On Middle Constructions in English: A Cognitive Grammar Perspective
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Given that the middle construction in English is neither active nor passive in voice, this paper investigates its discrete and continuous features from the perspective of cognitive grammar. It then proposes a cognitive model for the middle construction that accounts for its dubious nature of grammatical voice category. In terms of discrete features, it is argued that only one non-agent nominal participant shows up at the syntactic level, which is profiled in the interaction and becomes partially responsible for the action, whereas the agent is mostly implicit and demoted to a much lower position unavailable in the clause. The middle verbs are also said to be always congruent with present tense, most likely to be activity process verbs, and transitive before they enter the middle construction. It is also shown that the middle construction is generic in meaning and indicates the modality of capability and probability. As for its continuous features, it is held that the middle construction shows the degree of prototypicality within the category and carries overlapping features with the active, the passive, and the anticausative.
Abstract
Given that the middle construction in English is neither active nor passive in voice, this paper investigates its discrete and continuous features from the perspective of cognitive grammar. It then proposes a cognitive model for the middle construction that accounts for its dubious nature of grammatical voice category. In terms of discrete features, it is argued that only one non-agent nominal participant shows up at the syntactic level, which is profiled in the interaction and becomes partially responsible for the action, whereas the agent is mostly implicit and demoted to a much lower position unavailable in the clause. The middle verbs are also said to be always congruent with present tense, most likely to be activity process verbs, and transitive before they enter the middle construction. It is also shown that the middle construction is generic in meaning and indicates the modality of capability and probability. As for its continuous features, it is held that the middle construction shows the degree of prototypicality within the category and carries overlapping features with the active, the passive, and the anticausative.
참고문헌 (29)
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