The Qualia Structure Analysis

As a superordinate PR-V, YONG does not predicate a specific event but set a frame for various verbs to take place in. Then, one question would be raised: How and by what mechanism can these “ellipsed” events “reappear” for the appropriate reading? In view of

this, Qualia Struture provides a compositional means for meaning coercion based on the characterization of the Qualia roles of the verb’s complement. According to Pustejovsky (1995), the four essential roles of a word are listed in the following:

 CONSTITUTIVE: the relation between an object and its constituents, or proper parts.

 FORMAL: factors which distinguish the object within a larger domain.

 TELIC: purpose and function of the object.

 AGENTIVE: factors involved in the origin or “bring about” of an object.

In the [YONG + NP] construction, the Qualia role of the object NP evokes the appropriate reading of YONG in context. Generally speaking, object NPs of different semantic roles would prefer to profile different Qualia roles, and thus different readings of YONG can be obtained. In the current study, it is found that Patient object NPs tend to profile the Telic role, and Incremental Theme NPs tend to profile the Agentive role.

Consider the following examples:

(22) Patient － Q-role: Telic

a. 有人去過 Mod`s hair 用頭髮過ㄇ??? [Google, 2012/10/2]

you ren quguo Mod’s hair yong toufa guo ma

‘Has anyone ever been to Mod’s hair Salon to cut/dye/perm hair?’

頭髮 toufa ‘hair’ [Telic = to beautify]

b. 房東終於叫人來用冷氣ㄌ [Yahoo Blog, 2011/11/5]

fangdong zhongyu jiao ren lai yong lengqi le

‘At last the landlord called someone to fix the air conditioner.’

冷氣 lengqi ‘air conditioner’ [Telic = to fix]

(23) Incremental Theme – Q-role: Agentive

a. 喂我肚子餓了，幫我用早餐 [Google, 2012/10/2]

wei wo duzi ele bang wo yong zaocan

‘Hey! I am hungry. Cook breakfast for me!’

早餐 zaocan ‘breakfast’ [Agentive = to cook]

b. 最近很忙…一回家就要忙著用報告 [Google, 2012/12/24]

zuijin hen mang … yi hui jia jiu yao mangzhe yong baogao

‘I’m very busy recently. Once I come home, I will have to write my paper busily.’

報告 baogao ‘paper’ [Agentive = to write]

According to Pustejovsky (1995), the Telic role refers to the “purpose that an agent has in performing an act” and the “built-in function or aim which specifies certain activities”. In (22), the purpose of 用頭髮 yong toufa and 用冷氣 yong lenqi are [to beautify hair] and [to fix the air conditioner] respectively. Thus, it is the profiled Telic role of toufa ‘hair’ and lengqi ‘air conditioner’ that evokes the readings ‘to cut/dye/perm’ and ‘to fix’ respectively.

In (23), the activities 用早餐 yong zaocan and 用報告 yong baogao are to “bring about”

早餐 zaocan ‘breakfast’ and 報告 baogao ‘paper’ by means of cooking and writing respectively. Thus, it is the profiled Agentive role that activates the readings ‘to cook breakfast’ and ‘to write paper’ for yong zaocan and yong baogao respectively.

Another advantage of adopting Qualia Structure approach is that it can be used to solve the potential ambiguity in the interpretation of certain [YONG + NP] patterns. Consider the following example:

(24) 媽咪用了一碗麵給寶貝吃 [Yahoo Blog, 2012/9/12]

mami yongle yiwan mian gei baobei chi

mommy YONG-PF one-CL noodle give baby eat

‘Mommy cooked/served a bowl of noodle for the baby to eat.’

a. 麵 mian ‘noodle’ Incremental Theme [Agentive = to cook]

b. 麵 mian ‘noodle’ Patient [Telic = to serve]

(25) 他最近在忙著用他的書。

ta zuijin zai mangzhe yong ta de shu

he recently PRG busy-SI YONG he RP book

‘He is busy writing/packaging his book recently.’

a. 書 shu ‘book’ Incremental Theme [Agentive = to write]

b. 書 shu ‘book’ Patient [Telic = to package]

In (24), 用了一碗麵 yongle yiwan mian may have two readings: 煮了一碗麵 zhule yiwan mian ‘cook a bowl of noodle’ or 端了一碗麵 duanle yiwan mian ‘serve a bowl of noodle’. These two readings of the same expression are facilitated by two different Qualia roles of the object NP (i.e. Agentive role for (a) ‘cook’ reading and Telic role for (b) ‘serve’

reading). Similarly, in (25), the two interpretations of 用他的書 yong ta de shu, namely, 寫他的書 xie ta de shu ‘write his book’ and 收他的書 shou ta de shu ‘package his book’, are evokes by two different roles of the object NP respectively (i.e. Agentive role for (a)

‘write’ reading and Telic role for (b) ‘package’ reading). The examples above indicate that the ambiguous interpretations of YONG for the same expression are evoked by different profiled Qualia roles of the object NP. Consequently, Qualia Structure helps to effectively differentiate and account for the possible ambiguous readings of one expression in a systematic way.

In sum, Qualia Structure is useful to account for contextual interpretations of YONG by semantic coercion of the complement NP’s profiled Qualia role. The potential ambiguity of YONG in the [YONG + NP] construction can also be differentiated and accounted for adequately. By incorporating Construction Grammar and Qualia Structure, the actual event encoded by PR-V YONG in context thus can be obtained through constructional inference and meaning coercion from Qualia role of the complement object NP.

4.5 Summary

Adopting Frame Semantics, Construction Grammar and Qualia Structure, along with elaboration of the syntactic constraints and the semantic properties of PR-V YONG, the current chapter attempts to provide a theoretical analysis on the verbal semantics of PR-V YONG. PR-V YONG typically depicts transitive and physical actions. In this action, the Agent subject enforces intended effect or influence on the object NP.

As a “frame-setting” verb, rather than denoting a specific activity, YONG evokes a frame for various verbs to take place in. The semantic frame set by YONG can be characterized by five meaning components: Eventive, Transitive, Physical, Agent-control and Affected. With the highlighted frame components, Physical Activity and Affected, PR-V YONG can be defined with an image schema representing its event structure. In the current study, since the “ellipsed” eventive information of the predication is mainly supplied by its complement NP, to effectively identify the lexical semantics of PR-V YONG, the partially-filled pattern, [YONG + NP] construction, is focused for the discussion. Besides, the constructional approach also provides a theory-based account for the question why certain types of mental activities can be depicted by PR-V YONG. By constructional meaning coercion of BA construction and DE complement, the degree of transitivity of certain emotion verbs can be promoted. Mental activities involving these verbs thus can be depicted by YONG. Finally, Qualia Structure provides a mechanism by which the contextual interpretation of YONG in the [YONG + NP] construction can be obtained via semantic coercion of the profiled Qualia role of the complement NP. Moreover, Qualia Structure is also advantageous in accounting for and differentiating the potential ambiguity of certain [YONG + NP] patterns. In sum, by incorporating Frame Semantics, Construction Grammar and Qualia Structure, lexical semantics of PR-V YONG can be adequately accounted for and presented effectively in a systematic way.