Chapter 4 Findings
4.1 Syntactic Patterns
In corpus data, we observe there are three common syntactic patterns in which the three markers often appear. First, in Pattern 1, they are often followed by a Route-NP, a noun referring to a passing landmark, as illustrated below.
(14)a. 又過邊界了
yòu guò biānjiè le again cross boundary ASP
‘(Someone) crossed the boundary again.’
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b.人不就可以很輕鬆地翻牆越障礙了嗎
rén bú jiù kěyǐ hěn qīngsōngdi fān qiáng people NEG exactly can very freely.and.easily go.over wall
yuè zhàngài le ma cross obstacle ASP Q
‘Can’t people go over the wall and cross the obstacle freely and easily?’
One of the intriguing findings is that jīng 經 does not have such a pattern, which suggests the special status of jīng 經 among the three markers.
(15) *經邊界了 *jīng biānjiè le
In pattern 2, the three markers are observed to be followed not only by a Route-NP but also another motion verb immediately followed by a Loc-NP, a noun referring to the destination of the moving, as shown below:
(16) a. 從捷運淡水站過淡水河到對岸的八里
cóng jiéyùn dànshuǐ zhàn guò dànshuǐhé dào duìàn de bālǐ from MRT Danshui Station cross Danshui.River arrive opposite DE Bali ‘(Someone) crossed Danshui River to Bali in the opposite bank from MRT Danshui
Station.’
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b.順道越邊界到墨西哥去，
shùndào yuè biānjiè dào mòxīgē qù following.the road cross boundary arrive Mexico go
‘(Someone) followed the road and crossed the boundary to Mexico.’
c. 由大陸來的商船可經淡水河直達此地
yóu dàlù lái de shāngchuán kě jīng from Mainland come DE business-ship Mod pass dànshuǐhé zhí dá cǐdì
Dan.shui.River directly arrive this-place
‘The business ships from Mainland can go across Danshui River to this place directly.’
In addition, in Pattern 3, they are commonly found to be preceded by another verb to together specify a motion event as illustrated below:
(17) a. 直升機低空飛過公路
zhíshengjī dī kōng fēi-guò gong lù helicopter low height fly-cross public road
‘The helicopter flew over the road in low height.’
b. 球兒直飛越觀眾席，
qiúér zhí fēi yuè zhòng xí ball straight fly cross audience seat
‘The ball flew straight over the audience’
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c. 當時正好有一名駕駛員飛經該區，
dāngshí zhènghǎo yǒu yì míng jiàshǐyuán fēi-jīng at.that.moment just exist Num CL driver fly-pass gāi qū
Dem area
‘A pilot just flew by that area at that moment.’
(18) a. 兩腳跨過門檻
liǎng jiǎo kuà-guò ménkǎn Num foot stride-cross threshold ‘(Someone) strides over the threshold.’
b.二十萬人跨越金門大橋
èrshíwàn rén kuà-yuè jīnméndàqiáo
Num people stride-cross Golden.Gate.Bridge
‘Twenty million people went across Golden Gate Bridge.’
c. 當時規劃鐵道外移須跨經基隆河兩岸
dāngshí guīhuà tiědào wàiyí xū kuà-jīng jīlónghé liǎng àn then plan railroad relocation has.to stride-pass Jilong.River two bank
‘(Someone) planned the relocation of the railroad had to go across Jilong River then.’
In a word, these three markers are commonly found in the three syntactic patterns:
Pattern1: * < Route-NP, Pattern 2: * < Route-NP < Motion verbs < Loc-NP and Pattern 3:
Verbs < *. It is noted that jīng 經 does not show in Pattern 1. It cannot be followed only by a Route-NP while it can be followed by Route-NP and a motion verb followed by a Loc-NP,
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which indicates the special status of jīng 經. Among these syntactic patterns, we found some different collocational patterns and distribution shown by these three markers, which are illustrated in the following sections.These different collocational patterns and distribution further display the grammatical status and semantic distinctions of each marker. (See Chapter 5).
4.2 Collocational Patterns and Distribution among Syntactic Patterns
Although the three markers are found in the three common patterns as shown in the previous section, they show some diffrerent behaviors in each pattern, which reveals the grammatical properties and semantic characteristics of each marker. The following sections illustrate the different behaviors on collocational patterns or distribution shown by the three markers in each pattern.
4.2.1 The Different Behaviors in Pattern 1
As shown in the previous section, in Pattern 1, except jīng 經, the markers are followed by a Route-NP, referring to the passing landmark. However, in some instances, guò 過 can occur alone without a clear Route NP following it but jīng 經 and yuè 越 cannot:
(19) a. 這陣子的生活就像眼前的列車呼嘯而過/*經/*越
zhè zhènzi de shēnghuó jiù xiàng yǎn qián de lièchē hūxiào ér this period DE life exactly similar eye in.front.of DE train bluster and
guò/*jīng/*yuè pass
‘This period of life is like the train in front of the eyes, blustering and passing.’
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b. 親愛的妳也匆匆而過//*經/*越了
qīnài de nǐ yě cōngcōng ér guò/*jīng/*yuè beloved DE you also quickly and pass
‘Beloved you also passed quickly.’
c. 凡經此過/*經/*越，必留下痕跡
fán jīng cǐ guò/*jīng/*yuè ， bì liúxià hénjī once pass here pass definitely leave trace
‘Once you pass through here, you will definitely leave some traces.’
d. 過/*經/*越來
guò/*jīng/*yuè lái pass come ‘Come over here.’
The finding that only 過 can occur alone without a clear Route-NP suggests its special status. In addition to the collocations with Route-NP, guò 過/ jīng 經/ yuè 越 also shows different behaviors when collocating with aspectual markers. First, guò 過 and yuè 越 can collocate with the perfective marker -le 了 but jīng 經 cannot. To be more specific, -le 了 can immediately follow guò 過 and yuè 越 or follow the complement of guò 過/yuè 越, that is, it can follow the construction of [過/越+NP] as shown below:
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(20) a.三個人膽戰心驚，終於都過了那十餘丈狹窄的通道
sān ge rén dǎnzhànxīnjīng，zhōngyú dōu guò le nà shí yú zhàng de three CL people afraid.and.scared finally all cross ASP that ten more CL DE
xiázhǎi tōngdào narrow passage
‘Three people were afraid and scared, crossing the narrow passage finally.’
b.誰越了界，馬上會被人拖到後面教訓一頓
shéi yuè le jiè， mǎshàng huì bèi rén tuō dào hòumiàn who cross ASP boundary immediately MOD BEI people drag arrive behind jiàoxùn yí dùn
teach.a.lesson one CL
‘Whoever crosses the boundary, he would be dragged behind to be beaten immediately.’
c. *經了通道
*jīng le tōngdào
(21) a.又過邊界了
yòu guò biānjiè le again cross boundary ASP
‘(Someone) crossed the boundary again.’
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b.人不就可以很輕鬆地翻牆越障礙了嗎
rén bú jiù kěyǐ hěn qīngsōngdi fān qiáng people NEG exactly can very freely.and.easily go.over wall
yuè zhàngài le ma cross obstacle ASP Q
‘Can’t people go over the wall and cross the obstacle freely and easily?’
c. *經邊界了 *jīng biānjiè
Besides the perfective marker -le 了, we found that only guò 過 can collocate with the durative marker –zhe 著.As shown below, only guò 過 can be immediately followed by –zhe 著.
(22) a. 孩子們小心翼翼地過著橋
háizimen xiǎoxīnyìyìdi guò zhe qiáo children carefully cross ASP bridge ‘Children are crossing the bridge carefully.’
b.*越著橋 *yuè zhe qiáo
c.*經著橋 *jīng zhe qiáo
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As shown above, in Patterns 1, guò 過 can collocate with both markers and yuè 越 can collocate with -le 了 while jīng 經 cannot collocate with any. Besides the different behaviors in the collocations with aspectual markers, we found that guò 過 and yuè 越 in this pattern can be followed by another event while jīng 經 cannot.To be more specific, jīng 經 requires an Endpoint verb/marker with an exact destination to collocate with another event.
(23) a. 還過國境抓俘虜
hái guò guójìng zhuā fúlǔ even cross boundary arrest captive
‘(Someone) even crossed the boundary to arrest the captive.’
b.波蘭參議員越邊界抓人
pōlán cānyìyuán yuè biānjiè zhuā rén Poland senator cross boundary arrest people
‘The Poland senator went over the boundary to arrest someone’
c. *經邊界抓人
jīng biānjiè zhuā rén
d. 村民都得繞道經橫店或南馬大橋到對岸幹活
cūnmín dōu de rào dào jīng héngdiàn huò nánmǎdàqiáo dào villager all have.to detour road pass Hengdian or Nanma.Bridge arrive duìàn gànhuó
opposite work
‘The villagers all have to make a detour to go past Hendian or Nanma Bridge to arrive the opposite bank to work.’
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In (23a) and (23b), the phrases zhuā fúlǔ 抓俘虜 ‘to arrest the captive’ and zhuārén 抓人 ‘to arrest someone’ are the other events in addition to the motion events introduced by guò 過 and yuè 越. The other events can immediately follow guò 過 and yuè 越 with their
complements. However, in (23c), jīng 經 with its complement cannot be followed by another event illustrated by the phrase zhuārén 抓人 ‘to arrest someone’. Only when being followed by an Endpoint verb/marker such as dào 到 ‘arrive’ can jīng 經 collocate with another event as (23d) shows. The findings on the different behaviors shown by each marker in Pattern 1 lead to some precise questions: 1) Why can guò 過 occur alone without a clear Route-NP while the other two markers cannot? 2) Why can guò 過 collocate with aspectual markers both –le 了 and –zhe 著 while yuè 越 only can collocate with –le 了 and jīng 經 cannot co-occur with any? 3) Why can guò 過 and yuè 越 collocate with another event while jīng 經 requires an Endpoint verb/marker? These patterns illustrate the grammatical properties and semantic distinguishments of each marker, which is further explained in the following chapter.
4.2.2 The Different Behaviors in Pattern 2
In addition to the different collocational patterns in Pattern 1, the three markers show different behaviors in their distribution in Pattern 2. In corpus data, jīng 經 is found more predominant in this pattern as shown by the frequency of guò 過, yuè 越,jīng 經 occuring in Pattern 2 in sinica corpus, which is illustrated as the table below.
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*<Route-NP<Motion V<Loc-NP Count Frequency
過 5/67 7.46%
越 2/10 20%
經 23/39 58.974%
Table 2. The frequency of guò 過, yuè 越, jīng 經 occurring in Pattern 2 in sinica corpus
As we can see in the table above, Jīng 經 shows the highest frenquecy of occurring in Pattern 2. The predominance of occurance in this pattern suggests that Jīng 經 is different from the other two markers in some way, which is further discussed in chapter 5.
4.2.3 The Different Behaviors in Pattern 3
As illustrated in the syntactic patterns, in Pattern 3, these three markers are commonly observed to be preceded by verbs to specify a motion event. One of the intriguing findings is that guò 過 seems to be more predominant in combination with verbs than the other two Route markers. To be more specific, guò 過 seems to combine with more verbs than jīng 經 and yuè 越 as illustrated below:
(24) a. 當時有三、四名男子翻過緬甸大使館的圍牆，
dāngshí yǒu sān、sìmíng nánzǐ fānguò miǎndiàn dàshǐguǎn de wéiqiáng then have three four man turn.over-cross Myanmar embassy DE wall ‘There were three or four men going across the wall of Myanmar embassy then.’
b. *翻經 *fānjīng
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c.他曾三次翻越喜馬拉雅山，四次跨越大興安嶺
tā céng sān cì fānyuè xǐmǎlāyǎshān sì cì He ever three time trun.over-cross the Himalayas four time Kuàyuè dàxīngānlǐng
cross-cross Daxingan Mountain
‘He has gone over the Himalayas three times and Daxingan Mountain four times.’
(25) a. 暴漲的洪水流過市區，
bào zhǎng de hóngshuǐ liúguò shìqū sudden.and.violent rise DE flood flow-pass downtown ‘The suddenly and violently rised flood flew past the downtown.’
b. 淡水河流經台灣五個縣市，
dànshuǐhé liújīng táiwān wǔ ge xiàn shì Dansui.River flow-pass Taiwan five CL county city ‘Dansui River flows past five counties and cities of Taiwan.’
c. *流越 *liú-yuè
(26) a. 河水湧過堤壩
héshuǐ yǒngguò tíbà
river surge-pass dikes.and.dams ‘The river surged past dikes and dames.’
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b.*湧經 * yǒng-jīng
c. *湧越 * yǒng-yuè
(24)-(26) are grammatical combinations of guò 過 with verbs; however, jīng 經 and yuè 越 form ungrammatical makeups respectively in (24) and (25). Moreover, jīng 經 and yuè 越 both cannot be preceded by some verbs such as yǒng 湧 ‘surge’ in (26). To inspect the predominance of guò 過 in combination with verbs, we examine the 37 verbs3 which are observed to precede guò 過 in Zeng (2008) which uses Centers of Chinese Linguistic PKU4 as the database, investigating whether the same verbs could combine with the other two Route markers. We found there are some verbs that cannot combine with yuè 越 but can precede jīng 經 such as dù 踱 ‘pace’ , liú 流 ‘flow’, lù 路 ‘pass’. In addition, there are some verbs that cannot co-occur with jīng 經 but can precede yuè 越 such as dù 渡 ‘cross a river’ , màn 漫 ‘overflow’ , shè 涉’ wade’ , fān 翻 ‘go across’, shǎn 閃 ‘dodge’, fú 拂 ‘brush’ , chōng 衝 ‘rush’.There are also some verbs that cannot combine with these two markers such as yā 壓 ‘press’ , tōng 通 ‘lead to’, jǐ 擠 ‘squeeze’, yǒng 湧 ‘surge’, yuè 越 ‘cross’ , jīng 經 ‘pass’. The three groups of verbs are shown in the following table.
3 Zeng(2008) observes more than 37 verbs that can precede guo 過. We only examine the verbs that are monophonemic and used in motion events when combining with guo 過.
4 URL: http://ccl.pku.edu.cn/ccl%5Fcorpus/xiandaihanyu/
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Table 3. The verbs that cannot combine with jīng 經/yuè 越
These verbs show the restrictions of jīng 經/yuè 越 on combining with verbs, which are elaborated with their semantic-to-morphological correlation in the following chapter. Here we note that guò 過 can combine with all the 37 verbs found in Zeng (2008) while jīng 經/yuè 越 can not occur with some of the verbs.The reasons for the ungrammaticality of these combinations are well-explained with a clear elaboration of the correlation between semantics and morphology in Chapter 5. In other words, guò 過 shows the predominace in combining with verbs. Another interesting finding in this pattern is that guò 過 also can co-occur with the other two Route markers jīng 經 and yuè 越 while they cannot combine with each other:
(27) a.一路上我們會經過幾家飯館
yílùshàng wǒmen huì jīng-guò jǐjiā fànguan on the way we Mod pass-cross several restaurant ‘We will go past several restaurants on the way.’
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b.災難已經越過地平線
zāinàn yǐjīng yuè-guò dìpíngxiàn disaster already cross-pass horizon
‘The disaster already crossed the horizon.’
c. *經越 jīng-yuè
d.*越經 yuè-jīng
It is also noted that there is a fixed order in the combination of guò 過 with other two markers. The restriction is that jīng 經 and yuè 越 can precede guò 過 but cannot be vice versa:
(28) a. *過經 guò-jīng b.*過越
guò-yuè
It seems that guò 過 can collocate with most verbs. However, there are some verbs that cannot precede all these three makers:
(29) a. 上*過/*經/*越
shàng *guò/*jīng/*yuè ascend
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b.下*過/*經/*越
xià *guò/*jīng/*yuè descend
c.進*過/*經/*越 jìn *guò/*jīng/*yuè enter
d.出*過/*經/*越 chū *guò/*jīng/*yuè exit
e.回*過/*經/*越 huí *guò/*jīng/*yuè return
In addition to the different collocational patterns with verbs, these three Route markers show different behaviors when collocating with aspectual variations. The combination of [V 過] can be separated by aspectual markers but the makeup of [V 經] and [V 越] cannot.
(30) a. 你爬得過世界上所有的高峰，
nǐ pá de guò shìjiè shàng suǒyǒu de gāofēng you climb DE cross world on all DE mountain ‘You are able to climb over the mountains in the world.’
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b.*爬得經 *pá de jīng
c. *爬得越 *pá de yuè
(31) a.為什麼螞蟻爬不過橡皮筋?
wèishénme mǎyǐ pá bú guò xiàngpíjīn why ants crawl NEG pass bend ‘Why can not ants crawl past the bend?’
b.*爬不經 *pá bù jīng
c.*爬不越 * pá bú yuè
(32) a.人飛著過馬路
rén fēi zhe guò mǎlù people fly Asp cross road ‘People fly across the road.’
b.*飛著經 * fēi zhe jīng
c.*飛著越 * fēi zhe yuè
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(33) a.蝴蝶飛了過滄海
húdié fēi le guò cānghǎi butterfly fly ASP cross sea ‘The butterfly flies across the sea.’
b.*飛了經 * fēi le jīng
c.*飛了越
* fēi le yuè
These findings in Pattern 3 intrigue some more specific questions following: 1) Among the three markers, why does guò 過 occur most frequently in the combinations with verbs to depict a motion event? 2) What are the restrictions on combining guò 過/ jīng 經/ yuè 越 with verbs? 3)Why can guò 過 even be combined with the other two markers? 4) Why cannot jīng 經 and yuè 越 combine with each other? 5)Why is there a fixed order of combining guò 過 and the other two Route markers so that only the construction of jīng-guò 經過 and yuè-guò 越過 are grammatical? 6) Why can the makeup of [V 過] be separated but [V 經] and [V 越]
cannot? In the following chapter, we aim to find out what principles can account for these findings on morphological make-ups in this pattern.
4.3. Moving Contours
With the previous studies on guò 過 (Hsiao 1997, 2003,Wu 2000, Wang 2002,
With the previous studies on guò 過 (Hsiao 1997, 2003,Wu 2000, Wang 2002,