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- Volume 14, Issue 1, 2023
Chinese Language and Discourse - Volume 14, Issue 1, 2023
Volume 14, Issue 1, 2023
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A study on the semantic change of the Chinese negative adverb Bùshèn (不甚)
Author(s): Xiao Han and Fangqiong Zhanpp.: 1–17 (17)More LessAbstractThis paper aims to account for the multiple interpretations of the Chinese negative degree adverb bùshèn (不甚). In Xiandai Hanyu Dacidian Shangce (Modern Chinese Dictionary Volume I) (Ruan & Guo (eds) 2009), bùshèn is defined as ‘the degree is not very high’, which can be interpreted as ‘not very’; however, in the CCL and BCC Modern Chinese corpora, a few cases showing that bùshèn can only be interpreted as indicating positive degree similar to ‘very’. Using the extensive classical and modern Chinese data, we argue that the semantic change has undergone a process of analogy (cf. Harris & Campbell 1995; Fischer 2007; Traugott & Trousdale 2013). Specifically, the use of positive degree of bùshèn has been analogized to the extant positive degree adverb bùshèng (不胜). The semantic change is observed when bùshèn forms common collocations with an adjective or a verb which convey emotions, such as gǎnxiè ‘grateful’ in bùshèng gǎnxiè ‘very grateful’.
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The Multifunctionality of Mandarin Diào 掉
Author(s): Gaowa Jing and Meichun Liupp.: 18–49 (32)More LessAbstractThis paper explores the various functions of diào in Mandarin Chinese as it changes from a verb to a phase marker. As a phase marker, diào provides a natural endpoint to a co-occurring event and indicates completion, which is a distinct function from the perfect marker le. In this shift, the meaning of diào also expands, including ‘falling down’, ‘throwing down’, ‘disappearing’, ‘removal’, ‘completion’ and ‘change of state’. The multifunctionality of diào is the result of grammaticalization along with semantic change and extension. Cognitive mechanisms such as metonymic and metaphoric extensions, pragmatic inferencing, analogy on Verb-Complement structures, and semantic generalization all contribute to the grammaticalization of diào, with further influence from contact with southern Chinese dialects. This paper further argues that the grammaticalization and semantic extension of diào is in accordance with the development of aspectual markers cross-linguistically, reflecting the commonality in human cognition.
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What more can empirical contextual data tell about the real usage of words and collocations?
Author(s): Chunyu Kit, Ying Lu and Meichun Liupp.: 50–99 (50)More LessAbstractThis article presents a corpus-based distributional analysis of the usage patterns of a cluster of words and compounds containing the morpheme qià (恰) ‘just, exactly’, by the aid of an extended concordancer to retrieve representative collocations from their adjacent contexts in Chinese Gigaword. Upon a survey of the historical evolution of the qià cluster with exemplar data and an overview of existing proposals to account for their usages in terms of expectational match, our distributional analysis is conducted to identify the salient collocational or contextual features that lead to a number of interesting findings. Substantial evidences are provided for clarifying the non-word status of qià rú (恰如) and qià sì (恰似) and their similarities, the exchangeability of qiàhǎo (恰好) and qiàqiǎo (恰巧), distinct collocational preferences of the adverbs qià (恰), qiàqià (恰恰) and the others with different subsets of verbs, the prosodic requirement of an even number of syllables for a qià-adverb and its main verb, and the contrastive popularity of qiàqià (恰恰) vs qiàdàng (恰当) to reveal different usage tendencies between speakers in Taiwan and the Mainland. All these novel findings and insights about the subtle (dis)similarities in the usage and meanings of the qià (恰) cluster suggest that distributional analysis of contextual collocations using large-scale language data remains a powerful tool that can complement other analytical approaches for the advancement of lexical semantic research.
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Meaning construal and meaning conventionalization of Chinese [X+body part] metonymic compounds from the perspective of cognitive pragmatics
Author(s): Qi Lipp.: 100–120 (21)More LessAbstractIt is common for “body part” nouns to refer to other concepts through metonymy operations in a specific context to produce new meanings in many languages. Some compound words formed by body part nouns as morphemes can also refer to other concepts through metonymy operations, and the degree of conventionalization varies. This study firstly defines the degrees of conventionalization of the target compound words–Chinese [X+body part] metonymic compounds, and divides them into three types: conventionalized, half-conventionalized, and inconventionalized. Then, from the perspective of cognitive pragmatics, this study uses an integrated analysis model of cognitive linguistics and Relevance Theory to analyze the meaning inferential process of metonymic compounds with different degrees of conventionalization. This study has found similarities and differences among them. The similarity is that both speakers and hearers need to achieve “optimal relevance” in the process and the difference is that the lower degree of conventionalization of the compound, the more complicated the meaning inferential process is. Lastly, on the basis of the inferential process, this study summarizes four factors that affect the conventionalization of metonymic compounds: time of word formation, salience of metonymy, clarity of word-forming motivation and contextual support, among which contextual support is the most crucial factor.
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Automatic construction of a dictionary of variant forms of Chinese characters
Author(s): Xiaodong Shipp.: 121–135 (15)More LessAbstractMany Chinese characters have more than one form of writing owing to complex nature of creation and long evolvement history of writing. Most existing Chinese dictionaries list these variant forms but do not explain in a systematic way why a specific character is a variant form of another, and only list a few older key bibliographies, many of which are themselves dictionaries of various forms. In this article we present a new theory and practice of how to determine whether a Chinese character is a variant of another, and show how we can deduce a dictionary of variant characters automatically from a corpus of ancient Chinese texts totaling 2.3 billion characters with artificial intelligence techniques. Results show that in over 74,000 instances of identified variant character groups, more than 20,000 new instances are found by our algorithm. We have then compiled all the instances into a dictionary and call it Dictionary of Chinese Variant Words (異體字詞典, Yiti Zi Cidian). The key insight of our theory is to find synonymous words with variant characters. The dictionary has already been put online for several years and everyone can freely access and edit it like the way they do on Wikipedia.
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Who predicted what?
pp.: 136–159 (24)More LessAbstractThe Chinese language is a common language of Chinese people all over the world. The study of it is not only the basis for a comprehensive understanding of its situation, but also a window to explore the development of the Chinese society. Based on two newspapers of the Chinese mainland and Taiwan from Tagged Chinese Gigaword, this article has chosen and examined the word 預測 yùcè ‘to predict’ to explore “who predicated what” through comparing the similarities and differences of its collocates in the subject-predicate relation and the verb-object relation. This study reflects the preference of different newspapers and provides a window for looking into a period of history on both sides of the strait, which is conducive to strengthening the communication and exchanges of Chinese communities.
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近義詞的詞彙語義互補性 [The complementary lexical semantics of adverb synonyms]
Author(s): Liching Livy Chiu (邱力璟)pp.: 160–192 (33)More Less摘要本文探討機率副詞「也許、可能」、時間副詞「曾經、已經」、強調副詞「真是、實在是」,以及語氣副詞「難道、究竟」,以上四組近義詞的語法語義特點,以及搭配的句式和助詞。筆者認為近義詞的難點在於辨析各組語義徵性,甚至母語者也不理解細微的語義差異,而這四組副詞恰巧對應到副詞的四個語義面向,因此別具代表性。本篇研究發現副詞近義詞間的「互補性」非常重要:一、機率副詞「也許」的主觀性、直觀性比「可能」較強,情態副詞「可能」需要推測的依據與條件,「也許」則無心理預測、真值性較低;二、時間副詞「已經」表動貌時,皆以現在時的觀點,時間參照點可移動,句子的命題為已然狀態。而「曾經」的時間參照點永遠是現在,可當定語和句首修飾語,表示過去和現在的對比或對現在的否定。三、強調副詞「真是」以及「實在是」,兩者均可用來描述程度,經常搭配「是」的焦點標記,也常置句末來表達非成分的評價義。四、「難道」、「究竟」當語氣副詞時,與疑問句和語氣助詞的搭配,呈現「互補分布」。「難道」可用於是非問句,表反詰或測度,一般與「嗎」搭配;「究竟」跟「是」的共現頻率很高,與「呢」搭配。總結來說,副詞的語法功能在修飾謂語,以上四組近義詞恰巧對應謂語可被修飾之四種面向,卻都強調句法語義互補,幫助我們全面性窺探副詞的特色。
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陈述句的语篇角色 [Discourse roles of declaratives]
Author(s): Wang Zhenhua (王振华) and Zhang Chunhui (张春晖)pp.: 193–207 (15)More Less提要在社会互动中,不管是口语还是书面语,语篇总是有起始、发展和终结。语篇分析或语类研究对语篇的起始、发展与终结的研究成果丰硕。语法学研究陈述句时主要关注语法结构及其意义,很少将陈述句置于语篇中讨论它们扮演的起始、发展和终结的语篇角色。本文在陈述句语法功能的基础上,在系统功能语言学框架下,将陈述句置于大语篇中进行研究,从语篇语义视角讨论陈述句的语篇角色,探索它们的生成机制以及对语篇组织策略的贡献,以此为不同句类的语篇角色研究带来启示。
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Understanding memes on Chinese social media
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