Moving Contours

Chapter 4 Findings

4.3. Moving Contours

4.3. Moving Contours

With the previous studies on guò 過 (Hsiao 1997, 2003,Wu 2000, Wang 2002, Zeng 2008 ) we know that the Figure in the motion event described by guò 過 could move past an intermidaite point of the path in all possible contours. Different contours such as ‘go over’, ‘go through’, ‘go across’ and ‘pass by’ are generated with further information of the

relation between the Figure and the passing landmark. In addition to the relation between Figure and the passing landmark, we found the manner of motion may also have an effect on contours as shown below.

(34) a. 飛過城門

fēi-guò chéng mén fly.cross castle gate

‘Fly over the gate of the castle.’

b..鑽過城門

zuān-guò chéng mén drill.cross castle gate

‘Go through the gate of the castle.’

As we can see, guò 過 introduces all possible contours which vary with different relation between Figure and Landmark as well as the manner of motion. On the other hand, the figure in the motion event described by yuè 越 only can move past the intermediate point in the contour of ‘ go over’ while the moving contours of jīng 經 are underspecified and thus they are vaious as shown below.

(34) a. 學生們還參與了官兵的越障礙比賽 (‘go over’)

xuéshengmén hái cānyù le guanbīng de yuè zhàngài students even join ASP soldier Pos cross obstacle

bǐsài competition

‘The students even joined in the soldiers’ competition of moving over the barriers.’

b.波蘭參議員越邊界抓人( ‘go over’)

pōlán cānyìyuán yuè biānjiè zhuā rén Poland senator cross boundary arrest people

‘The Poland senator went over the boundary to arrest someone’

c. 防範北市色情行業越淡水河營業( ‘go over’)

fangfàn běishì sèqínghangyè yuè dànshuǐhé yíngyè

prevent Taipei.city prostitution cross Dan.shui.River carry-on-business

‘to prevent the prostitution in Taipei city from going over Danshui River.’

d. 越海傳授栽種技術( ‘go over’)

yuè hǎi chuánshòu zāizhòng jìshù cross sea teach plant skill

‘(someone) went over the sea to teach the planting skill.’

(35) a.由大陸來的商船可經淡水河直達此地 (‘go across’)

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.’

b. 敵方以巡弋飛彈經淡水河進入台北市 (‘go over’)

dífāng yǐ xúnyìfēidàn jīng dànshuǐhé jìnrù táiběi shì enemy use cruise.missle pass DanshuiRiver enter Taipei city

‘The enemy used cruise missles to go over Danshui River and ener Taipei city.’

c.從火車站經隧道過來還是比較方便的 (‘go through’)

cóng huǒchēzhàn jīng suìdào guòlái háishì bǐjiào fangbiàn de from train.station pass tunnel come-over still more convenient DE

‘It is more convenient to come over here through the tunnel from the train station.’

d. 失事機長數經家門不入 (‘pass by’)

shīshì jīzhǎng shù jīng jiā mén bù rù crash plane.captain several pass home door NEG enter

‘The plane captain in the crash has passed by his home without entering several times.’

e. 這道淺灘經台灣海峽延伸至澎湖列島 (‘go along’)

zhè dào qiǎn tān jīng táiwān-hǎixiá yánshēn zhì pénghú lièdǎo this CL shallow beach pass Taiwan.Strait extend arrive Penghu islands ‘This shallow beach goes along Taiwan Strait and extends to Penghu Islands.’

In sum, the three Route markers specify different moving contours. Guò 過 introduces all possible contours while yuè 越 specifies a particular moving contour ‘go over’ . In addition, the contours of jīng 經 are underspecified and thus jīng 經 is compatible with various contours. The differences among the moving contours of these three Route markers distinguish them semantically. The following chapter will discuss the distinguishments more specifically.

Chapter 5

Analysis

This chapter presents a corpus-based analysis of the three commonly-used Route markers guò 過, jīng 經 and yuè 越 by examining their syntactic and semantic differences.

Although they have parallel functions on introducing a moving contour into a motion event, they show some different syntactic behaviors as illustrated in the previous chapter. Based on these different behaviors, these three markers can be distinguished with their grammatical status and semantic distinction. With such a further understanding of Route-marking in Mandarin, this study provides some semantic-to-morphological correlation with related principles to lexical semantic and morphological sequencing. Furthermore, we incorporate the analysis into a frame-based hierarchical structure proposed by Liu and Chiang (2008) to illustrate the relation between Route and Motion. Section 5.1 elaborates the differences among the three Route markers guò 過, jīng 經 and yuè 越 according to their grammatical status and semantic distinction shown by the findings in Chapter 4. Section 5.2 will explain the semantic-to-morphological correlation observed in Chapter 4 with some semantic and morphological principles. Section 5.3 describes the conceptual schema that helps illustrate the cognitive background of self-initiated motion events. Section 5.4 presents the hierarchical structure of the framing system and hierarchical relation among each frame with a focus on Route frame.

5.1 The Differences among guò 過, jīng 經 and yuè 越

To probe into the Route-marking in Mandarin, we examine the three commonly-used Route markers guò 過, jīng 經 and yuè 越 on their grammatical and semantic distinction based on the corpus observations. The differences among the three markers are illustrated

with their grammatical distinction first and their semantic distinction later.

5.1.1 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

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

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.

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

5.1.2 Semantic Distinction of guò 過,jīng 經, yuè 越

Although these three Route markers have parallel functions on introducing a trajectory by specifying a passing point of the path, they show some different semantic distinction.

Verbal Non-verbal

過越經

They could be distinguished by two semantic attributes introduced in the following sections.

5.1.2.1 The Moving Contours

As we observed in the previous chapter, the Figure in the motion events depicted by guò 過, jīng 經 and yuè 越 moves past the intermediate point in different contours.In other words, the three Route markers specify different contours. Guò 過 introduces all possible moving contours which vary with different manner of motion and the relation between Figure and Landmark. Yuè 越 specifies a particular contour ‘go over’ while the contours of jīng 經 are underspecified and thus jīng 經 may be compatible with various contours. The differences on moving contours distinguish these three markers and are illustrated as the image schemas below:

Figure 10.The Image Schema of jīng 經

Figure 11.The Image Schema of guò 過

Landmark Destination

Landmark

Figure 12.The Image Schema of yuè 越

In Figure 10, the dotted line stands for the underspecified moving contours. The schema expresses that the Figure moves past the Landmark, the intermediate point, to a destination in an underspecified moving contour. In this figure, as an underspecified Route marker, jīng 經 marks the landmark as a passing point of the path. On the other hand, in Figure 11, the arc line refers to the contour of ‘go over’ and the straight line illustrates the contour of ‘go through’. The curved line stands for all the possible contours introduced by guò 過,varying with the relation between Landmark and Figure. The line in Figure 12 is the specific moving contour ‘go over’ described by yuè 越.It is noted that only the Landmark in guò 過 can be shaded for only guò 過 is allowed to stand alone without a clear Landmark.

5.1.2.2 The Endpoint

As shown in the previous chaper, guò 過 and yuè 越 in Pattern 1 can be followed by another event while jīng 經 requires an Endpoint verb/marker with an exact destination. This finding indicates that in the motion event described by guò 過/ yuè 越,once the intermediate point is moved past, the whole motion event is finished, which is also suggested in Lin (2011).Thus the finished motion event can be added by another event. However, in the motion event denoted by jīng 經 ,the whole motion event has not finished after the intermediate point is moved past. Therefore, the unfinished motion event cannot be followed

Landmark

by another event. To add another event, jīng 經 requires an Endpoint verb or marker with an exact final point. The requirement of an Endpoint verb/marker indicates that jīng 經 does not encode the concept of Endpoint. Thus jīng 經 needs a motion verb specifying Endpoint to finish the motion event while guò 過 and yuè越 can finish the motion event by themselves. In this view, guò 過 and yuè 越 are lexically capable of encoding Endpoint. They do not fully encode the component of Endpoint for they cannot mark the exact destination and need the Endpoint verb/marker to specify the final point of the path as shown below:

(36) a.記得過[小橋/Route NP] 到[對面的賞桐步道/Loc-NP]

jìdé guò xiǎoqiáo dào duìmiàn de shǎngtóngbùdào remember cross small.bridge arrive opposite DE see.tung.tree.trail

‘Remember to cross the small bridge and arrive at the opposite where there is a trail where you can see tung trees.’

b.蘇聯紅軍越[芬蘭邊界/Route NP] 去到[曼諾海姆防線/Loc-NP]

sūlián hóng jūn yuè fēnlán biānjiè qù dào mànnuòhǎimǔ fángxiàn Soviet red army cross Finland boundary go arrive Mannerheim.Line line.of.defense

‘The Soviet Army crossed the boundary of Finland and arrived at Mannerheim Line.’

In summary, guò 過, jīng 經 and yuè 越 have different meanings on Route-marking.

guò 過 can describe all possible moving contours and is lexically capable of encoding Endpoint, having some semantic attribute of Endpoint: It can finish the motion event by itself but cannot mark the exact desitnation. Jīng 經 serves as a pure intermediate point marker, marking a passing point and thus introduces a trajectory where the Figure moves in an underspecified contour. Last but not the least, yuè 越 denotes a specific moving contour ‘go over’ and lexically capable of encoding Endpoint for it can finish the motion event by itself

while cannot mark an exact destination. The semantic differences are illisutrated in the table below.

Table 7.The semantic distinction of guò 過, jīng 經 and yuè 越

5.2 The Semantic-to-morphological Correlation

The semantic distinction of these three Route markers helps us to account for the semantic-to-morphologicl correlation shown in the combinations of verbs and the markers.

Moreover, the different meanings also explain the ungrammaticality raised when these three markers combine with each other : *guò-jīng *過經, *guò-yuè *過越, *jīng-yuè *經越,

*yuè-jīng *越經.The following sections illustrate how the semantic differences influence the morphological makeups with some related principles.

5.2.1 Collocation with Each Other

As shown in chapter 4, these three Route markers can collocate with each other. No matter the combinations function as a typical Route marker in (37) or a construction of serial verbs in (38), these three markers combine with each other in a restriction. Only guò 過 can co-occur with other two. Therefore, jīng-guò 經過 and yuè-guò 越過 are grammatical but

*jīng-yuè *經越 and *yuè-jīng *越經 are not. Moreover, there is a fixed order in the combinations of jīng-guò 經過 and yuè-guò 越過. The restriction is that jīng 經 and yuè 越 can precede guò 過 but cannot be vice versa. That is to say, the makeups of *guò-jīng *過經 and

*guò-yuè *過越 are ungrammatical.

(37) a. 我越過世界回到這裡

wǒ yuè-guò shìjiè huí dào zhèlǐ I cross-pass world return arrive here ‘I crossed the world and returned to here.’

b.飛機…經過夏威夷到東京

fēijī… jīng-guò xiàwēiyí dào dōngjīng plane pass-cross Hawaii arrive Tokyo ‘The plane went past Hawaii to Tokyo.’

(38) a.當我越過山河，

dāng wǒ yuè-guò shān hé when I cross-pass mountain river

‘When I crossed the mountain and the river…’

b. 他每次都要經過長城

tā měicì dōu yào jīng-guò chángchéng he every.time all want pass-cross Great.Wall ‘He wants to go across the Great Wall every time.’

Considering the different moving contours of each marker, yuè 越 functions as a modifier of the meaning of guò 過 whose semantic scope is wider with more choices on moving contours. In other words, yuè 越 specifies the moving contour of guò 過 as ‘go over’.

According to Li and Thompson (2007), modifiers in Mandarin makeups tend to precede the head they modify. Following this morphological principle, yuè 越 precedes the verb guò 過 as a modifier. Therefore, yuè-guò 越過 is grammatical but *guò-yuè *過越 is not. On other hand,

there is another semantic attribute that distinguishes these three markers and influences the restriction of collocating with each other-- whether they imply Endpoint. Since jīng 經 only reflects the concept of Route by marking a passing point, it should precede the other two attributes also can explain the ungrammaticality of *jīng-yuè *經越 and*yuè-jīng *越經. The combination *jīng-yuè *經越 is against the morphological compounding principle for the specified Route marker yuè 越 should precede the underspecified marker jīng 經 to follow the morphological compounding principle. However, although the combination*yuè-jīng *越經 follows the compounding principle, it is against the spatial sequencing principle for yuè 越

在文檔中中文移動事件中的路徑標記 (頁 56-0)

Chapter 4 Findings

4.3. Moving Contours

Chapter 5

Verbal Non-verbal

過 越 經

Landmark Destination

Landmark

Landmark

過越經