1.4 Structure of This Study
Following this introduction, which briefly presents the background of the research including main tenets of the MRC, research questions, and motion constructions and motion verbs in Chinese, the remainder of this book is organized as follows.
In Chapter 2, based on a review of lexicalist approaches to the lexicon and syntax interface, I will introduce the theoretical motivation of the manner/result complementarity hypothesis. The semantic notions underlying the two types of verbs will also be illustrated in detail. Arguments against the MRC based on counterexample verbs in English and different views of the linguistic phenomena related to the MRC hypothesis will be discussed.
Chapter 3 checks the validity of the MRC with respect to the lexicalization patterns of motion verbs in Modern Chinese. I start with a review of previous studies on the classification of Modern Chinese motion verbs paying particular attention to the controversial verbs which are classified differently by previous researchers. To get a comprehensive understanding of the lexicalization patterns of Modern Chinese motion verbs, I also reanalyze the sample motion verbs collected by Chen and Guo (2009) from nine novels clarifying their ontological category.Three basic motion verbs 走 zǒu “run/walk”, 跑 pǎo “run”and 飞 fēi “fly”, which exhibit inconsistent grammatical behaviors but are neglected by previous researchers are looked at in detail. The result shows that these verbs are actually polysemous motion verbs with separate manner and result senses thus conforming to the MRC hypothesis.
Chapter 4 investigates the lexicalization patterns of motion verbs in Old Chinese. As Old Chinese is said to be typologically distinct from Modern Chinese,key typological properties, research methods and relevant data of Old Chinese are firstly explained. With reference to sample verbs collected by Ma (2008), a preliminary classification of Old Chinese motion verbs is conducted and it shows that motion verbs in Old Chinese can also be divided into manner and result verbs conforming to Rappaport Hovav and Levin’ s (2010) proposal. Lexical meaning and grammatical behaviors of purported counterexample verbs are analyzed and it is demonstrated that these potential counterexamples do not violate the MRC encoding actually only one meaning component at a time.
Focusing on polysemous motion verbs with varied grammatical behaviors in Modern and Old Chinese, Chapter 5 delves into an investigation into the diachronic evolution of their lexical semantics and grammatical behaviors. Possible factors affecting their distinct way of ontological categorization and grammatical behaviors are analyzed. The result indicates that the lexicalization patterns of these motion verbs result from varied factors related to pragmatic inference, cognitive preference,change of morphosyntactic structures and grammaticalization. The ontological categorization of motion verbs may be affected by not only conceptual components encoded in verbs but also the available morphosyntactic structures of the language.
Chapter 6 concludes the whole study. Synchronically, studies on both Modern and Old Chinese show the lexicalization patterns of Chinese motion verbs conform to the MRC. However, diachronically the ontological categorization of verbs may be affected by not only conceptual components of verbs but also the morphosyntactic structures of the language. As important meaning components are encoded in verbs,the notions of manner and result reflect the two-way interaction between semantics and syntax.