Chinese Descriptive Pivotal Construction: Taxonomy and Prototypicality*. (July 2016)
- Record Type:
- Journal Article
- Title:
- Chinese Descriptive Pivotal Construction: Taxonomy and Prototypicality*. (July 2016)
- Main Title:
- Chinese Descriptive Pivotal Construction: Taxonomy and Prototypicality*
- Authors:
- Peng, Rui
- Abstract:
- This study, which is a preliminary survey of the Chinese descriptive pivotal construction (D-PVC), focuses primarily on the taxonomy and prototype effects of this construction. In contrast to previous discussions, which have been based on observations from a limited number of examples, this study extracted data from both a large-scale Chinese corpus and Internet sources. In the D-PVC, usually the pivot N (i.e. noun phrase between matrix verb and complement verb) is indefinite. It is often, but not always, preceded by a numeral phrase. Statistically the D-PVC instances in which the pivot N is preceded by a classifier phrase dominate. Particularly, the classifier phrases preceding the pivot N are most often the combination of 'one' and a classifier. Based on the semantic properties of the matrix verbs, instances of this construction are classified into nine primary types. The D-PVC instances are prototypically structured and those in which the matrix verbs designate 'presence' are the central members. Determined by multiple factors, the non-prototypical instances deviate from the central members in different ways. This indicates that D-PVC instances are semantically related to one another continuously. That the D-PVC permits considerable semantic extension from its prototype characterization accords well with the facts that in modern Mandarin, the D-PVC is productive and capable of encoding a wide range of semantic variations.
- Is Part Of:
- Yu yan ji yu yan xue. Volume 17:Number 4(2016:Mar.)
- Journal:
- Yu yan ji yu yan xue
- Issue:
- Volume 17:Number 4(2016:Mar.)
- Issue Display:
- Volume 17, Issue 4 (2016)
- Year:
- 2016
- Volume:
- 17
- Issue:
- 4
- Issue Sort Value:
- 2016-0017-0004-0000
- Page Start:
- 529
- Page End:
- 573
- Publication Date:
- 2016-07
- Subjects:
- descriptive pivot construction -- prototype effects -- taxonomy
Chinese philology -- Periodicals
Chinese language -- Periodicals
Electronic journals
495.1 - Journal URLs:
- http://www.jbe-platform.com/content/journals/23095067 ↗
http://helicon.vuw.ac.nz/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/publication/1116336 ↗
http://www.uk.sagepub.com ↗
http://lin.sagepub.com/ ↗ - DOI:
- 10.1177/1606822X16632115 ↗
- Languages:
- English
- ISSNs:
- 1606-822X
- Deposit Type:
- Legaldeposit
- View Content:
- Available online (eLD content is only available in our Reading Rooms) ↗
- Physical Locations:
- British Library DSC - 5155.696070
British Library DSC - BLDSS-3PM
British Library HMNTS - ELD Digital store - Ingest File:
- 6729.xml