图式是从旧事物中抽象出的经验结构。Langacker认为两个名词的融合就是一个名词为了容纳另一个名词而做的图式修改。Ryder在此基础上提出从已有的复合名词中总结出语义图式,作为加工和理解新的复合名词的语言模板,再用世界知识中的经验图式加以验证。Ryder把经验图式分为实体图式、事件图式和特征图式。本文进一步指出这三种图式可分别解释复合名词的指物、指事和指义的三种语用功能。图式只是为理解复合名词提供可参考的背景信息,而不是规定字面意义。 Schema is the abstract structure of the old things out of experience. Langacker believes that the fusion of two nouns is a schema modification made by a noun in order to accommodate another noun. On this basis, Ryder proposed to summarize the semantic schema from the existing compound nouns as a language template for processing and understanding the new compound nouns, and to validate them with the empirical schema in the world knowledge. Ryder divides the empirical schema into entity schema, event schema, and schema schema. This paper further points out that these three schemes can explain three kinds of pragmatic functions of the compound nouns’ fingering, fingering and meaning respectively. The schema merely provides background information for comprehensible compound nouns, not a literal meaning.