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Abstract CHENG Lixia & CHEN Guohua
Abstract: The word home in go home, on the way home is usually believed to be an adverb or preposition. These interpretations cannot explain why such expressions as *on the way differently、*watch TV home are ungrammatical. Some generative linguists hold that home as a light locative noun raises to Spec TO, or that the preposition and the motion verb are incorporated. These are not convincing enough as there is no evidence to suggest the existence of a preposition and the definite article in these constructions. The studies on Greek GO HOME constructions, providing explanation models such as Verbalized Noun, Incorporation, Empty Preposition, cannot produce an explanation for the similar phenomenon in English. This study, drawing on the historical English corpora, finds that in the earlier stages of Teutonic English home was used as the accusative of direction or dative of locative. With high frequency go home remains in present-day English with little change in form and becomes the prototype of GO HOME constructions. By analogy, other motion verbs and even non-motion verbs enter the construction such as walk/run/fly home, bring home a dog/bring a dog home. Nouns of location also take the place of home as in go shop, go town.
Key words: motion construction; GO HOME; prototype; analogy; development
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