The Study on the Polysemy of 'Men': A Cognitive Linguistic Analysis

摘要

Based on the in-depth examination of corpus data, this paper examines the semantic extension of Men from the perspective of cognitive linguistics. The basic meaning of Men is the openable device to a building. Men extend the meaning of access to a building via metaphor, and further extends the meaning of access to an abstract concept via metaphor. At the same time, Men extend the meaning of the house via metonymy, and further extends the meaning of school via metonymy. Men extend the meaning of categories via metaphor. Most classifier usages of Men are produced via metaphor. The semantic extension of Men is triggered by metaphor, metonymy, lexical replication, and context absorption. Men is developed from a full-fledged word into an affix, which exhibits the features of semantic abstraction and extension.