The Pragmatic Motivation of Atypical English Way into/to Construction

Abstract

The English way construction exhibits distinct constructional meaning and semantic features; however, the prepositional slot in this construction has not received sufficient attention, and there remains a lack of comparative research regarding different prepositions in this field. This study set out to examine the semantic classification, mapping features, cognitive factors in the subcategory English way into/to construction, and to improve the algorithm of ΔPratio. The research adopted a bottom-up corpus-driven approach based on the BNC and used HAC (Hierarchical Cluster Analysis) to explore the semantic categories of the verb collexemes and compare the lexical richness in these two constructions. The results revealed that at the level of linguistic structure, coercion and metaphor, as well as family resemblance, served as legitimization methods for verb entry into the construction, while the principles of economy and expressivity disclosed the intentions and motivations behind the semantic extensions of constructions at the pragmatic level. Additionally, this research found that the latter two principles were competitive in the interpretation process of way into/to construction, providing insights into understanding the psychological and social factors in language communication.