The sense of V-shang Extent

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c. 林聖偉 直直地 補上 一腳 linshengwei zhizhidi bu-shang yijiao

Lin-Shengwei go forward add a kick

In addition, zhizhidi ‘straightly’ 直 直 地 cannot modify stative verbs, such as xihuan-shang ‘like’ 喜 歡 上 and ai-shang ‘love’ 愛 上 . [-Path] verbs including

kao-shang ‘apply to the school’ 考上 and xuan-shang ‘selected’選上 in the first

category or guan-shang ‘close’關上 and lianluo-shang ‘contact’連絡上 in the second category cannot be modified by zhizhidi ‘straightly’直直地.

As a result, the path in V-shang with Extent no longer expresses a vertical orientation. Physical verbs with shang still need to collocate with a concrete location to signal the vertical meaning. Physical verbs in V-shang followed by Extent cannot create the sense of directional movement. Hence, V-shang here only shows a resultative meaning with perfective aspect. In regard to non-physical verbs containing the Path feature, V-shang is based on non-physical verbs to express transverse movement, no matter whether Patient or Extent is attached.

4.4.3 The sense of V-shang Extent

For V-shang, except for the directional meaning and resultative meaning, other usages are easily regarded as abstract state, particle or even aspectual marker. Shang also presents a continuing state from a stative state into a dynamic state, and it is

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always collocated with verbs with continuing meaning, such as ma-shang ‘blame’ 罵 上 (Zhang, 2000). Other researchers also have proposed that V-shang can indicate a

state or the beginning of an action. The meanings of a state can refer to the beginning of a new state and the start of an action (Liu, 1998; Jiang, 2003; Pan, 2003). The particular definitions are ‘getting to a number’ like zhu hang liang-ye ‘stay for two nights’ 住上兩夜 and ‘getting into a state’ like the phrase lian shang wu-bian

‘practice five times’ 練上五遍 (Liu, 1998). These examples of conveying the continuing state or of getting to a number are concerned in ‘V-shang with Extent.’

In previous studies, researchers have also analyzed the aspectual feature of V-shang, because it can present the nature of events (Zhang, 2000; Lu, 2000; Chao, 1968; Liu, 1998; Jiang, 2003; Pan, 2003). For example, xialai ‘down’下來 and xiaqu

‘down’下去 not only convey a directional meaning, but they also can signal that the action is going to be continuous. Inchoative aspect is used to refer to the example like qilai ‘upward’起來, and it indicates the beginning of the state (Chao, 1968). The

previous studies all indicated the continuing state of shang, so the durative aspect can be used to express the successive situational type, for instance, shui-shang yi-zheng-tian ‘sleep (the) whole day’ 睡上一整天.

From the present study, the meaning in V-shang with Extent is also abstract, which is not directional movement in [V-shang Ground] or a result of attachment in

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[V-shang Patient]. For the Extent NP, it has the sense of getting to the degree as same as Liu’s study. The feature of shang in [V-shang Extent] may be similar to dao4

‘arrive’ 到, becaue they have same meaning of ‘getting to’ and functions of following after the verb. However, dao4 ‘arrive’ 到 can collocate with verb types which are more than verbs with shang, such as a grammatical phrase of wen-dao ‘smell’ 聞到 but ungrammatical phrase of wen-shang ‘smell’ 聞上.

Besides, dao4 ‘arrive’ 到 is also regarded as a phase verb complement (hereafter referred to as PVC). The present study also found that V-shang with Extent shows a similarity with phase, because Extent as the complement of V-shang shows the features of a circumstantial role, whose reference forms the setting of the internal time for the verb (Jackson, 1990). And, the concept of phase conveys the whole event or a phase of it, as in the sentence in (53), where an event time interacts with a speech time

or reference time (Cheng, 1997).

(53) 李四 穿 好 衣服 了。

Lisi chuan-hao-yifu -le Lisi wear-well-cloth-asp ‘Lisi put on the clothes.’

In (53), the phase verb complement hao3 highlights the time structure of the action, and the internal feature of the sentence is related to the time (Jian, 1997). Similarly, tu-guo-youqi ‘painted’ point out the completed action’ 塗過油漆.

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Some studies have proposed that some verb-complements should be categorized into PVCs: qilai ‘upward’起來, xiaqu ‘down’下去, guo4 ‘across’過, wan2 ‘over’完, dao4 ‘arrive’到, and hao3 ‘finished’好 (Chao, 1968; Cheng, 1997; Chung, 2001).

Chao (1968) has suggested that zhe ‘in the action of…’著, dao4 ‘arrive’到, jian4 ‘see’

見, wan2 ‘over’完 and guo4 ‘across’過 should be located after the verb to express

the phase of the action rather than a result or purpose, for instance, (54). Then, zhe ‘in the action of…’著, dao4 ‘arrive’到, jian4 ‘see’見, and wan2 ‘over’完 also show part

of the features of RVCs to express the result of the action of V1.

(54) 我碰到(了)一件怪事

Wo peng-dao-(le) yijian guaishi Wo bump-into-Asp a piece thing ‘There is a weird thing.’

Cheng (1997) also suggested that PVCs should be V-laiV-qu V 來 V 去 (for repetition), qilai 起來 (for inchoation), xiaqu 下去 (for succession), wan2 完 (for finishing an action), zhe 著 (for progression), diao4 掉 (for loss),and guo4 過 (for experience). PVCs portray the phase of completed resultative event from the beginning to the endpoint. The similarity between the phase and the verb complements is that verb complements following the verbs show the change of time.

The feature of time can be discovered through Extent; no matter whether a frequency phrase or time reference is collocated after V-shang, they all stand for the consumed

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time. Aspect refers to the internal temporal constituency, but phase is about the state of the action (Chuang, 2001).

After we separately examine the types of V-shang, [V-shang Patient] has the same character of resultative meaning as RVCs; [V-shang Extent] also shows the same function of indicating the phase of the action as PVCs, such as dao4 ‘get to’ 到.

Besides, [V-shang Ground] is the prototype of DVCs. Shin (1997) has proposed that

“RVCs, DVCs and PVCs should have the same function of expanding the meaning of the head verb and consequently changing the nature of the VP.” Because three types of verb complements share the same distinctive features in grammar, it is unnecessary to consider them to be contrastive categories.