英语主从复合句简略构式研究

Within the theoretical framework of cognitive linguistics, this paper attempts to probe into the cognitive mechanism in the reduced constructions out of English complex sentences from the view of cognitive construal, windowing of attention and construction grammar. It is discovered that an English complex sentence and its corresponding reduced counterpart are two abstract schematic constructions with different meanings, i.e., two different grammar constructions. The reduced form is a combination of intentionality with a self-interest propensity and a figure-ground alternation. In fact, the reduced entity is effort-consuming and converts itself into a marked structure. These findings are conductive to research in cognitive linguistics, second language acquisition and translation studies.