| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立臺灣師範大學 === 英語研究所 === 90 === This thesis is a study on the meaning extension of Mandarin Chinese perception verbs, kan ‘see’, ting ‘hear’ and wen ‘smell’, and the relevant linguistic phenomena. The purposes are, first, to investigate the meaning extension, then, to explore the process of grammaticalization, and the metaphorical mapping of kan, ting and wen from the physical domain to the mental domain.
The focus of this study is on meaning extension of kan, ting and wen and the relevant phenomena to meaning extension. Based on my analysis, the mechanisms of meaning extension are found to be metaphor and metonymy and the discussion of the relevant phenomena to meaning extension is based on the two basic assumptions. The first is that the analysis of the synchronic phenomenon, herein meaning extension, can reflect the diachronic variation such as semantic shift, grammaticalization as well as the synchronic phenomenon of the metaphorical mapping. The second is that the hypothesis of unidirectionality is a valid theory, which enables us to sketch the developmental processes of grammaticalization of kan, ting and wen.
The results of the analysis reveal that meaning extensions of kan, ting and wen are classified into three categories such as physical, mingle and mental ones, all of which are derived out of the interaction of metaphor and metonymy. In the dimension of grammaticalization, kan, ting and wen are significantly associated with the hypothesis of unidirectionality. Since unidirectionality characterizes a lexical item in terms of meaning extension and abstraction, kan, ting and wen are expected to undergo such phenomena. The result of the analysis does show that kan, ting and wen undergo meaning extension and abstraction. With regard to metaphorical mapping, kan, ting and wen are mapped from the physical domain to the mental domain through Sweetser’s (1990) MIND-AS-BODY metaphor.
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