从认知角度对英语短语动词的语义研究

1. Introduction

1.1 Objective and Significance of the Present Study

Particle verbs learning are a problem area for most foreign language learners. Therefore, it will be quite necessary to find a method to study particle verbs efficiently. The present study conducted both the particle and the verb, aiming to study the status of the verb and the particle contribute to the semantics in the process of the semantic integration, and the various degree of idiomaticity in the process of the semantic integration.

Results of the study may promote understanding the semantics of the particle verbs. It is promising to provide some ways to help learners grasp particle verbs more efficiently and effectively.

Because of this analysis, we all foreign language learners can have a good command the meaning of the particle verbs well. 1.2 Background of the Present Study 1.2.1 The Definition of Particle Verbs

Particle verbs, due to their wide use in all of forms of written and spoken English, have become an indispensable part of English language. They have been given a variety of different names by different authors. Bolinger (1971) listed the following examples, “two-word verb”, “discontinuous verb”, “compound verb”, “verb-adverb compound” and “phrasal verb”. He himself chose the popular term “particle verb”. The present study adopts the term.

A particle verb has different definitions. In Collins COBUILD Dictionary of Particle Verbs (19), a particle verb is generally defined as a combination of verb with adverbial or prepositional particles.

In Longman Dictionary of Particle Verbs (1983), a particle verb is defined as an idiomatic combination of a verb and adverb, or a verb and preposition, or a verb with both adverb and preposition.

1.2.2 The Importance of Particle Verbs

Particle verbs play such an important in both spoken and written language that they have never been ignored in linguistic study. Both traditional linguistic study and the recent cognitive linguistic study have contributed much to the understanding of particle verbs, and the latter approach is especially revealing. However, the particle that contributes to the core meaning of the particle verb is

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complex in nature. Particle verbs are what early foreign language learners should master, but these are usually difficult to acquire. Students often complain about the multiple senses of one particle verbs. They tend to treat different senses of one particle verbs as separate and unrelated ones, which cause great trouble for them to master the various meanings. If we could get a way for understanding the meaning of particle verbs, it would help learners acquire more native-like English more efficiently.

1.3 Study Questions

We all know that the meaning of the particle verbs are difficult to acquire, which cause great trouble for many foreign language learners to master the various meanings. Numerous studies have been conducted on particle verbs in terms of compositionality, idiomatic and particle position. Traditional studies were conducted from the structuralism perspective, and it focuses more on the forms rather than the meanings of particle verbs. The recent cognitive study, especially the metaphorical approach, achieves more success in understanding the process of semantic formation of particle verbs. They concluded that the particles and the verb contributed to more or less idiomatic meaning of the particle verbs. Although these studies have contributed more to the particle verbs, at least, there is also a problem that they have not mentioned. So this thesis mainly focuses on the following questions: 1) How about the status of the verb and the particle contribute to the semantics in the process of the semantic integration? 2) How about the various degree of idiomaticity in the process of the semantic integration?

2. Early Studies on Particle Verb

Numerous studies have been conducted on particle Verbs with a desire for some semantic account of the semantics of particle verbs, at least in terms of compositionality, to attempt the interface between compositionality and particle position. 2.1 Traditional Study

Most traditional studies on particle verbs are conducted from the structuralism perspective, and the study on this issue can be seen as the representative (Quirk 1985: 1151-1168).

Quirk et al first classify the particle into three groups: (A) prepositions only: e.g. „against‟ „at‟, „for‟, etc. (B) Either preposition or spatial adverbs: e.g. „about‟ „by‟, „over‟, etc. (C) Spatial adverbs only: e.g. „ahead‟, „away‟, „back‟, etc. The classification are made according to their grammatical characteristics: Group (A) require a following noun phrase as a prepositional complement; Group (C)do not require such

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complement; and in group (B) both constructions are acceptable . (Quirk 1985: 1151)

2.2 Recent Metaphorical Approach

Since traditional studies pay little attention to the meaning of particle verbs, these explanations can not totally explain the nature of them. As a matter of fact, all their syntactic features are determined by the semantics of the components of particle verbs, rather than stand by themselves. Therefore, there is a strong need for another approach to attempt the global meaning and the syntactic behavior of particle verbs. This is the approach taken by most recent studies from the perspective of cognitive linguistics.

He deals with metaphorisation in the formation of a verb-particle structure. When the verb-particle construction „to face up to‟ is formed, the verb „to face‟ is already a figurative verb. Such as a part of a person, the face metonymically stands for the whole person. Moreover, there is a double extension from „to face‟ into „to face to‟ (Hampe 2000: 81—101).

Hampe‟s analysis convincingly shows that that „to face problems‟ is not simply synonymous with „to face up to problems‟.

1) a. We faced serious problems.

b. Serious problems faced us.

2) a. We are facing up to a huge problem.

b. A huge problem is facing up to us.

Hampe claims that the particle „up‟ in „to face up to‟ is motivated by conceptual metaphors in multiple ways and she makes an important generalization: “This simultaneous motivation by more than one conceptual metaphor is a very common property particle in a verb-particle construction.” The element „face‟ in „to face to‟ has, as the simple verb „to face‟, the sense “of being situated in front of or opposite some entity”. This location sense also explains why the simple verb „to face‟ allows both human and non-human subjects. The two components „up‟ and „to‟, add rich extension possibility. The particle „up‟ evokes the straight or up-down orientation and of this source domain it is “the upper limit of the verticality orientation” that is added to the event structure of to face. This physical space domain for many different metaphorisation all suggesting positive values. The preposition „to‟ that signs a physical location in the space. As a conceptual metaphor, „to‟ implies “motion towards an abstract entity” such as a problem, a difficulty, etc. Each of these three metaphor systems contributes to the compositional global meaning of „to face up to‟ as “to actively confront an

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entity that presents a problem, a difficulty for one‟s further actions”. However, the physical meaning of „to face up to‟ surpasses this compositional structure, since it also contains the notion of an “energetic human agent” and that of “emotionality”. In this sense the construction is strongly idiomatic.

The metaphoric approach following the path of cognitive linguistics seems to be deeper into the process of semantic formation of particle verbs. Depending on this approach, it is the metaphoric extension in both the verb and the particle, which play a role in idiomatic meaning of the particle verb. We agree with this understanding. However, these metaphorical studies have not given us a full picture of this combination process. For example, they do not explain clearly and satisfactorily how and in what ways the integration is achieved on the conceptual level in our mind, and how we can account for the combinatory ability between the two components.

3. Relevant Theoretical Background

We will present the main theories and principles that have guided our understanding and analysis of particle verbs, particularly particle verbs with „at‟. 3.1 General Concept of Cognitive Semantics

Three tenets of cognitive semantics comparing with Grandenfors‟s „realistic‟ view as the following (1998: 21-25):

－Meaning is conceptualization in a cognitive model. －Semantics is primary to syntax and partly determines it. －Concepts show prototype effects.

These tenets mark the difference between cognitive approach and other traditional approaches and provide new insights into language study. Within cognitive linguistics, linguistics cognition simply is cognition and it is an inextricable phenomenon of overall human cognition, and semantics is the primary component. All the various phenomena of language are interwoven with each other as well as with all of cognition because they are all motivated by the same force: the drive to make sense of our world. Meaning is therefore not tidily contained in the lexicon, but ranges all through the linguistic spectrum, because meaning is the very energy that propels the motor of language. Grammar is abstract meaning structure that interacts with the more concrete meaning of lexicon; Grammar and lexicon are not two discrete types of meaning. Therefore, meaning bears the central status in a language system.

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Given the centre role of meaning in language, it is essential that we understand what it is and where it comes from. Cognitive linguistics works from the premise that meaning is embodied (Lakoff: 1987).This means that meaning is grounded in the shared human experience of bodily existence, and it is based on conventionalized conceptual structures (Saeed: 2000).

Since human bodies and human experience give us an experiential basis for understand a wealth of concepts. It should also be noted that all experience is filtered by perception and that as a consequence language is not a description of the real world (nor any possible world), but rather a description of human perception of reality. Therefore, when we examine meaning, our goal is not to find a correspondence between utterances and a world (real or otherwise), but rather to explore the ways in which meaning is motivated by human perceptual and conceptual capacities. 3.2 Metaphor

Various studies in Cognitive Science suggest that mapping across cognitive domains plays a central role in language and thought.

These include studies on mental spaces, studies on Metaphorical Mappings, which suggest that conceptual metaphorical mappings across different domains of experience underline linguistic metaphorical expression and phenomena such as polysemy and word sense extension, and studies on Metonymy where two aspects of an object are conceptually and linguistically mapped onto one another (Lakoff & Jhonson 1980).

(Saeed & Fuconnier 2000) also presented that cognition and the use of language involve the access and manipulation of mental spaces. Mental spaces are constructed from human perceptual experience and are extended through imaginative mapping processes. The three most significant processes are metaphor, metonymy and blends, all of which are important to linguistic analysis.

For a cognitive linguist, the definition or metaphor is very broad, which characterized the essence of metaphor as “understanding and experience one king of thing in terms of another”. Many linguistics characterizes metaphor as consisting “of some kind of comparison by means of which features are transferred to the metaphor topic that are normally associated with it”. That is, a metaphor is a mapping from a source domain to target domain. In other words, whenever a person takes a concept that has been formed in one domain and tries to implement it in another, a metaphor has occurred. The domain in which virtually all human knowledge is formed is that of a human body in physical space, which usually serves as the source domain for metaphor. Common target domains

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are time, emotions, and states of being. The ways in which metaphorical extensions are realized and conventionalized are highly language-specific, but the metaphorical process itself is a pervasive universal. Metaphor is a very robust phenomenon for all language. It is quite impossible to speak any language without mastering the metaphorical conventions embedded in it. The mapping that metaphor performs is usually highly selective. It is by no means a one-to-one mapping of all the information from a source domain to a target domain.

4. Study Process

In this part we will concentrate on the study of particle verbs, particularly the semantics of them, concentrated on verb-particle constructions with „at‟. As the departure of our discussion, we will first offer our re-understanding of particle verbs and the choice of „at‟. 4.1 Particle Verbs Re-understanding

First, it is necessary to re-understanding particle verbs, as can be seen in the following analysis.

The fact that their study on particle verbs is conducted under the headings of “complementation of verbs” and “multi-word verbs” implies that, in the construction of verb plus particle(s), the verb dominates and controls the overall meaning of particle verb and the particle(s) add some flavors to the whole. This is of course obviously justifiable considering the central status of verbs in the language system and the systematic description of the grammar of English language (Quirk 1985).

However, as mentioned in this kind of constructions of verb plus particle(s), both the verb and the particle(s) interact with one another and simultaneously contribute to the overall meaning of the construction as a whole. We will examine briefly the respective status of the verb and the particle in this kind of construction.

4.1.1 The Choices of ‘Get’ and ‘Make’

As is known, particles (prepositions and spatial adverbs) can be combined with various types of verbs, both dynamic and static (though the boundaries between them are not clear-cut) to form a verb particle construction. For example, with dynamic verbs: „Drink up‟: e.g. Drink your medicine up, it is good for you. „Arrive at‟: e.g. how did your calculations arrive at this figure? Or with static verbs: „Have in‟: e.g. would you like to have your friends in for a week drinks? „Belong to‟: e.g. the blue coat belongs to Mary.

As can be seen from the examples above, the verbs in verb-particle constructions, such as „drink up‟, „arrive at‟, or „have in‟, „belong to‟ do play the central role and contribute to the core meaning

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of the whole. However, we also have to note that the most active and most frequently used verbs occurring in particle verbs are the so-called light verbs, such as „do‟, „get‟, „put‟, „take‟ and „make‟, etc. Whose meanings are less specific and more or less semantically empty?

Therefore, it is not easy or sometimes even difficult to identify the contribution of those verbs to the whole, and consequently the contribution or burden lies in the particles following them. Our analysis of particle verbs will therefore mainly focus on the constructions with such verbs. 4.1.2 The Status of the Particle

“The term „particle‟ will (therefore) apply to such words, when they follow and are closely associated with verbs”, though “they actually belong to distinct but overlapping categories, that of prepositions and that of spatial adverbs.” (Quirk 1985: 1160) We adopt the same terming roughly for two reasons. The first is for the convenience of discussion. And second reason, which is more important, is that those adverbial particles ate difficult to cut off form prepositions in the narrowest sense when we think of the almost no lack of semantic association between them. The term „particle verbs‟ used in this thesis refers to those verb-particle constructions with more or less idiomatic meanings (semantically single units), including the so-called phrasal verbs and prepositional verbs but not those free combinations of verb plus preposition or adverb, especially those whose meaning can be relatively arrived at easily where each element has separate grammatical and semantic status.

Although the verb dominates and contributes to the overall core meaning of a particle verb, the particle(s) following it makes the special constructional contribution to the whole, from which the idiomatic meaning of the particle verb is derived to the greatest extent. In this sense, the particle deserves more attention in our analysis. 4.1.3 The Choice of ‘At’

There are two reasons for the choice of verb-particle constructions with „at‟.

First, „over‟ and „at‟ are among the top 30 particles commonly used by native speakers. According the statistic study by Grandenfors, „at‟ ranks the fourth among the particle the can be regarded as the most commonly used (2002: 26).

Second, „at‟ belongs to different groups according to Quirk et al. “At” belongs to Class (A) where particles in this group are prepositions only and require a following noun phrase as a prepositional complement (Quirk 1985: 1151).

Therefore, „at‟ can be considered representative and typical among English prepositions.

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4.2 The Analysis of the Metaphor

Particle verbs are often expressed metaphorically with those particles that have a meaning concerning space. Most particles have fundamental meanings of physical places or locations, and the basic meaning of particles concerning space is easily extended and they are very often used metaphorically and/or even though they are not recognized consciously as metaphor or metonymies most of the time. But when used in metaphorical expressions, they are often used to mean abstract spaces or states. It has been shown that spatial particles are closely concerned with metaphor as in moon.

We have to agree with the commonly accepted notion that the various senses of preposition or spatial particles mainly derive from the basic spatial meaning, which has been shown in numerous studies in literature (Lakoff & Johnson 1980: Lakoff 1987; Taylor 19).

As has been mentioned, Tyler first identified the primary sense of “higher and proximate”, around which the polysemy network is organized. To identify the primary sense, the authors set up four criteria (Tyler 19).

Given the very stable nature of the conceptualization of spatial relations within a language, one likely candidate for the primary sense is the historically earliest sense.

Turning to the notion of predominance within a semantic network, the sense most likely to be primary will be the one who‟s meaning components are most frequent in other distinct senses.

Within the entire group of English preposition, certain clusters of preposition appear to form compositional sets that divide up various spatial dimensions.

The choice of a primary sense gives rise to testable grammatical predications.

These criteria, we believe as the authors pointed out can also be applied to the analysis of the other prepositions, for example, the preposition „at‟.

5. Result and Analysis

The metaphorical approach to particle verbs looks into the deep side of verb-particle constructions by examining how the components develop to form the integral particle verbs by metaphorical extension. This approach does obviously in the right direction since metaphorical extension functions on a conceptual level, and thus enables us to have a better and deeper understanding of the nature of the semantic formation of particle verbs. However, the recent metaphorical study at least that of the authors mentioned above, does not give a full picture of the

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issue, leaving some questions unanswered.

The major problem that is not clearly and satisfactorily unsolved is concerned with the semantic integration of particle verbs.

Another problem is concerned with the compatibility between the verb and the particle. That is, how do we account for the various combinatory abilities between the two components? Note the fact that, the so-called „light verbs‟ can be followed by many spatial particles to form a verb-particle construction, while other concrete, semantically content verbs can only coordinate with one or two particles. For example, we have „make at‟, „make of‟, „make for‟, „make over‟, etc; while as for „arrive‟, there are only „arrive at‟ and „arrive in‟.

The third problem has to do with the degree of idiomatic of particle verbs.

These problems and other have not been solved in the present metaphorical approach to particle verbs, or at least, the explanations have not been made very clear. As we have pointed out earlier, the metaphorical direction is acceptable and to the point. What we need is to add a supplementation to it so as to find out solutions to solve the problems more satisfactorily. 5.1 Case studies on Particle Verbs with ‘at’

We have mentioned two reasons for the choice of „at‟ as our study focus. That is among the top 30 particles most commonly used by native speakers; „at‟ belongs to different word classes as a preposition. Therefore, in the case study of particle verbs with „at‟, we will exploit and the use of „at‟ identified reexamined. 5.2 The Case of ‘Get at’

Then consider the following sentences with „get at‟:

a. Put the food where the cat can‟t get at it. [Gain access to, reach] b. The truth is sometimes difficult to get at. [Discover, learn] c. What exactly are you getting at? [Suggest indirectly]

In sentence (a), the meaning selected form „get‟ comes from “moving or causing to move‟ of „get‟, and that selected from „at‟ comes from “directional coincidence” of „at‟, both are projected into the blend “get at”, and thus the particle verb „get at‟ acquires its meaning of “gain access to, reach”. The meanings of „get at‟ in sentence (b) and (c) are subtly different form that in sentence (a). This kind of meaning differences of the same particle verb „get at‟, is not caused by the verb „get‟ but rather by different meanings of the particle „at‟, which are perhaps so subtle to be identified or

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because of the lack of through research in literature. On the other hand, the meaning of „get at‟ in sentence (b) and (c) (more idiomatic) are closely related to that of „get at‟ in the first sentence (less idiomatic).

5.3 The Case of ‘Make at’

Let us examine the uses of „make at‟. With „make at‟, there are only two uses as in: a. The prisoner made at the guard with a knife. b. How much does Jim make at his job? In sentence (a), the meaning “do something” of „make‟ and the meaning from “directional coincidence” of „at‟ are selected and projected into the construction „make at‟. In sentence (b), the meaning “gaining” is selected from „make‟, and “functional coincidence” is chosen from the particle „at‟. Functional coincidence in this particular example means that the functional potential of the Ground “the job” is to support one‟s life and thus the particle verb „make at‟ develops its unique meaning. Some may argue that, since „make‟ itself has developed its conventional meaning “to earn (money)” as in He makes $100 a week, how can we say the particle verb „make at‟ has much meaning instead of the verb „make‟ alone? The answer can not be given by „make at‟ itself. Rather, it lies on the answer to the question “Can we substitute „at‟ with another particle, for instance, „on‟?” In fact, there are many examples in the language in which „at‟ contributes the “functional coincidence”, such as „at school‟, „at table‟ and „work at‟.

Consider the difference between the two examples with „arrive at‟ and „arrive in‟: a: We arrive at the airport two hours late.

b: He arrived in his country six year ago without a penny.

Traditional grammar only summarize the rule: if the place one reaches is big, „arrive in‟ is used; if the place is small, „arrive at‟ is chosen. This is of course right but not to the point, since another rule has to be created to explain the different uses of „at‟ between „on Monday‟ and „in the afternoon‟, and so on. However, if we assign the basic core meaning “spatial coincidence” and “temporal coincidence”, the explanation is much stronger in power and more systematic, thus much confusion would be avoided.

This explanation can also be made in terms of the compatibility between the verb and the particle from the point of view of conceptual blending. Though „arrive at‟ and „arrive in‟ in the above two sentences are compositional and transparent in their semantics, this principle is readily

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applicable to any other uses of the particle or any other particle verbs, for example, „at‟ in The committee finally arrived at a decision can not be substituted with „in‟. 5.4 A Brief Summary

We have made a very brief general description of the different status of the verb and the particle in different verb-particle constructions, suggesting that in most verb-particle constructions the verbs are mostly those basics, active verbs in language, which constitute the biggest obstacle in the mastering of particle verbs.

We proposed our model for the understanding the integrating process of the formation of semantic idiomatic of particle verbs, based on conceptual metaphor theory and conceptual blending theory. We argue that verb-particle constructions undergo four steps to develop their unique idiomatic uses, namely, the metaphorisation process, the matching process, the selective projecting process and the integrating process. Our proposal aims to solve the possible problems relating to particle verbs, which are not clearly or satisfactorily tackled by the metaphorical approach. We put our model to test by examining the cases of „get at ‟and „make at‟.

However, our proposal does not cover the construction of „verb + particle + particle‟, that is, the assembly like „look forward to‟, „put up with‟. Just as Hampe (2000) has pointed out, this kind of particle verb is more complicated in its integration process, showing the process of “face→ face up →face up to”. In order to explain this, our model has to be revised.

6. Conclusion

Based on the analysis of the advantage and limitations of the previous studies, we point out that metaphorical awareness is important for leaning of particle verbs. By pervious metaphorical extension, the verb and the particle have derived respectively their distinctive meanings from their respective literal sense, which serve as selective sources. If the meaning we selected are both literal, the result of the particle verb can be a case of free combination. If only one of the literal meanings is selected, the result meaning of the particle verb is less idiomatic. If we have not selected the literal meaning of them, the result is considered to be full idiomatic. We also concluded that the core meaning of the particle verb derives from the verb.

Our thesis is of some significance towards the learning of particle verbs. We suggest some principles for foreign language learners in order to treat different senses of particle verbs easily.

Finally, we have to point out that our present research has many limitations. For example, there

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are some exceptions that can not be explained by our examples, and there is also about our analysis that is a little bit partial.

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