영어 전치사 of의 통사 및 인지 의미 분석

Abstract

In this thesis, we discuss the prototypical meaning and its extended usages of the English preposition of within the theoretical framework of cognitive semantics and generative syntax. Given the notion that the meaning of a word can be identified in the sense network that is densely associated with several individual meanings that the word has, there is an eternal language meaning in a form of a language element and there is necessarily a core sense among the several meanings of a word. The preposition of in English is defined in a way that it basically describes the relation between a reference object and its restricted inherent sub-part. The definition has, however, been argued to be subject to change in order to accommodate the cases when the ‘whole (landmark: lm)-part (trajector: tr)’ relation is shifted and the ‘tr’ appears in a position where it is not supposed to do so. This thesis classifies the shift cases into three types based on theta-grid, focus, and raising. For cases where the ‘tr’ does not appear in the X position of ‘X of Y,’ this thesis proposes that the preposition of is a two-place predicate in the sense of Saturation Theory of cognitive semantics. The part ‘tr’ is analyzed such that it moves to the subject position of the copula construction, leaving its trace in the specifier position of the preposition of. The part ‘tr’ in the subject position can thus receive the interpretation of salience in the base position from the ‘lm.’ All cases that the preposition of can show are schematized in a unified way and represented by means of the syntactic structure. This thesis also examines the similarities and the differences between the prepositions of and about, and between of and from based on the schematization and syntactic structure that are established for the preposition of. The interpretation of ‘a verb of a landmark’ and ‘a verb about a landmark’ is analyzed along with the schematization of of and about on the basis of their refined meanings. It is proposed in the thesis that the prototypical meaning of the preposition of can be well maintained in all cases, including the shifting of ‘tr’ and ‘lm’ and dislocation of ‘tr.’ By doing so, this thesis modifies the way of schematizing the interpretation of salience between ‘tr’ and ‘lm’ and proposes a unified syntactic structure for the preposition of.. It then extends its analyses into the prepositions of about and from, providing a comprehensive account of the prepositions in English.