Way 结构是一个相对复杂的概念，已引起了语言学家的高度注意。本文基于认知视角剖析了way结构。
Chapter One Introduction
The Way Construction,a relatively complicated concept,has received much attention from linguists in the recent literature.The study about the Way Construction can be seen from abroad:Levin and Rapoport(1988),Jackendoff(1990),Marantz (1992),Goldberg(1995),Israel(1996),and Kuno(2004).In contrast,the studies on the field are rare in China.
1.1 Definition of the Way Construction
According to Goldberg(1995:199),the Way Construction can be skeletally presented as[SUBJi[V[POSSi way]OBL]](where V is a nonstative verb and OBL codes a directional).It is a special construction which displays the feature of form-meaning correspondences that exist independently of particular verbs which instantiate it.Therefore,the Way Construction does exist according to the theories of Construction Grammar.
The so-called Way Construction can be exemplified by sentences like the following examples:
(1)Frank dug his way out of the prison.
(2)Frank found his way to New York.
(Goldberg,1995:199)
From the above examples,it can be observed that the verb takes two noun phrases and one PP in the Way Construction.The first NP in the subject position serves as both agent and theme.The second noun phrase in the object position is a fixed phrase, ‘possessive pronoun+way’,which is formed by a noun“way”and a possessive pronoun.It should be noticed that the possessive pronoun is coindexed with the subject referent.The propositional phrase designates a path through which the subject referent moved into the goal.Thus,Syntactically the Construction can be represented as[SUBJi[V[POSSi way]OBL]]or[NPi[V[Possi way]PP]].In the unique structure,V is a nonstative verb,and OBL codes a directional PP.
Semantically,the Way Construction implies that the subject referent moves along the path designated by the prepositional phrase.For example,(1)entails that Frank moved out of the prison through a self-created path.Similarly,(2)entails that Frank managed to travel to New York.The sentence implied that Frank had to look for a path once and once again and eventually arrive at New York.However,there is no lexical item which entails motion in the instances of this Construction.The aspects of the Way Construction cannot derive from the lexical items which instantiate it and the particular combination of lexical items.So the Construction’s semantics cannot be fully predicted on the basis of the constituent parts of the Construction.In addition, the meaning of the Way Construction cannot be derived from other established constructions(It will be discussed in chapter 4).Therefore,the Way Construction is an independent construction with its own unique constructional meaning.
1.2 Objectives of the Thesis
Due to its complexity and intricacy in semantic and syntactic configuration,the issues of the Way Construction attract much attention from linguists in recent literature all over the world.From library to internet resources,we found that it has been more or less studied in the literature from lexical complex predicate approach and Construction Grammar.It is obvious that a consensus has been reached on some issues.However,a full satisfactory explanation has not been arrived,and thus it leaves a space for my study.
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