A Corpus-Based Study of Mandarin Soaking Verbs PAO and JIN.

Abstract

A multi-level analysis of the polysemous Mandarin near-synonymous pair PÀO and JÌN is undertaken in this work. We provide a step-by-step account of meanings, which includes analyses of morphemes, argument structures, sense distributions and a later discussion of their possible extensions, as well as a representation of event modules of both verbs. In incorporating the Module-Attribute Representation of Verbal Semantics (MARVS) proposed by Huang and colleagues (2000), it was discovered that PÀO has a wider semantic extension than JÌN does. Although the event structure of `soak objects in liquid` was found for both verbs, PÀO was found to be a composite event of a dual process-state, with the event-internal attribute `toward saturation` [−saturation], while JÌN was found to be a simplex event with an inchoative state, reflecting the event-internal attribute `saturated` [+saturation]. In addition, PÀO collocates with the goal of `hot spring` but JÌN does not. Focusing on the core sense of `soak objects in liquid`, we also discussed the possible semantic extensions of PÀO and JÌN and discovered some metaphorical extensions, such as Part-Whole metonymy, CONTAINER metaphors, and a MASS-COUNT image schema.