2003 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
Semantic conflation of verb meanings into constructions : An approach from dcognitive typology
| Project/Area Number |
13610550
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Research Field |
英語・英米文学
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| Research Institution | Tohoku University |
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Principal Investigator |
ONO Naoyuki Tohoku University, Graduate School of International Cultural Studies, Professor, 大学院・国際文化研究科, 教授 (50214185)
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| Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
HORIE Kaoru Tohoku University, Center for Foreign Students, Professor, 留学生センター, 教授 (70181526)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2001 – 2003
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| Keywords | congitive linguistics / linguistic typlogy / contrastive study / constructions / lexical semantics |
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| Research Abstract |
This research project has been conducted to explore the idea that there are some typological differences and similarities between langauges in terms of the semantic conflation of lexical (verb) meanigs with particular constructions. We have addressed the following research questions:
(i)Are there any schematic constructions that serve to integrate lexical meanings of verbs with particular grammatical constructions, e.g. passives, resultatives, locative inversions, etc?
(ii)How do we detect some typological differences in the conflation patterns?
We have tried to answer these questions by investigating data mostly from Japanese and English, the languages allegedly show systematic typological discrepancies in many aspects. In addition, some evidence has been presented from Korean data, which is said to be similar to the former from typological point of view.
Our main discussions are centered on the Locative Inversion Construction and the Passive (Resultative) Construction. We have shown how schematic cores of the constuctions are used to build up the constructions in question. As for the Locative Inversion, the schematic core of location and existence plays a crucial role in conflating verb meanings into the construction. But there are some classes of verbs in both languages that seem to incompatible with the location and existence schema. We have claimed that a cognitive process like natural inference is at work when a mismatch takes place between lexical and constructional meanings. As for the passive construction, we have scrutinized the so-called indirect passive in Japanese, in relation with the resultative construction in English. They share the causative schema for semantic conflation. This leads us to the conclusion that the two construtions, although they seem to be distinct in form, show certain parallelisms under careful observation.
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