영어 구문의 도상성에 관한 연구

Abstract

This study aims to explore the relationship between meaning and syntactic form with reference to such English constructions in terms of a theory of iconicity developed by Haiman. Haiman(1980) distinguishes two kinds of diagrammatic iconicity: isomorphism and motivation. The former maintains that a bi-unique correspondence exists between form and meaning, while the latter holds that the structure of language directly reflects some aspects of the structure of reality. Given this dichotomy, it is possible to find several principles of iconicity such as those of quantity, distance, sequencing. The structure of the study is as follows. Chapter 1 is just an introduction, while Chapter 2 discusses the basic concept and nature of iconicity and its principles. Chapter 3 is an attempt to check the validity of principle on other English constructions such as dative alternation sentences, coordinated sentences, complement clauses, and negative sentences. It makes it clear that the iconicity theory is more explanatory than any other schema because it is laid on human cognitive process. Chapter 4 summarizes what has been discussed and proposed so far. Given the state of affairs, it seems necessary to pay due attention to both arbitrariness and iconicity to explicitly various syntactic phenomena.