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- Volume 20, Issue 2, 2019
Language and Linguistics - Volume 20, Issue 2, 2019
Volume 20, Issue 2, 2019
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韓漢同源說的問題與韓漢語言關係 [The problem of the affinity between Korean and Chinese and the relation of the two languages]
Author(s): Ik-sang Eom (嚴翼相)pp.: 131–147 (17)More Less抽象有些韓語固有詞與對應的上古漢語詞類似。譬如, 表示「風」的韓語固有詞param和「風」字的漢語上古音*prəm類似。一些學者認爲這些韓漢類似詞一定是從同一詞源發展而來,提出韓漢同源說,主張韓語和漢語屬於同一語系。本文將從微觀和宏觀的視角探討該學說是否妥當,並指出韓漢同源說存在的一些問題。本文還將根據陳保亞(1996)的理論,考察了韓漢類似詞在Swadesh (1952; 1955)的100核心詞(第一階詞)和200核心詞減除100核心詞(第二階詞)裏出現的數量。發現第一階核心詞目錄裏主要有「吾、汝、人、男、葉、眼、牙、街、白」等9個韓漢類似詞,第二階核心詞目錄裏也有「日(天)、其、腿、老、江、聞、轉、洗、風」等9個類似詞。韓漢類似詞的數量在第一階詞目錄和第二階詞目錄裏幾乎完全相同,分佈曲線趨向平直。陳保亞認為少數類似詞分佈曲線不上不下,走向平直就表明兩種語言為接觸關係。因此本文將論證韓語和漢語不是親屬關係而是接觸關係。
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Scalarity, degree reading and maximality in a Mandarin numeral construction
pp.: 148–179 (32)More LessAbstractThis paper investigates the semantics of an understudied Mandarin numeral construction type, here dubbed da-NumPs (i.e. number word < da ‘big’ < noun). Drawing primarily upon evidence from online Mandarin corpora, we argue for a taxonomy of this construction that comprises two distinct interpretations, based on the scalarity of the morpheme da and its composition with the other constituents within the construction. Specifically, one reading of da-NumPs is a degree superlative reading, in which da relates a domain of comparison, denoted by the nominal argument, to a plural group of entities ranked along the upper bound of a contextually determined scale. Second, da-NumPs have a definite description reading, in which da behaves on a par with a maximality-denoting iota operator, such that the construction refers to the maximal group individual that satisfies the property denoted by the nominal argument. We further show that at the discourse level, both readings encode the way the speaker subjectively construes the situation being described, indicating the speaker’s evaluative attitude towards the significance of said situation. This pragmatic condition distinguishes the use of da-NumPs against that of alternative, truth-conditionally identical numeral construction types. We further propose that in cases where the nominal component includes a degree argument, a process of degree intensification enables the definite description reading to verify the same situation as is licensed under a superlative semantics. We show that this process provides a way to make sense of the systematic ambiguity available to da-NumPs, and allows us to capture its polysemy.
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From caused-motion to spatial configuration
Author(s): Meichun Liu and Juiching Changpp.: 180–224 (45)More LessAbstractThis study re-examines Mandarin Placement verbs from a lexical-constructional perspective and redefines the class with semantic-to-syntactic properties pertaining to lexicalization patterns in Mandarin. It aims to show that Placement verbs lexicalize a cognitively salient causal chain that extends from an agentive motion to locational change and to resultant spatial configuration. The event chain serves as the conceptual basis for linking motion-triggered events and states that are syntactically distinct in profiling the three contingent stages: caused to move → caused to be → spatially grounded. Although English Placement verbs (put, hang, etc.) are typically taken to be exemplars of the caused-motion construction, this study shows that Placement verbs may be distinguished syntactically and semantically from pure Caused-Motion verbs and posture-based Spatial Configuration verbs. While the three classes of verbs may be viewed as demonstrating respectively the individuated stages of the proposed event chain, Placement verbs are the only class that encompasses all three event types in their meanings and are associated with a wide range of semantically compatible constructions. The three stages are discussed with graphical representations and collocational distinctions. Further sub-classifications of the Mandarin Placement verbs are provided with different semantic profiles for each subclass. Crucial to the analysis is the fact that location-profiled uses of Placement verbs outnumber path-profiled uses in Mandarin, indicating a categorical shift from motional to locational predication. By teasing out the language-specific and class-specific lexicalization patterns that are collo-constructionally definable, the study demonstrates the usefulness of a lexical-constructional approach in fine-tuning verbal semantic distinctions for cross-linguistic and cross-categorial comparisons.
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The effect of morphological structure on semantic transparency ratings
Author(s): Shichang Wang, Chu-Ren Huang, Yao Yao and Angel Chanpp.: 225–255 (31)More LessAbstractSemantic transparency deals with the interface between lexical semantics and morphology. It is an important linguistic phenomenon in Chinese in the context of prediction of meanings of compounds from their constituents. Given prominence of compounding in Chinese morpho-lexical processes, to date there is no semantic transparency dataset available to support verifiable and replicable quantitative analysis of semantic transparency in Mandarin Chinese. In addition, the relation between semantic transparency and morphological structure has not been systematically examined. This paper reports a crowdsourcing-based experiment designed for the construction of a large semantic transparency dataset of Chinese compounds which includes semantic transparency ratings of both the compound and each constituent root of the compound. We also present an analysis of the effects of morphological structure on semantic transparency using the constructed dataset. Our study found that in a transparent modifier-head compound, the head tends to get greater semantic transparency rating than the modifier. Interestingly, no such effect is observed in coordinative compounds. This result suggests that compounds of different morphological structures are processed differently and that the concept of head plays an important role in the word-formation process of compounding. We advocate that crowdsourcing can be a highly instrumental method to collect linguistic judgments and to construct language resources in Chinese language studies. In addition, the proposed methodology of comparing constituent transparency and word transparency sheds light on the relation between morpho-lexical structure and cognitive processing of lexical meanings.
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Degree intensifiers as expressives in Mandarin Chinese
Author(s): Zhiguo Xie and Qiongpeng Luopp.: 256–281 (26)More LessAbstractIn this paper, we provide an empirical description and a theoretical analysis of the adverbial use of hǎo ‘(lit.) good’, lǎo ‘(lit.) old’, and guài ‘(lit.) strange’ in Mandarin Chinese. The three adverbs represent a small yet theoretically interesting class of lexical items. Because they manifest certain similarities to canonical degree adverbs such as hěn ‘very’ and fēicháng ‘extremely’, they have been usually treated as pure degree adverbs in the descriptive linguistics literature. Empirical evidence, however, shows that these adverbs actually fuse together both degree intensification and expressive meanings. For instance, they convey strong emotion on the part of the speaker and cannot appear in non-veridical contexts such as negation, modals, information-seeking questions, and antecedents of conditionals. We argue that hǎo, lǎo, and guài are mixed-content lexical items. Based on their empirical behaviors, we follow recent advances in multidimensional semantics to propose a hybrid formal analysis of hǎo, lǎo, and guài by incorporating degree semantics into a multidimensional logic for conventional implicature.
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Structure of numerals and classifiers in Chinese
Author(s): One-Soon Her (何萬順)
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From caused-motion to spatial configuration
Author(s): Meichun Liu and Juiching Chang
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