A New Direction of Construction Grammar: Through Another Look at the Pretty Construction in English

本研究试图对Pretty结构的特定子结构，特别是带有特定视觉动词（如look at）的子结构进行认知结构-语法分析。首先，带有look at的结构表明了一个人对目标实体的对比评价。其次，在发现带有see的特定子结构的一组实例与一个习惯结构for all to see在语义上有联系的基础上，表明for all to see是由一组结构组成的。这两个结果都有力地支持了认知建构语法学派所提出的方法论。

This study was an attempt to give a cognitive construction-grammar analysis of specific sub-constructions of the Pretty constructions,especially the ones with a particular verb of vision specified (e.g.look at). First, it was claimed that the construction with look at indicates one’s contrasting evaluations about a targeted entity. Second, building upon the finding that a set of instances of the specific sub-construction with see are semantically connected with an idiomatic construction for all to see, it was shown that for all to see is composed of a cluster of constructions. Both of these results strongly support the methodology as advanced in the cognitive school of construction grammar.