Spatial-temporal attributes in verbal semantics: A corpus-based lexical semantic study of discriminating Mandarin near synonyms of “tui1” and “la1”

Spatial-temporal attributes in verbal semantics: A corpus-based lexical semantic study of discriminating Mandarin near synonyms of “tui1” (push) and “la1” (pull) Qiangmei Liang Chu-Ren Huang Department of Business and Foreign languages, Shenzhen Polytechnic Shenzhen Polytechnic, Nanshan, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, China. lqm@szpt.edu.cn churen.huang@polyu.edu.hk Abstract This paper proposes a new perspective to study verbal semantics based on the corpus-based study of near-synonyms. In particular, the author tries to discriminate the near-synonym “tui1 (push)” and “la1 (pull)” by investigating the literal collocations and metaphoric usages through the data extracted from the Chinese Word Sketch (CWS). The author applies both verbal semantic representation of MARVS theory and the spatiality- temporality attribute of metaphor concept as one of the newly added predictors to detect explicit and implicit attributes of verbal semantics. Specifically, the study integrates the MARVS theory with conceptual metaphor theory, and provides another perspective to discriminate near- synonyms. The results suggest that the spatial-temporal properties could be an additional predictor in MARVS theory, which could effectively study lexical semantics. 1 Introduction Chinese synonyms are challenging in language teaching and learning. Sorting out the subtle differences of near-synonyms is fundamental to L1 speakers as well as L2 learners. Verbs are an essential lexicon part of a language due to its lexical knowledge and argument frame (Liu, 2000). Several attempts have been made to study the verbal semantics. Image schema is one of the methods that is believed to be the representation of the encoded meanings in our mind (Lakoff and Johnson 2003, Langacker 2008, Talmy 2000), which serves as models for comprehending more complicated and abstract items in a system of conceptual metaphors (Lakoff and Johnson 2003). Aiming at searching for the relation between the spatial component of verb semantics, scholars analyze action verbs and abstract verbs with a combination of image schemas and psychological experiments. The results show that a high degree of consistency among participants assigning orientation and direction of motion for each verb (Gao, 2016, 2020; Meteyard and Vigliocco 2009; Richardson 2001, 2003). However, other researchers suggest that language comprehension should include both mental perception and events developed in sequence, which means that verbs are dynamic simulations with spatial-temporal attributes (Bergen, Change and Narayanan 2004; Zwaan et al. 2002). Corpus-based methods have been widely adopted to address verbal synonyms for providing rich data (Levin, 1995; Huang, 2000; Liu, 2000; Tsai, et al., 1998; Wang, 2018; Xiao, 2006). However, some scholars argue that semantic nuances are not explicit in the surface syntax but should be further investigated through conceptualization experiments (Gao, Wang and Nicoladis, 2016). Yet, their research only focuses on spatial properties of the action verbs, neglecting other properties. Given that there is a gap between the above methods, our study intends to integrate the spatiality-temporality feature into the MARVS theory, hoping to provide a better understanding of verbal semantics. The Module-Attribute Representation of Verbal Semantics (MARVS) theory is …

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