The delectable condition of"N-li214"in simple existential clauses"you214"and"zai51"is studied.Corpus facts show that delectable condition of"li214"is actually the result of speaker's choice towards spatial and functional attributes of orientation words.When the noun phrase"N-li214"is placed in front of the VP,its spatial schema is stronger than its accommodating schema.It can be deleted when"li214"activates the containment schema and vice versa.The tendency to activate the two types of schema in"li214"reflects the cognitive stereotype of"Ground Priori-ty"in Chinese.When speaker is conceptualizing a spatial relation,sentence-initial component is more likely to be recognized as a location,and thus sentence-initial NP shows sensitivity to spatial schema.
万方数据