The Conceptual Content of Particle-Verb Schemas

Abstract

This chapter is devoted to exploring the meaning of the Verb + Particle syntax, namely the conceptual content of particle-verb schemas. The Motion Event, the State Change Event, and the Aspect Event proposed by Talmy (Toward a cognitive semantics, Volumes II. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2000) are argued to be able to account for the conceptual content of particle-verb schemas. The Motion Event is the prototype, and the State Change Event and the Aspect Event are metaphorically extended from the prototype. Thus, the particle component in the verb-particle construction, respectively, designates the Path of motion, State Change, and Aspect in the three types of events, giving rise to three semantic groups of particle verbs, i.e., directional, resultative, and aspectual. In the CL view, the inventory of linguistic knowledge is characterized as a complex but structured mental network consisting a myriad of symbolic units that co-exist and are interrelated with one another through various types of relationships. This chapter concludes with a description of the mental representation of English particle verbs and a diagram to sketch the major aspects of the mental network, justifying the scope of this study, i.e., a systematic analysis of the semantics and syntax of particle verbs as proposed in this book.