Further Research

Following Liu (2002, 2005) and Yu (2006), this thesis again shows that the multiple complementary approaches combining Frame Semantics, Construction Grammar and Qualia Structure, are profitable for exploring lexical semantics of Mandarin process-referring verbs. Given that there are still process-referring verbs (e.g. 跑 pao in 跑 新聞/宣傳/生意 pao xinwen/xuanchuan/shengyi ‘to run for news/propaganda/business’;

鬧 nao in 鬧脾氣/水災/元宵 nao piqi/shuizai/yuanxiao ‘to grouch/to suffer from flood/to enjoy the Lantern Festival’; 打 da in 打廣告/麻將/外食 da guanggao/majiang/waishi ‘to advertise/to play mahjong/to eat out’ etc.) remaining unexplored in a theory-based way, it can be expected that applying these approaches to researches of these verbs will be helpful to systematically and effectively represent and account for their lexical semantics.

Besides, the potential future development of the near synonyms YONG and NONG in Taiwan Mandarin is another interesting issue worthy for paying attention on. Since they are in competition in frequency of use and it is almost impossible for absolute synonyms to exist in natural languages, will either YONG or NONG fall into obsolescence? Will syntactic and semantic differences between them develop? Which situation would happen in the future? Further researches on this issue would help to reveal the real development of language change.

Moreover, as exhibited in this thesis, Construction Grammar is not only useful in exploring synchronic verbal lexical semantics, but also helpful in explaining diachronic language change. Another potential advantage of Construction Grammar may be to effectively relate and categorize individual constructions in a hierarchic system with several levels of schematicity. Based on her study on grammaticalization of the English [NP of NP]

construction (i.e. [NP1 [of NP2]] > [[NP1 of] NP2], e.g. [a lot/bit of]), Traugott (2007) has proposed a potential multi-layered taxonomic system in which correlated constructions can be classified into different groups on different levels, as shown below:

(1) a. Macro-constructions: high-level schemas, the highest level relevant for the discussion at hand, e.g., ditransitive construction, partitive construction, degree modifier constructions,

b. Meso-constructions: sets of similarly-behaving constructions, e.g., the set a bit/lot (of), as distinct from the set (a) kind/sort of, etc.,

c. Micro-constructions: individual construction-types, e.g., a lot of vs. a bit of, d. Constructs: empirically attested tokens of micro-constructions.

Applying this model to Mandarin process-referring verbs, a number of questions may be raised. Suppose that all Mandarin PR-Vs could be viewed as under the highest Macro-level PR-V construction, since the individual Micro-level [YONG + NP] and [NONG + NP]

construction behave similarly, can they belong to one Meso-construction? Moreover, can those semi-fixed, more lexicalized and idiosyncratic [PR-V + NP] patterns (e.g. 玩女人 wan nuren ‘to womanize’; 趕三點半 gan sandianban ‘to rush to get to the bank by 3:30 pm’ etc.) be regarded as the lowest level constructs? So far, answers to these questions remain unclear. It is believed that more researches on these issues will be needed in the future to identify the whole picture of lexical semantics of Mandarin process-referring verbs.

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Website Resources

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