As with many other languages, Mandarin Chinese exhibits a rich variety of ways in expressing the arguments of the predicator in a sentence. Unlike other languages, such variation is typically devoid of any formal marking. Previous attempts in explaining such phenomena usually focus on the syntax as an explanatory tool. This book argues that a large majority of such argument structure phenomena are better accounted for by recourse to enriched representations in lexical semantics. Drawing insights from conceptual semantics, cognitive semantics, Generative Lexicon, construction grammar and formal syntax, this book constitutes the first attempt at a comprehensive account of lexical semantic issues in Mandarin Chinese.
Author(s): Ren Zhang
Series: Outstanding Dissertations in Linguistics
Year: 2005
Language: English
Pages: 212
Book Cover......Page 1
Title......Page 4
Copyright......Page 5
Table of Contents......Page 7
Preface......Page 9
Acknowledgements......Page 11
CHAPTER ONE Introduction: Variation in Argument Expression......Page 15
CHAPTER TWO Constructions, Conceptual Structures and Compositionality......Page 27
CHAPTER THREE The Eat Restaurant Construction: Licensing Unselected Complements......Page 46
CHAPTER FOUR Conceptual Inference and Predicate Transfer......Page 97
CHAPTER FIVE Concluding Remarks......Page 162
References......Page 167
Index......Page 177
