在认知语言学领域，日渐增多的语言学家开始意识到语言现象的研究应基于语言使用。认知语义研究可以从语料库所提供的大量真实的语言材料中获益。本研究以当代美国英语语料库为数据来源，以carbon构成的“碳族复合词”为考察对象，拟从认知语言学的概念隐喻角度对英语新词新义背后的认知机制做出深入分析，从而以该个案展示基于语料库的认知语义研究的可行性。

Within cognitive linguistics,there is an increasing awareness that the study of linguistic phenomena needs to be grounded in usage. A cognitive semantic inquiry can benefit considerably from looking at a broad range of authentic linguistic material contained in corpora. With the COCA corpus as the source of evidence, and the so-called lexical "carbon compounds" (lexical combinations with carbon as the core) as the object of study, this paper attempts to analyze the cognitive mechanisms of conceptual metaphor in the formation of new words and construction of new meanings. This case is used to aim at demonstrating the applicability of corpus-based methodologies in cognitive semantic analysis.