.1 Purpose and Significance of the Present StudyWords that have a number of related senses or interpretations are polysemous. For example, paper refers to both a substance and publication printed on that substance. A large number of polysemous words exist in all natural languages, so lexical polysemy is ubiquitous and the most important semantic phenomenon across languages. Lyons hypothesizes that, “it is almost surely the case that there are no natural languages, and never have been, in which every word has one and only one meaning” (Lyons, 1995:72). Furthermore, it is reported by Britton that more than forty-four percent of English words selected at random possess more than one meaning (Britton, 1978:7). So polysemy is a fundamental feature of human speech which can arise in a multiplicity of ways. Polysemizing words is a simpler and more convenient economic way for people to express new ideas with known words than coining new words or borrowing words from foreign languages. Without lexical polysemy, we would have to introduce new semantic entries in the dictionaries. Then we would burden the language learners with the lexicon excessively. Therefore, it has been the focus of linguists researches.However, due to the different research methodologies and focuses of many linguists, polysemy has not been explained fully and systematically within the several familiar theoretical frameworks of semantics. The traditional linguists (mainly structuralists) were more interested in the distinction among different meanings of a polyseme, which was confined to the external structure of language, and thus could not reveal the essential nature of polysemy. Since cognitive linguistics was formally established at the end of 1980s，the study of lexical polysemy has become one of its focuses.In general, cognitive linguistics interprets language by reference to human cognition. Ungerer and Schmid (2001:36) argued that “cognitive linguistics is an approach to language that is based on our experience of the world and the way we perceive and conceptualize it”. Cognitive linguists pay attention to the relation between language and psychology. They provide us with a framework to explain the linguistic phenomenon of polysemy through human subjective interaction with the object worldThey propose that lexical items should be conceptual categories and have to be studied and investigated as reflecting general cognitive principles rather than purely formal linguistic principle.This thesis conducts a study of polysemous words from a cognitive perspective within the relevant theoretical framework of categorization and prototype, metaphor, metonymy and image schema, the goal of which is to find the formation process as well as semantic extension mechanisms of polysemy. How polysemy comes into being and how meanings are extended are two problems to be investigated in this thesis. We hope that the present study will shed some light on the researches of polysemous words. 1.2 A Brief Survey of PolysemyWhen it comes to polysemy, we shall have to mention a French linguist, Michel Breal, who coined not only the term “semantics” but also the term “polysemy” (Saeed, 2000). When “polysemy” was coined, it was a diachronic concept, and originally used to the study of changes of meaning as well as the relationship between multiple senses of a polysemous word. Later Saussure applied it in the study of word meaning within the structuralistic framework. Nowadays, it has become a hot topic in cognitive semantics. 1.2.1 The Definition of PolysemyThe term “polysemy” is derived from Greek polysemia, the two components (poly+sema) of which indicate “having many senses or multiple senses”. As indicated by its form, polysemy refers to the property of a word that carries more than one meaning. And words that have multiple meanings related conceptually or historically are defined as polysemy. As a matter of fact, polysemy is not as simple as defined above. It remains still a complex and controversial topic in linguistics. We lack a systematic criterion for defining polysemy. However, Heine has provided a set of three criteria for us that most scholars are willing to accept:1. There are two or more different but related meanings.2. These meanings are associated with one linguistic form only.3. The linguistic form belongs to one and the same morphosyntactic category in its uses (Heine, 1997:8). Im ready to believe that polysemy tends to be described as the synchronic reflection of semantic change. Different senses of a polyseme could be traced back historically to one and the same item. Polysemy is the result of the diachronic process of word meanings. In the process of polysemization, cognitive abilities of human beings play essential roles.1.2.2 Polysemy and HomonymyPolysemy and homonymy are two confusing concepts. Homonyms usually arise from a historical accident in which two different word meanings converge on the same phonological representation, or in which a single word diverges into very different meanings. Homonyms are the words that have different and unrelated meanings etymologically and semantically, but are identical in both sound and spelling. A typical example is bear, with the unrelated meanings: “a large, strong wild animal with thick fur and sharp claws” and “give birth to”.Far more prevalent is the phenomenon of polysemous words, those with multiple related senses. As an example, the word paper may refer to a substance made out of wood pulp, a blank sheet of that substance, a daily publication, or an article that is printed on that substance. The meaning of paper has been extended so far that it is now possible for students to turn in a paper by handing in a disk or sending a file electronically, so that wood pulp is in no way involved. Unlike the meanings of a homonym, however, these uses of the word paper are related to one another and clearly arose through a process of extension of similar meanings rather than through an arbitrary historical coincidence (Clark E&Clark H, 1979:767). This phenomenon of words having multiple related senses is called polysemy.Whereas the alternative meanings of a homonym like bear have no obvious relation, the senses of polysemous words are clearly related. Certain semantic relations between a words senses appear over and again in polysemy (Lehrer, 1990:207), for example, object/substance, object/representation of that object, type/token, and text/object containing that text. To illustrate one, the object/substance relation is found when the same word is used to refer to an object and the substance that makes it up, often becoming a mass noun in the second case. For example, a polar is a tree that is the source of some polar (wood) used to make a table; a chicken is an animal that may end up as some baked chicken (the food). If we were to hear of a species of plant called an elm, we could say both “There is an elm growing in my yard” (individual plant) and “This pencil is made out of elm” (the substance derived from that plant). Thus, these forms of polysemy are really prolific, and they are used quite easily when newly-invented words enter the lexicon (Murphy G, 1997:235). For example, the word book can be used to refer both to a physical object containing a text and to the content of that text. The same form of polysemy is present in recently invented words for new information-storage devices such as videotape, CD; for example, That CD is cracked (object) and That CD is brilliant (content of the CD).The outlines of a theory of homonymic representation are fairly clear. The different meanings of bank or calf are considered to be different words, so it is generally believed that they are represented by different entries in dictionaries. In lexicology, there also seems to be a belief that homonyms are different words, as indicated by separate dictionary entries.It is obviously critical to keep these two phenomena distinct. Polysemy is the normal, expected presence of related senses in a word form, such as an object and the substance making up that object, and homonymy is the unforeseen coincidence of two distinct word forms having the same name.1.3 Literature ReviewLexical polysemy is a ubiquitous linguistic phenomenon, which has been a hot and controversial topic in linguistic research for many years. In the past, scholars in different schools tried to explain polysemy from various perspectives. Th