英语论文网

5.1 SUBJECT FOR AGENT FOR PROPERTY
For this pattern, the English adjectives signify the properties of the agents which revealhuman temperament, habit, and quality. Some are singular and others are collective. Theseadjectives are the result of adjectivization in the syntactical dimension. To develop theseadjectives, syntactical verbal components and their objects merge as the result of frequent usewhich gives rise to cognitive contiguity. Within the domain of “SVO”, parts of the verbal andobjective features are extracted to map onto the subjects, which continue to map onto the agentsto access to “Property”. For instance, “fault-finding” originally exists in the syntactical structurewith “Subject” acting as “Agent” to find the fault in something acting as “Patient”. In theadjectivization, the adjectives are formed with the contribution of metonymy.All of these adjectives signify the properties of the agents. They are often used to describehuman representative characters by recognizing what people behave. These adjectives havegone through adjectivization by metonymic mappings. They are all derived from the syntacticalstructure with a subject affecting on the object within the same action scenario. The agentsrepresented by the subjects show intense agentivity, which contributes to the adjectivizationwith properties to show agents presenting their characters.

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Conclusion

This thesis is a cognitive study of metonymy concerning the lexicalization of “V+O”construction. In order to demonstrate the assumption, a theoretical framework of lexicalizedmetonymy is built. English and Chinese nominalization and adjectivization are explored andanalyzed to demonstrate its rationality. This chapter is about these major findings, thelimitations and suggestions for further study.Lexicalization in the syntactical dimension is about the syntactical componentsdynamically changing through time and developing into lexical components. It leads to theformation of words. Nouns and adjectives derived from“V+O” construction are composed byverb morphemes and object morphemes, which is the result of metonymy. With this assumption,this thesis focuses on the study of metonymy concerning the nominalization and adjectivizationof “V+O” construction.After having made the literature review of the studies of lexicalization at home andabroad concerning the research on general theories of lexicalization, the relationship betweenlexicalization and grammaticalization, the studies of the lexicalization of “V+O” construction,and the studies of metonymy at home and abroad involving general theories of metonymy andlexical metonymy, three questions have been solved already.
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