{"title":"Transfer five ways: applications of multiple distinctive collexeme analysis to the dative alternation in Mandarin Chinese","authors":"Shengyu Liao, Stefan Th. Gries, Stefanie Wulff","doi":"10.1515/cllt-2024-0033","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"The dative alternation has been extensively studied in the world’s languages, and the meanings of the verbs participating in the alternation have been shown to play a key role in determining its argument realization options. The present paper presents a multiple distinctive collexeme analysis approach to the dative alternation in Mandarin Chinese, which involves a choice of one of five functionally similar alternants, and it does so by also discussing several ways to improve how this has been done statistically in most previous analyses. Linguistically, we identify the core semantic differences of the five constructions based on which verbs statistically prefer to occur in which pattern, focusing on semantic potential and direction of transfer. Methodologically, this study contributes to the slowly growing body of studies that use collexeme strengths that are not only less related to frequency than the traditional methods (i.e., association is measured in a less diluted way) and that are directional (i.e., we can focus on one direction of association from the verb to the construction).","PeriodicalId":45605,"journal":{"name":"Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.0000,"publicationDate":"2024-05-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1515/cllt-2024-0033","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"LANGUAGE & LINGUISTICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
The dative alternation has been extensively studied in the world’s languages, and the meanings of the verbs participating in the alternation have been shown to play a key role in determining its argument realization options. The present paper presents a multiple distinctive collexeme analysis approach to the dative alternation in Mandarin Chinese, which involves a choice of one of five functionally similar alternants, and it does so by also discussing several ways to improve how this has been done statistically in most previous analyses. Linguistically, we identify the core semantic differences of the five constructions based on which verbs statistically prefer to occur in which pattern, focusing on semantic potential and direction of transfer. Methodologically, this study contributes to the slowly growing body of studies that use collexeme strengths that are not only less related to frequency than the traditional methods (i.e., association is measured in a less diluted way) and that are directional (i.e., we can focus on one direction of association from the verb to the construction).
期刊介绍:
Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory (CLLT) is a peer-reviewed journal publishing high-quality original corpus-based research focusing on theoretically relevant issues in all core areas of linguistic research, or other recognized topic areas. It provides a forum for researchers from different theoretical backgrounds and different areas of interest that share a commitment to the systematic and exhaustive analysis of naturally occurring language. Contributions from all theoretical frameworks are welcome but they should be addressed at a general audience and thus be explicit about their assumptions and discovery procedures and provide sufficient theoretical background to be accessible to researchers from different frameworks. Topics Corpus Linguistics Quantitative Linguistics Phonology Morphology Semantics Syntax Pragmatics.