Chapter 4 Findings
4.4 Motion Sequences and Their Predominant Event Types
As shown by the observation from previous sections, Mandarin motion verbs are able to predicate spatial movements and also a variety of metaphorically non-spatial motion events.
Since motion verbs can be alternatively ordered in either ways, each motion sequence in every alternated pair may behave differently in predicating motion events. A close look into their predominat event types in between alternated pairs argues that morphological sequencing of is correlated with their spatial and non-spatial distinction in predicating motion events. For instance, one pair of alternated motion sequence tuì-huí 退回 ‘recede to return’ and huí-tuì 回退 ‘return to recede’ show a semantic division in predicating spatial and non-spatial usages of motion by two motion sequences as exemplified blew:
(55) a. 垃圾車只好退回。
b. 時間如流水，永遠都不會回退。
As shown by the above example, tuì-huí 退回 ‘recede to return’ with V1 tuì 退 ‘recede’
preceding V2 huí 回 ‘return’ tends to predicate spatial usages of motion while huí-tuì 回退
‘fall to return’ in reversed order is prone to expressing non-spatial activities. The predominant event types for the alternated motion sequences is confirmed to shows a correlation with sequential ordering of motion verbs by a corpus-based investigation.
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Table 7: Predominant Event Types of Alternated Motion Sequences
As depicted by the table, motion sequences such as luò-xià 落下 ‘fall to go down’ from Group (a) tend to predict spatial motion events while their reversed counterparts from Group (b) such as xià-luò 下落 ‘go down to fall’ are prone to non-spatial activities. In fact, most of the motion sequences in Group (a) are constructed in one order reversed to that of motion sequences in Group (b) as evidenced by the contrast between luò-xià 落下 ‘fall to go down’
and the reversed sequence xià-luò 下落 ‘go down to fall’.
One may wonder how the sequential ordering of motion verbs may relate to the predicational types of motion events. What is the underlying mapping mechanism that determines such form-to-functional interrelation in alternated motion sequences? We aim to explore the mapping relation by suggesting that the spatial vs. non-spatial distinction of
Motion Sequences (A) Spatial Movement Non-spatial Movement
Total count percentage count percentage
落下 258 91.81% 23 8.18% 281
Motion Sequences (B) Spatial Movement Non-spatial Movement
Total count percentage count percentage
下落 12 100% 0 0% 12
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motion events show that morphological sequencing of motion verbs is correlated with semantic properties that are essential in defining motion events. We will provide a frame-based analysis so as to account for the above concerns in the next chapter.
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Chapter 5 Analysis
This chapter will account for the above concerns regarding the alternated motion sequences. First, we will respond to the collo-constructional variations between alternated motion sequences via a thorough inspect on their lexicalization patterns with these verb-internal components in relation with their verb-external participants to postulate the syntactic-to-semantic correlation among every pairs of these motion sequences. Second, we will tackle the sequential mechanism governing alternated motion sequences to realize the morphological mapping with semantic distinction of spatial and non-spatial motion events.
Finally, we will incorporate the motion sequences into the framing system by Liu and Chiang (2008) to categorize motion sequence under the multi-layered taxonomy. Section 5.1 presents the alternated mechanism in linearizing motion sequences. Section 5.2 will account for the distributional frequency among these alternated pairs of motion sequences. Section 5.3 will explain the collocational variations by a thorough inspect on the syntactic-to-semantic correlation between alternated motion sequences. Section 5.4 will postulated the morphological mapping with event types of motion manifested in alternated motion sequences. Section 5.5 provides the frame-based analysis of motion sequences under the hierarchical taxonomy.
5.1 Sequential Mechanism: Conformed and Reverse Sequences
Motion sequences can be linearized in an alternative fashion as shown below:
(56) jiàng-xià 降下 ‘descend to go down’ vs. xià-jiàng 下降 ‘go down to descend’
(57) tuì-xià 退下 ‘recede to go down’ vs. xià-tuì 下退 ‘go down to recede’
(58) sheng-shàng 升上 ‘ascend to go up’ vs. shàng-sheng 上升 ‘go up to ascend’
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By adopting the PMS (Liu et al. 2012a), we aim to explain the underlying sequential mechanism of these alternated motion sequences by examining their lexicalization patterns with semantic components. For example, motion sequence jiàng-xià 降下 ‘descend to go down’ is composed in a sequence of V1 jiàng 降 ‘descend’ preceding V2 xià 下 ‘go down.’
The semantic components lexicalized in jiàng 降 ‘descend’ denote an underlying semantic portion ranging from Route to Direction while V2 xià 下 ‘go down’ encodes a semantic range from Route to Endpoint. In the sequence of jiàng-xià 降下 ‘descend to go down’, the Endpoint component encoded in xià 下 ‘go down’ would semantically outrange Direction component lexicalized in jiàng 降 ‘descend’ towards the right respecting the left-to-right order depicted in the PMS. The following principle is hereby proposed to illuminate the sequential mechanism.
I. Conformed Motion Sequence
Given any two serial motion verbs, V2 should outrange V1 towards the right to observe the default sequence of the motion schema.
By this principle, motion sequence jiàng-xià 降下 ‘descend to go down’ is linearized in a conformed sequence as depicted below:
Figure 7: Sequential Organization of 降下
In addition to the conformed sequence as jiàng-xià 降下 ‘descend to go down’, the reversed order as xià-jiàng 下降 ‘go down to descend’ is also observed. To be specific, motion sequence 下降‘go down to descend’ is composed in a sequence of V1 xià 下 ‘go
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down’ preceding V2 jiàng 降 ‘descend’ preceding. In view of the PMS, motion verb xià 下
‘go down’ sets up a semantic range from Direction to Endpoint while jiàng 降 ‘descend’
encodes a portion ranging from Route to Direction. In the sequence of xià-jiàng 下降‘go down to descend’, the semantic range of V1 xià 下 ‘go down’ would override that of V2 jiàng 降 ‘descend’ in a recessive way with Endpoint preceding Route, clearly not abiding the default order depicted in the PMS. Another pricinciple is therefore proposed to account for the reversed ordering relations among verbs of motion as illustrated below:
II. Reversed Motion Sequence
Given any two serial motion verbs, they can be composed in a reversed sequence in which the semantic range of V1 overrides that of V2 in a recessive order against the default order depicted in the PMS.
Following this principle, we may explain sequential ordering of jiàng-xià 下降‘go down to descend’ by viewing it as a reversed sequence with Endpoint component preceding Route component in a recessive way against the iconic sequence from the PMS.
Figure 8: Sequential Organization of 下降
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5.2 Distributional Frequency of Alternated Motion Sequences
As we have investigated how alternated motion sequences are distributed in the corpus, an unequal distributional pattern in between every pair of alternated motion sequences is observed. Many conformed sequences such as tuì-xià 退下 ‘recede to go down’ tend to win over their reversed counterpart xià-tuì 下退 ‘go down to recede’ at the distributional frequency as illustrated below:
Table 8: Distributional Frequency of Alternated Motion Sequences (1)
As one of the synonyous sequences from the alternated pairs, many reversed motion sequences such as xià-luò 下落 ‘go down to fall’ have more restricted distribution across the corpus than their conformed sequence luò-xià 落下 ‘fall to go down.’ As indicated by Jia (1996), Mandarin compounds are formed at the early stage with a rather loose and alternative fashion linearizing monomorphemic lexicons. As they form a synonymous alternated pairs denoting similar motion events, conformed and reversed motion sequences start to compete with each other in occurrence of language uses. The collocational patterns of alternated motion sequences from Chapter 4 have confirmed that conformed motion sequences wins over the reversed sequences at their compatibility in collocating with a wider variety of syntactic patterns while reversed motion sequences are rather restricted with a small set of
5 Only the verbal use of motion sequence 下落 is included. The nominal use is 下落 is excluded.
Conformed Sequence Reversed Sequence
1 a.落下 95.9% (281/293) b.下落5 4.09% (12/293) 2 a.退下 96.55% (308/319) b.下退 3.44% (11/319) 3 a.退回 98.07% (407/415) b.回退 1.92% (8/415) 4 a.降落 99.36% (1400/1409) b.落降 0.63% (9/1409) 5 a.退落 89.55% (60/67) b.落退 10.44% (7/67)
Predominant Less Predominant
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them. Therefore, we may claim that conformed sequences win over the reversed sequences in competition for language uses.
However, Table 9 suggests another story that some reversed motion sequences may turn out more predominant than conformed sequences as described below:
Table 9: Distributional Frequency of Alternated Motion Sequences (2)
Table 9 presents a predominant distribution skewed to reversed sequence among these alternated pairs. As we know alternated motion sequences are formed as synonymous pairs at the early stage, they would undergo a serious competition for language use and lead to unequal distributional frequency. Generally speaking, reversed sequences such as xià-jiàng 下降 ‘go down to descend’ are predicted to be less preferred to their conformed counterpart jiàng-xià 降下 ‘descend to go down’. On the contrary, many reversed sequences, however, actually win out at their distributional frequency as illustrated in Table 12. Moreover, these frequently occurring reversed motion sequences are predominantly used to predicate non-motional events as shown below:
(59) 全球股價上升。
quánqiú gǔjià shàng-shēng global share.value go.up-ascend
‘The global values are rising.’
Conformed Sequence Reversed Sequence
1 a.降下 3.35% (3320/98999) b.下降 96.64% (95679/98999) 2 a.升上 1.16% (920/78955) b.上升 98.83% (78035/78955) 3 a.升回 1.22% (35/2855) b.回升 98.77% (2820/2855) 4 a.降回 10.52% (40/380) b.回降 89.47% (340/380) 5 a.落回 1.06% (51/4787) b.回落 98.93% (4736/4787)
Less Predominant Predominant
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(Google 2013/01/13)
(60) 咖啡出口大幅度下降。
kāfēi chūkǒu dàfúdù xià-jiàng
coffee export dramatically go.down-descend ‘The level of coffee exports has dramatically declined.’
(Google 2013/01/06)
(61) 九月製造業景氣回降。
jiǔyuè zhìzàoyè jǐngqì huíjiàng
September manufacturing.business prosperity return-fall
‘The prosperity of manufacturing business fell back to the previous level.’
(Google 2012/12/27)
We have observed a highly frequenct occurrence of reversed motion sequences such as huí-jiàng 回降 ‘return to descend’ and huí-luò 回落 ‘return to descend’ predominantly used to conceive the conceptually non-motional event by way of motional metaphor from spatial to non-spatial domain.
To account for the frequent occurrence of reversed motion sequences for non-spatial uses, we look closely into their lexicalization patterns. These highly frequent reversed motion sequences actually encode a semantic range ending at the component Direction in view of the motional path in the PMS. Reversed motion sequence huí-jiàng 回降 ‘return to descend’, for example, lexicalizes Route and Direction. Xià-jiàng 下降 ‘go down to descend’ ends up with only Direction component according to the Boundary Setting Principle in Liu et al. (2012b).
Following the PMS, we believe that a motional course generally consists of a passing middle point, a spatial orientation, and a path delimiting endpoint. Reversed motion sequences
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encode a restricted portion ending at Direction, signifying a movement toward a spatial orientation without specifying a path delimiting endpoint.
Furthermore, the unique properties of the semantic component Direction encoded in these reversed motion sequences contribute to their predominant distribution. These motion sequences end with a Direction-encoded verb such as shēng 升 ‘ascend’ and jiàng 降
‘descend’ which describe an absolute orientation ‘upward’ or ‘downward’, instead of a relative orientation implied in verbs like tuì 退 ‘recede’ whose direction is defined relatively.
The reversed motion sequence huí-jiàng 回降 ‘return to descend’ morphologically and semantically ends with an orientational specifier jiàng 降 ‘descend’. In reporting a non-spatial motion by way of metaphorical extention, the reversed motion sequences are used more predominantly to denote an orientational Direction in non-spatial domains. In view of the commonality of orientational metaphors, Lakoff (2008) has pointed out that spatial orientation like upward or downward provide a rich basis for understanding concepts in orientational relation and give rise to a large use of orientational metaphors. We may predict that reversed motion sequences with orientational Direction shows higher distributional frequency since they bring out a large use of orientational metaphors for transferring physical movement to non-spatial usage of motion.
5.3 Syntactic-to-semantic Correlation
As motion sequences can be defined as conformed or reversed sequences, Mandarin alternated motion sequences show collocational variations between conformed and reversed sequences in every alternated pairs. The corpus-based investigation on their collocational patterns with various participant roles is presented in Table 10.
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Motion Sequences
Re-ocurring Patterns Conformed Reversed
1. Figure <＊ ✔ (退下) ✔ (下退)
2. Figure <＊< Locative NP ✔ (降回) ✘
3. Locative NP <＊< Figure ✔ (降下) ✘
4. Figure <＊< Extent ✘ ✔ (上升)
5. Figure <＊< {到} < Locative NP ✔ (落回) ✔ (回落)
6. Figure <＊< Deictic ✔ (升上) ✘
7. Figure <＊< Deictic < Locative NP ✔ (退回) ✘ 8. Figure < Manner <＊< Deictic ✔ (落下) ✘ 9. Figure < Manner <＊< {到} < Locative NP ✔ (落下) ✘
Table 10: Reocurring Patterns with Conformed and Reveresed Motion Sequences
To account for the collocational variation between motion sequences in conformed and reversed sequences, we will examine the lexical internal features and identify the lexicalization patterns in these motion sequences by the Boundary Setting Principle proposed by Liu et al. (2012b). The principle explain how verbs of motion determine the internal components they lexicalize according to the semantic range of these from the PMS. Take motion sequences luò-xià 落下 ‘fall to go down’ for example, motion verb luò 落 ‘fall’ has a semantic range from Route to Direction while xià 下 ‘go down’ lexicalizes Direction and Endpoint. The lexicalization pattern of motion sequences luò-xià 落下 ‘fall to go down’ can be illustrated below:
According to the principle, motion verb luò 落 ‘fall’ in the V1 position in a [V1V2] sequence delimit the leftmost boundary at Route and xià 下 ‘go down’ in the V2 position set the rightmost boundary at Endpoint, ending up with a semantic range from Route to Endpoint.
Adopting this Boundary Setting Principle, we look into the lexicalization patterns of motion
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sequences from conformed and reversed sequences. As we know conformed motion sequences luò-xià 落下 ‘fall to go down’ has encoded a semantic range: [Route, Direction, Endpoint] , its reversed counterpart xià-luò 下落 ‘go down to fall’ turns out to lexicalize only Direction as shown below:
In addition to luò-xià 落下 ‘fall to go down’ and xià-luò 下落 ‘go down to fall’, let’s see another pair of alternated motion sequences luò-huí落回 ‘fall to return’ in conformed sequence and the reversed sequence huí-luò 回落 ‘return to fall.’ As motion verb huí 回
‘return’ lexicalizes a semantic range from Route to Endpoint, motion sequence luò-huí落回
‘fall to return’ ends up with Route, Direction, and Endpoint. On ther other hand, motion sequence huí-luò 回落 ‘return to fall’ delimits its rightmost boundary at Direction by luò 落
‘fall’, end up with Route and Direction encoded. Motion sequences from both groups and their lexicalization patterns can be summarized here.
Motion Sequences Lexicalization Patterns
Conformed 落下
Route + Direction + Endpoint 落回
Reversed 下落 Direction
回落 Route + Direction
Table 11: Lexicalization Patterns of Alternated Motion Sequences
The above table shows that conformed motion sequences and reversed sequence are distinct in lexicalizing Endpoint component. Conformed motion sequences are composed in a lexicalization pattern with Endpoint encoded, which helps explain the collocational variation with participant roles.
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First of all, Liu et al. (2013) pointed out that Endpoint-encoded verbs may partially require a Loc-NP or have the privilege to collocate with a path-delimiting element as specifying the notion of Endpoint. Therefore, conformed motion sequences tend to take Locative NPs as NP complements for encoding Endpoint components. On the contrary, reversed sequences such as huí-luò 回落 ‘return to fall’ do not encode Endpoint component and hence may appear alone without Locative NPs. Example (62) illuminates their collocational variation between conform sequence luò-huí落回 ‘fall to return’ and reversed sequence huí-luò 回落 ‘return to fall.’
(62) a. 有毒氣體卻正每天落回[地面/Locative NP]，
yǒudú qìtǐ què zhèng měitiān luò-huí dìmiàn poisonous air Adv Pros every.day fall-return ground
‘The poisonous air falls to the ground every day.’
(Google 2012/11/06) b. 市場糧價回落，
shìchǎng liàng jià huí-luò market provisions price return-fall
‘The price of provisions has declined.’
(Google 2012/11/06)
We have known that reversed motion sequences semantically encode a range at Direction.
Many of them do not require a NP complement describing the final destination of motion contour. However, they may choose a NP adjunct specifying the extent of motion progression as described below.
(63) a. 十五的月亮升上了[天空/Locative NP]。
shíwǔ de yuèliàng sheng-shàng le tiānkōng fifteen de moon ascend-go.up ASP sky
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‘The moon has risen up to the sky.’
(Google 2013/06/07)
b. 死亡率上升了不只[十倍/Extent of Motion]。
sǐwáng lǜ shàng-shēng le bùzhǐ shí bèi death rate go.up-ascend ASP more Num time The mortality rate has risen by more than time times (Google 2013/06/07)
The above example presents different participant roles involved in conformed and reversed motion sequences. We may claim that conformed motion sequences, as encoding Endpoint component, may partially take a NP complement to specify the endpoint of the motional path as in (63a) while the reveserd counterparts, semantically ending at Direction, tend to collocate with a NP adjunct to denote the progression of motion as in (63b).
In addition to Locative NPs, Endpoint-encoded sequences are also highly associated with Deictic of Motion as luò-xià qù 落下去 ‘fall to go down.’ According to Liu et al. (2013), Deictic of motion regards the Speaker as the deictic center for the moving entity to move towards the Speaker by lái 來 ‘come’ or away from the Speaker by qù 去 ‘go’. Also they suggest that Deictic of Motion may be used to delimit a path-endpoint without a Locative NP as shown below:
(64) 老公回去了，
lǎogong huí qù le husband return go ASP
‘My husband has returned to (somewhere).’
(Google 2013/06/09)
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As Deictic of Motion may help signify the end of the motional path, we therefore suggests that Endpoint-encoded conformed motion sequences are prone to collocating with Deictic of Motion which is semantically compatible with the Endpoint component. On the other hand, reversed motion sequences are restricted to have deictic complements as we have observed from the re-occurring patterns with Deictic of Motion.
(65) a.咖啡價格為什麼沒降回[去/Deictic]嗎?
kāfēi jiàgé wèishéme méi jiàng-huí qù mā coffee price wh- Neg descend-return go ma
‘Why is there no decline on the price of coffee?’
b. ?咖啡價格為什麼沒回降[去/Deictic]嗎?
(66) a. 腰上的淤青退下[去/Deictic]一點，
yāoshàng de yūqīng tuì-xià qù yìdiǎn waist de bruise recede-go.down go little
‘The bruise around my waist has reduced a little bit.’
b. *腰上的瘀青下退[去/Deictic]一點
b. *腰上的瘀青下退[去/Deictic]一點