The Research on the Cognitive Model of Argument Inversion in ‘V-R’ Construction

The syntax-semantic relationship of the inversion type of V-R Construction in Modern Chinese is very complex. Its syntax structure is ‘NP1+V-R+NP2’. And usually it consists of two or more events, with a causative relationship between them. The feature of the inversion type of V-R Construction is that NP1 is the patient argument of verb, and NP2 is the agent argument. However, the semantic roles of NP1 is not limited to the patient of verb, it also can be other argument roles. For example, in the sentence of ‘The hammer injured my foot’, the subject NP1 is a tool argument, and NP2 is the patient argument.<br/> In this paper delves into the inversion phenomenon in Chinese ‘V-R’ constructions from various perspectives, including event structure theory, Metaphors, and Grammatical Integration theory. It makes a detailed analysis of the generation mechanism of the inversion type of V-R construction. And it is found that the fundamental reason for the argument inversion is that in the process of syntax-semantic mapping, the patient, the tool and the causing event arguments have been prominenced.<br/> Therefore, Cognitive Grammar provides a new perspective of innovative thinking for the research on the construction like the inversion type of V-R Construction.