Grammatical Distinction of guò 過, jīng 經 and yuè 越

Based on the corpus observations shown in the previous chapter, these three Route markers behave differently on syntactic performances. They have the three commonly-appearing syntactic patterns: Pattern 1: * < Route-NP, Pattern 2: * < Route-NP

< Motion verbs < Loc-NP and Pattern 3: Verbs < *. The Route markers show different grammatical function in each pattern. The grammatical function of each marker is illustrated as the table below.

Table 4 The grammatical function of guò 過/yuè 越/jīng 經 in the three common patterns

Pattern 1 shows the Route markers could function as a transitive verb followed by a noun. Pattern 2 illustrates that the three markers also could serve as typical Route markers marking the passing point of the path as well as prepositional-like coverbs co-occurring with another motion verbs followed by a Loc-NP. Pattern 3 forms a serial verb construction and the Route markers behave as the second verb in the construction. It is found that jīng 經 does not appear in Pattern 1.That is, jīng 經 cannot stand alone as a transitive verb. In this view, jīng 經 is less verbal than the other two markers. Moreover, jīng 經 is found more

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predominant in Pattern 2, functioning as a typical Route marker. Seeing the grammatical function shown in the three syntactic patterns, we assume jīng 經 is less verbal and behave more like a functional marker among the three. To further examine the different grammatical properties of each marker, we compare these three Route markers according to their different grammatical functions in each pattern.

5.1.1.1 As Transitive Verbs in Pattern 1

As we mentioned above, jīng 經 cannot stand alone as a transitive verb and behave as a Route marker predominantly. Thus it is less verbal than the other two.This can be evidenced with more collocational patterns related to the grammatical status. The collocational patterns associated with Pattern 1 are shown in the table below:

Table 5 The collocational patterns associated with Pattern 1

As shown in the table above, when being followed only by a Route-NP, jīng 經 cannot collocate with any aspectual marker such as -le 了 and –zhe 著 while yuè 越 can collocate with -le 了 and guò 過 can collocate with both. According to Li and Thompson (2007), the perfective marker -le 了 and the durative marker –zhe 著 are verbal suffix.That is, they only follow verbs. In this view, jīng 經 does not have the feature of verbs but guò 過 and yuè 越 do.

Therefore, jīng 經 is less verbal than the other two. This distinction of jīng 經 leads to the

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comparison of the other two Route markers which have the feature of verbs. Since guò 過 can collocate with both aspectual markers which are only attached to verbs, it is more verbal than yuè 越 which only can collocate with the perfective marker -le 了.Moreover, it is found that in this pattern guò 過 can stand alone without a clear Route-NP while yuè 越 and jīng 經 can not. This finding suggests that guò 過 behaves as a free unit while yuè 越 and jīng 經 do not.

Considering verbs are free units, we assume guò 過 is more verbal than the other two markers.The different behaviors in Pattern 1 illustrate guò 過 is the most verbal while jīng 經 is the least and yuè 越 is in between.

5.1.1.2 As Route Markers/Coverbs in Pattern 2

As we mentioned in section 4.2.2, jīng 經 is found more predominant in Pattern 2. The highest frequency of occurring in this pattern (see Table 2 in Sec.4.2.2) shows that jīng 經 behaves most like a Route marker marking the following noun as the passing landmark. The predominace of functioning as a Route marker verifies jīng 經 is less verbal and more like a grammatical marker. The grammatical status of guò 過 and yuè 越 is evidenced with more collocational patterns in the following section.

5.1.1.3 As the Second Verb in Serial Verb Constructions in Pattern 3

In the previous chapter, we found that these three Route markers all can be the second verb in a serial verb construction to specify a motion event. However, these three Route markers show different behaviors in such a serial verb construction. The collocational patterns associated with Pattern 3 are as the table shown below.

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Table 6 The collocational patterns associated with Pattern 3

As we can see, only guò 過 can be separated from the preceding verb while the other two cannot. This indicates guò 過 behaves as a free unit in such a combination while the other tow are less free. As a free unit, guò 過 is more verbal than the other two Route markers in the serial verb construction.

In brief, intergrating the three grammatical functions Route markers serve, we found these three Route markers have different status on verbality. guò 過 is the most verbal and yuè 越 is less verbal. Jīng 經 is the least verbal and behaves most like a grammatical marker.

The syntactic differences on lexical status are shown with a continuum below:

Figure 9.The lexical status of guò 過,jīng 經 and yuè 越