Chapter 1 Introduction

1.1 Research Questions and Significance of This Study

In the last few decades, in the study of the interface between the lexicon and syntax, the role of construction has been increasingly appealed to in explaining argument realization patterns and syntactic distribution of verbs, whether in generative (Hoekstra, Mulder, 1990; Ramchand, 2008; Acedo-Matellán, 2010;Harley, 2005) or cognitive linguistic approach (Goldberg, 1995,2010; Goldberg,Jackendoff, 2004). In this vein, the meaning of verbal roots may be built with no constraint on its complexity, and in particular the role of a verb is only to provide a coherent semantic frame that evokes“a generalized, possibly complex states or events that constitute a cultural unit”(Goldberg, 2010). Thus, the lexical semantics of verbs has been largely reduced to be trivial in explaining their relevant grammatical behaviors. However, the question is whether there is indeed no constraint on the complexity of verbal meaning. Contrary to the theoretical position of taking lexical meaning as a complex without constraint and trivial to grammatical behaviors of verbs, I will argue in this book that verbal meaning may be constrained in a systematic way, and lexical semantics is important to determine and constrain the grammatical behaviors of verbal predicates. In particular, I will look at a systematic lexicalization gap in verbal meaning proposed by Rappapport Hovav and Levin(1998,2010) and Levin and Rappaport Hovav (2013) that manner and result meaning components lexicalized in verbs are in complementary distribution. A verb may not lexicalize both at a time. They dub it the manner/result complementarity(MRC).

(1) Manner/result complementarity: Manner and result meaning components are in complementary distribution: a verb may lexicalize only one.

(Levin, Rappaport Hovav, 2013)

According to this hypothesis, verbs which specify the way of carrying out an action cannot encode what result the action brings about, and in contrast, verbs which express something acquire a state that may not elaborate in what manner the state is acquired. Example verbs of each type are provided by Rappaport Hovav and Levin (2010) as in (2).

(2) Manner verbs: nibble, rub, scribble, sweep, flutter, laugh, run,swim, etc.

Result verbs: clean, cover, empty, fill, freeze, kill, melt, open,arrive, die, enter, etc.

The MRC is obviously reflected by the contrastive lexical entailments from pairs of verbs in change of state domain such as scrub and clean. While the manner verb scrub requires the agent to perform an action in a particular way without requiring any resultant state to come about, the result verb clean encodes the resultant state the theme acquires without specifying any particular action by the agent, as exemplified by sentences in (3).

(3) a. Mary scrubbed the bathtub, but it is still dirty.

b. Mary cleaned the bathtub by scrubbing it/wiping it.

The MRC is observed not only in change of state domain, but also in motion domain. Parallel to verbs in change of state domain, motion verbs also demonstrate comparable complementarity of meaning components, as motion in specific direction is also regarded as a type of result related to the spatial property of an entity. Manner-of-motion verbs such as walk and run only describe the manner in which the motion is carried out and leave direction of motion unspecified. Path verbs such as enter and arrive express motion in particular direction with reference to a landmark but leave the manner unspecified.

Though the MRC hypothesis is implicit in various approaches to lexicalization patterns (e.g. Talmy, 1985,2000; Bevears et al.,2010), it has also been challenged by a number of scholars, such as Goldberg (2010), Mateu and Acedo-Matellán(2012), etc., who name a number of counterexamples which are claimed to encode both manner and result. Cross-linguistic studies of the viability of the MRC based on languages such as Polish, Greek, etc.,(Bialy, 2013) have also been explored. In spite of empirical evidence gained in previous studies for the MRC, there is still no consensus upon the status of the MRC.

The classification of motion verbs as manner and path verbs in Talmy’ s (1985,2000) typology of motion events is consistent with the MRC hypothesis, but in the study of motion events, manner-of-motion verbs across languages also seem to show varied grammatical behaviors. They demonstrate complex aspectual properties cross-linguistically and their classification and analysis are often controversial,raising interesting and challenging issues for lexical semantics (Kubota, 2014). The encoding of motion events in Chinese and the classification of Chinese motion verbs are also subjected to much controversy. As to the typology of motion events encoding, scholars (Zlatev, Yangklang, 2004) have claimed that besides the prototypical manner and path verbs which are dominantly used in satellite-framed languages and verb-framed languages respectively, there exists the third type of verbs encoding both manner and path in serial verb languages which are often classified as equipollently-framed languages such as Thai and Chinese. If true, this type of verbs would undermine the validity of the MRC. In addition, though some motion verbs are regarded as either prototypical manner or result verbs in Chinese,their grammatical behaviors seem to contradict the properties of relevant type of verbs. For example, in Modern Chinese, when the basic motion verbs 滚 gǔn “roll”and 跑 pǎo “run”, both unanimously regarded as manner verbs by scholars, are used in succession, the direction of the motion“departure from a reference object”is entailed. As illustrated in (4), the rubber ball’ s departure from the original place is entailed in the meaning of the verbal compound 滚跑 gǔn pǎo “roll-run”, since the cancellation of this direction of motion results in ungrammaticality of the sentence.

① Throughout the book, the Chinese example sentences are represented in four lines. In the first line the sentence is given in simplified Chinese characters, which are followed by Pinyin, the official Romanization system of Chinese characters in the second line. The gloss and the literal translation of the sentences are given in the third and fourth line respectively. * stands for ungrammaticality of the target sentence in question and # stands for ungrammaticality of the literal translation in English.

The questions are where the direction of motion comes from and whether these manner verbs also lexicalize the direction of motion thus constituting counterexamples to the MRC. Both the lexicalized meaning components and grammatical behaviors of these verbs need to be clarified.

In addition, scholars (Ma, 2008; Shi, Wu, 2014) observe that in Old Chinese, a typologically distinct language from Modern Chinese with respect to motion events encoding, there is a group of manner verbs, which also encode the goal direction of motion, as they can be directly followed by reference objects to indicate the goal of motion. As seen in (5), the verb 奔 bēn “rush” is directly followed by the reference object 燕 yān “the State of Yan”. Then does the MRC hold for a typologically different language like Old Chinese?

Furthermore, though some motion verbs in Modern Chinese have evolved from their ancestors rooted in Old Chinese, both their ontological categorization as manner or result verbs and their relevant grammatical behaviors have changed. For example, while the verb 走 zǒu “run”in Old Chinese can be followed by reference ground to indicate the goal of motion as in (6)a, it cannot be used in this way in Modern Chinese in (6)b. What factors have contributed to its evolution in ontological categorization and grammatical behaviors?

These questions are all related to the ultimate viability of the MRC as a lexical principle constraining the complexity of verbal meaning on the one hand and the property of the lexicalization patterns of Chinese motion verbs on the other hand.This book aims to clear up some of the aforementioned problems and questions surrounding the MRC hypothesis and examine its cross-linguistic viability based on Chinese motion constructions. Generally, this book tries to answer the following questions.

i. Do the lexicalized meaning components in Modern and Old Chinese motion verbs conform to the MRC hypothesis?

ii. Concerning their lexical semantics and grammatical behaviors, what evolutionary processes have motion verbs undergone along with the development of the Chinese language from Old to Modern Chinese?

iii. What factors affect the ontological categorization and grammatical behaviors of Chinese motion verbs?

iv. From a diachronic perspective, what is the possible relation between lexical semantics of Chinese motion verbs and the syntactic structures they may appear in?

To answer these questions, I set out with an exploration of motion verbs in Modern Chinese. With regard to the controversy over the classification of Chinese motion verbs, based on the main tenets of the MRC, I use a set of consistent criteria to classify motion verbs in Modern Chinese into either manner or result verbs.Focusing on the counterexample verbs in Modern Chinese proposed by scholars, I also explore their lexicalized meaning and grammatical behaviors so as to clarify their ontological status. The evidence in Modern Chinese shows that purported counterexamples in Modern Chinese pose no real challenge to the MRC, as these counterexamples either actually lexicalize only one type of meaning components and derive the other from the contexts or are polysemous motion verbs encoding only one meaning component in one use but not the two together. The evidence in Old Chinese show that though it is a typologically distinct language, it also conforms to the MRC. The case studies of the evolution processes of three motion verbs 走 zǒu “run/walk”, 跑 pǎo “run”and 飞 fēi “fly”indicate that the ontological categorization of verbs as manner or result and their relevant grammatical behaviors may be affected by both conceptual components of verbs and morphosyntactic structures in the language. As important meaning components encoded in verbs, the notions of manner and result reflect the two-way interaction between semantics and syntax.

The significance of this study is threefold. First, it will promote a better understanding of possible constraints on verbal meaning complexity and how a verb contributes to the encoding of motion events. The synchronic comparison and contrast between verbs incorporating different conceptual information and the analysis of the diachronic evolution of motion verbs with the similar conceptual components will help to uncover the nature of verbal meaning and to see whether the lexicalized verbal meaning is constrained by certain lexical principle and represented with semantic structure independent of syntax. Second, it will further reveal the property of lexicalization patterns of Chinese motion verbs. As a serial verb language with very limited morphological devices to mark the grammatical status of words, the lexicalization pattern of Chinese motion verbs is subjected to controversy. The synchronic and diachronic study of the lexical semantics and grammatical behaviors of Chinese motion verbs will further illuminate the possible conceptual components packed in Chinese motion verbs and how they affect verbs’ grammatical behaviors. Third, it can enhance a better understanding of the nature of the interface between semantics and syntax in motion domain. The conceptualization of motion events and their relevant linguistic representations provide an ideal research field to reveal how the verbal semantics interact with syntactic constructions. On the one hand, motion events tend to include similar conceptual components such as manner and path of motion, but on the other hand these conceptual components may be represented with different syntactic elements. Motion verbs with variable grammatical behaviors within and across languages are in particular intriguing to study. A closer look at the Chinese motion verbs and constructions will shed light on a better understanding of the interaction between verbal meaning and the syntactic structure.