英语无灵主语句的隐喻性与生命性认知探源

Metaphoricity and Animacy:Cognitive Sources of ESWIS

对于英语无灵主语句的普遍性和生动性虽然已有研究者从不同角度进行了解释,但从隐喻性与生命性视角来探讨,其解释的力度会更大,并更具合理性。英语无灵主语句的隐喻性直接来源于生命性概念的跨域映射,其生命性则存在于人的动作或行为之中。而且,只有当生命性概念体现在谓词的陈述意义上,跨域映射才会产生,概念隐喻才能形成。

There have been many different explanations of the pervasiveness and vividness of English sentences with inanimate subjects （ESWIS） in the English language. This paper, however, aims to provide a more powerful and sensible explanation from the perspectives of metaphoricity and animacy. It is found that the metaphoricity in ESWIS comes directly from the conceptual cross-domain mapping of animacy and that its animacy exists in human actions and behaviors. In addition, only when the concept of animacy goes along with the assertion of the predicate, instead of the designation of the substantive, can the cross-domain mapping take place and the conceptual metaphor come into being.