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Ling202A_Final Paper Jinxiao Song

Semelfactive verbs in Mandarin Chinese

This short paper is intended to practice what I learned in LING202A, which is largely

Role and Reference Grammar, and is used to represent complex syntactice and semantic

relations in world languages. I hereby put it in to analyzing Chinese (Modern Mandarin

Chinese). I choose to look into Chinese verb situation types. As I go deeper into Chinese verbs,

more questions come out and I found myself not skillful enough to talk about the entire verb

system. I finally focused on discussing Mandarin semelfactives because these kind of punctual

verbs are relatively obvious to identify and they are a lot more interesting to analyze. In this

paper, I will discuss three main questions: 1) Background research on Chinese semelfactives. 2)

Several syntactic markers that often co-occur with semelfactive verbs in Mandarin Chinese. 3)

A discussion of these syntactic markers based on CCL corpus (Center for Chinese Linguistics).

1. Background —— Situation types in English and Mandarin Chinese

Characterized in terms of four features: [±static], [±dynamic], [±telic], [±punctual],

the four types of verbs can be displayed in the following form:

State: [+static] [- dynamic] [- telic] [-punctual]

Activity: [- static] [+ dynamic] [- telic] [-punctual]

Achievement: [- static] [- dynamic] [+ telic] [+punctual]

Semelfactive: [- static] [± dynamic] [- telic] [+punctual]

Accomplishment: [- static] [- dynamic] [+ telic] [-punctual]

Chen (1988) did an early study on Mandarin Chinese aspectual classification and

introduced a verb classification according to phase, tense, and aspect. [1] Chen summarizes Ma

(1981), and Deng (1986) of their classifications on verbs situation types. These early works

have a general agreement on three situation types, i.e., Chinese do have stative verbs (死 die),

activities (教 teach), accomplishments (学会 learned), and achievements (丢了 lost). Based on

early discussions, Chen utilizes the three traditional aspectual features including dynamicity,

                                                                                                               [1]  Chen,  Ping.  1988.  Lun  Xiandai  Hanyu  shijian  xitong  de  sanyuan  jiegou  [On  tripartite  organization  of  the  temporal  system  in  Modern  Chinese].  Zhongguo  Yuwen  [Studies  of  the  Chinese  Language]  1988.6:401-‐4  pp.  401.    

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duration, and telicity, to classify the Chinese aspectual system. Using the feature ±static, Chen

also distinguishes static from dynamic.

[+Static]: 属于 belongs to, 姓 have the last name of, 适合 fit. tit.

[-- Static]: 相信 believe.believe, 知道 know.know, 坐 sit，站 stand.

[+Durative]: 跳舞 dance. dance，唱歌 sing.sang， 看电影 watch.movie，读书

read.book

[ - Durative]: 爆炸 explode.explode，跌倒 fell.down，找到 find.out，眨眼 wink.eye.

[+Telic]: 写 write, 演奏 play (music), 跑 run. (This one has some ambiguity in this

paper. It is actually marked telic by the time adverbial.)

[- Telic]: 听音乐 listen.music，读书 read.book，跑步 run, 拿出 take.out

State: [+static]

Activity: [- static] [+ durative] [- telic]

Accomplishment: [- static] [+ durative] [+ telic]

Complex Change [- static] [- durative] [+ telic]

Simple change [- static] [- durative] [- telic] [2]

According to Smith (1991) classification, Chen’s simple change, which is [-static], [-

durative], [-telic], should be semelfactives. [3] Based on Chen’s classification argument, I looked

at a recent article. Jeeyoung. P et. al. (2013) concludes Mandarin verbs into six aspectual

classes, as is shown in the following table:

                                                                                                               [2]  Simple  change  and  complex  change  differ  from  each  other  in  terms  of  the  gradual  process  proceeding  to  the  endpoint.  ‘Simple  change’  denotes  verbs  that  lack  a  noticeable  process  between  the  staring  and  ending  point,  i.e.  the  staring  point  overlap  with  the  end  point.  ‘Complex  change’  include  verb  compounds,  and  resultative  verb  complements.  Some  of  the    verbs  are  seen  as  a  nucleus  +  nucleus  construction,  such  as  sòng-‐huí  send-‐return  ‘return’,      zǒu-‐jìn  walk-‐enter  ‘walk  into’.    Chen  marks  ‘simple  change’  as  atelic,  however,  Jeeyoung.  P  et.  al.  (2013)  argued  that  this  feature  is  not  necessarily  needed.  Jeeyoung,  et.  al.  provided:  a  verb  that  is  [+dynamic,  -‐durative,  +telic]  would  be  treated  as  an  achievement,  such  as  sǐ  ‘die’,  zuò  ‘(dynamic)  sit’,  dǎ-‐pò  hit-‐break  ‘break’,  and  kàn-‐jiàn  look-‐see  ‘see’  as  examples  of  simple  change  class,  but  would  be  treated  as  achievements.  [3]  Saeed,  John  I.  (2009).  Semantics.  (3rd.  ed.)  MA:  Wiley-‐Blackwell,  2009.  pp.125.    

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Jeeyoung. P et. al. (2013) introduces another feature to Mandarin verb situation types:

[ ± scalar]. In this paper, the authors introduce the scalar feature and describe it in terms of

‘open/closed’ (related to atelic/telic) and ‘multi/two point’ (durative/punctual). Multi-point

closed scale verb is similar to durative telic verbs that correspond to accomplishments (e.g.,

return, come, kill). Two-point closed scale verbs are similar to punctual telic verbs that

correspond to achievements (e.g., enter, arrive, reach, die). Non-scalar verbs include states,

semelfactives, and activities. Accomplishments and achievements are considered [+scalar].

This feature is used here mainly to refer to the large amount of degree achievement

verbs (DA) such as ‘descend’, ‘ascend’, ‘lengthen’. Mandarin is a mono-morphemic language. It

has a lot of degree verbs and verb-complement compounds that are similar to English degree

achievement verbs. For example, the verb ‘jiàng’ (descend/decrease) do not lexicalize an

endpoint; it is similar to activity in terms of expressing atelic event, while similar to

accomplishment and achievement because it considered dynamic in a single dimension.

[Jeeyoung] With the feature [±scalar], the large amounts of ‘degree achievement’ verbs such

as dry, lengthen, darken, cook, can be better explained. For example, this feature can be put

into the explanation of multi-morphemic verb compounds such as jiàngluò (descend.fall)

‘descend’. It’s a combination of two open scale verbs, both with the feature of [-static], [-telic],

[+durative], [+scalar]. According to this feature, this open scale verb is similar to activity,

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with the only difference on [+scalar]. This paper talks thoroughly about how open scale verbs

interact with activities, achievements and accomplishments. Besides, Jeeyoung. P et. al. (2013)

agrees there to be semelfactives, and talks about its difference with activities. They claimed

that ‘yīxià 一下’ can be used as a test to show the iterative meaning of semelfactives.

2. Semelfactive verbs in Mandarin Chinese

2.1 Introduction

In modern Mandarin, most nouns, adjectives, and verbs are largely disyllabic. Words are

largely compounds. Verbs are productive in the form of single syllabic words, and more

concrete meanings are mostly expressed through different kinds of compounds. Besides,

Mandarin is also an analytic language, in which syntax, rather than morphology is used to

indicate the word’s function in a sentence. In other words, Chinese has very few grammatical

inflections, it possess almost no tense, voice and numbers. Aspect and mood are expressed

mainly through grammatical particles as opposed to morphological viriation. This phenomenon

is also reflected on semelfactive verbs --- a lot of verbs are given a punctual, atelic meaning

together with some particles, adverbials and verbal classifiers. In the next section, I will talk

about the interaction between Chinese semelfactive verbs and some markers, or co-occurring

elements that usually found connected to the verbs’ semelfactive meaning.

Semelfactives are punctual events that have no result state. For example, The lights

blinked; Marycoughed; Simon tapped on the desk; John glimpsed at Susan. Semelfactivesare

punctual predicates that can be combined with a progressive marker to produce an iterative

meaning, for instance ‘cough’ with an -ing ending in He was coughing. means the agent repeated

the action of cough again and again. (Comrie 1976: 42). Semelfactives are also characterized

by their atelic feature: unlike change of state predicates, the event does not bring any

consequent state, or at least its consequences are not at issue in the discourse (Moens and

Steedman 1988; Smith 1991: 384). The main evidence for a distinct class of semelfactives in

Chinese is the multiplicative reading that occurs with the progressive preverbal marker zài or

the stativizing suffix zhe. (Xiao and McEnery, 2004). Smith (1991: 384) defines semelfactive

verbs as ‘instantaneous atelic events’, and lists Chinese tī 踢 ‘kick’, qiāo mén 打门 ‘knock.door’,

and ké sou 咳嗽 ‘cough’. Li (2000) illustrates this class of predicates with verbs such as tiào 跳

‘jump’ and zhǎ yǎn 眨眼 ‘blink.eye’ . Xiao and McEnery (2004) also argue for a specific class of

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semelfactive verbs, defined as dynamic verbs which involve no final spatial endpoint, and

encode no result, like yáo tóu 摇头 ‘shake.head’ or duōsuo 哆嗦 ‘tremble’. According to Comrie,

semelfactives have the feature of [- static], [±dynamic], [- telic], [+punctual]. Combined

with Jeeyoung et. al.’s (2013) feature of [- static], [- telic], [+punctual], [-scalar].

Semelfactives in Chinese tend to co-occur with several ‘markers’ or say, some elements

that would either exaggerate the punctuality meaning, or bring up a punctuality reading of the

verb. In the following section, I will focus on a) time adverbial yīxià ; b) preverbal yī; c) verb-

classifier phrase. Here ten semelfactive verbs that are agreed to be semelfactive verbs by most

of the articles are taken into consideration in this paper. These ten verbs are:

1 clap/tap pāi

2 cough ké sou

3 clap(hands), applause gǔ zhǎng

4 jump tiào

5 wink zhǎ yǎn

6 shake(head) yáo tóu

7 touch pèng

8 kick (sth. once) tī

9 tremble duōsuo

10 knock qiāo

2.2 Discussion

1) Occur with adverbial yīxià.

a) Semelfactive+yīxià vs. Activity + yīxià

Semelfactives are different from activities in terms of punctuality, different from

achievements on whether the verbs denotes a result state. Since semelfactives are understood

as a single action, we can use the adverbial ‘yīxià’, which means ‘do an action once’ to test the

iterative meaning of the verb. For example：

1 tā pǎo le yīxià bù

he run PRFV once step

He ran a little bit. (Activity)

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2 tā zhǎ le yīxià yǎn

he wink PRFV once eye

He winked once. (SEMEL)

Logical structure of sentence1:

Logical structure of sentence2: >

In sentence 1, pǎo ‘run’ is an activity verb. When it is modified by yīxià ‘once’, the

sentence means that an event of running lasted for a short time, rather than lift the leg and put

it down for one time. Comparing to sentence 1, sentence 2 describes an event where an agent

blinked his eye only once. The same adverbial is read differently when modifying different kind

of verbs. Two different verbs here all modified by ‘yīxià’, but only the word ‘wink’ denotes a

semelfactive meaning. Such a difference is brought by the nature of the verb. ‘wink.eye’ zhǎ

yǎn is a semelfactive verb lexically, naturally, just as its in English ‘wink’. The same time

adverbial ‘once’ will exaggerate the punctual, atelic meaning of a semelfactive verb, but only

denotes a short period of time if used to modify an activity, such as ‘run’ pǎo. Therefore, yīxià

‘for one time/once’ serves as a good test for semelfactive verbs. Some other examples of

activity +yixia and semelfactive + yixia are:

3. Activity ‘cry’ + yīxià = cry for a while

wǒ xiǎng bào zhe nǐ kū yīxià I want to hold IMPV you cry for a while I want to hold you and cry for a while

Logical structure: be- for a while’ [do’ [cry’ ( I )] ]

4 ta qingqing pai le yixia wode houbei

he slightly clap PRFV once my back

He gave a slight clap on my back. Logical structure: slightly’ [>]>

5 yao le yixia tou , youdian tong

shake PRFV once head a little hurt

Shaked head slightly and it hurts a little bit

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Logical structure: SEML [ do’ (he, [shake’(he , head)])]

b) achievement + yīxià and accomplishment +yīxià

However, what if the verb is an achievement? Will the achievement verb + yīxià

becomes a semelfactive or just take it as a simple time adverbial? In the following example, its

hard to tell whether there is a result state or not. Comparing to the English sentence with a

semelfactive: ‘The tree tapped the window. ’ [4]If what we are looking at is the action as

opposed to the result, than it’s more likely to be a semelfactive. Carrying this notion, it would

be better to characterize the following sentence as a action-focused rather than result-focused,

which means, achievement+yīxià can also carry a punctual, atelic, unbounded meaning.

6 shì qīngqīngde dǎ yīxià, háishì zhēn dǎ?

Copular slightly hit once, or real hit

Do I hit slightly, or strictly?

Logical structure of sentence 4 ‘do I hit slightly once?’ has two possible representations, the

first one is appreciated.

(1) ]>

(2)

7. accomplishment ‘cut hair’ +yixia = have a cut

wo de toufa chang le, xiang qu jian yixia I POSS hair long PRFV want go cut a little bit My hair has got longer; I want to go get a cut. Logical structure: BECOME cut’ [(hair)] ?

In conclusion, ‘Verb+once yixia’ is just adding a time adverbial on to the verb. If the

verb lexically, naturally has a semelfactive meaning, it will be read as a semelfactive. If used

together with a verb other than semelfactive, the adverbial ‘once’ mostly means a short time, a

brief action, an act, or do something for a while, rather than one single action.

At the end of this section, I realized one more thing that might make all these

analyzation collapse. A perfective marker le is very much preferred in semelfactive+le+yīxià

construction. Without ‘le’, the sentence can be interpreted into either a series of action or one

                                                                                                               [4]  Van  Valin.  (2005).  Exploring  the  syntax-‐semantics  interface.  Cambridge  University  Press,  2005.  pp.  32.    

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single action, which means the yīxià can mean ‘for a little while’ if ‘le’ is dropped. Further

investigation is needed to tell whether its aspect affecting how we look at the verb, or the atelic

nature of semelfactive requires a perfective aspect to come along.

2) Preverbal ‘yī’

Verbs that can enter the pattern ‘yī V’ is characterized by punctiliarity and

semelfactivity. (Dan Xu, Jingqi Fu, 2013) The numeral yī ‘one’ may be used before a verb or an

adjective to mark the sudden completion of an action or a change. It can co-occur with

achievement, and semelfactive, and accomplishment. For example:

8 lǐdān jiāng dàtuǐ yī pāi, jīdòng de

shuōdào..

Leedan passive thigh one clap, excited

say…

L clapped her thigh quickly/briefly, says excitedly…

Logical structure: > In sentence 8, the verb clap pāi with the preverbal yi ̄ together denotes a brief action of

clap which is just one hands-up hands-down motion. Similarly, the semelfactive zhayan ‘wink’

can also work in this form:

9 tā yǎnjing yī zhǎ yī zhǎ de, chǔchǔdòngrén

her eyes once wink one wink nominal, attractive

Her eyes wink and wink, looks attractive

Logical structure: >>

The preverbal yi is very much similar to a shortened way of saying ‘do an action once’.

It an also co-occur with other semelfactive verbs such as tiào ‘jump’, qiāo ‘knock (door)’, dǎ

‘beat’ (drum), and bèng ‘jump’, etc. Here two examples are transcribed.

10 ta yi tiao tiao jin he li

he one jump jump into river inside

He jumped, into the river

Logical structure: >

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11 laotaitai zai ta toushang yi qiao, shuo

old woman at her head one knock says

The old woman knocked once on her head, says…

Logical structure: SEML knock’ (the old woman) Similar to the adverbial yixia, preverbal yi also serves as a good test to show

semelfactive verb. yi+activity or accomplishment will not denote a punctual meaning, instead,

it tends to be understood as ‘as soon as’, ‘at the time when the action starts’. For example:

12 ta yi pao, xiang qilai shouji mei na

he one run remember Complement mobile NEG take

As soon as he started to run, he remembered that he forgot his mobile phone

3) Verb - classifier phrase

Xiao and McEnery (2004) illustrates this category. When verb is followed by a numeral,

and a classifier, which derives from the instrument, the verb will be separated into a series of

actions. Each action is one ‘ verb-one-classifier’. For example, in sentence 13 below, here

‘knife’ is a kind of verbal classifier that come from the instrument used to perform the action of

chop.

13 yě cháo tā tóushàng kǎn le shù dāo

also toward 3rd sg. head.on chop PRFV several CL.knife

Also chopped at her head several times (with a knife) Xiao,2004, pp55

Logical structure: > Here we are looking at the action of chopping, as opposed to the result of someone get chopped, its better to represent ‘chop one knife’ as a semelfactive rather than causative achievement.Wink, knock, jump, beat, hit can also be put in this construction, take wink zhǎ and beat qiāo as example:

14 zhǎ le jǐ yǎn

wink ASP several CLeye

Winked several times (of the eye)

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15 qiāo le sān bàngzi

beat PRFV three CL.stick

Beat once. (with a stick)

Logical structure of sentence 14 : >

Logical structure of sentence 15 : >

Sentences 13~15 all describe iterative meanings. Sentence 13 means the man chopped

one time after another. The verb denotes several chops happened in sequence. Sentence 14

means someone wink the eye several times, and sentence 15 means someone beat three times

with a stick. All of these denote a repetition of the same instantaneous actions. Comparing to

verb+yīxià, ‘verb+classifier’ exaggerates the punctuality meaning of the verb — it narrows

the action into each single movement. Instead of focusing on time range, verb-classifier

construction focuses on each action unit. An activity can be forced to a have a semelfactive

meaning when a verbal classifier is added. For example, look is an activity, while in look +

‘one eye’ yī-yǎn the action is a semelfactive ; Run is an activity, too. When added ‘one step’ yī-

bù, the action is also a semelfactive --- run just one step.

3. Other thoughts about semelfactives in Chinese

1) Body-part related.

Semelfactive verbs are found mostly related to bodypart. For example, Dǎ ‘hit, beat’ in

the sense of ‘hit’ can occur as semel, such as hit the drum, but it cannot be used as semelfactive

when it means start a war, think about an idea.

2) Aspect related but not necessary

Imperfective aspect can be used to indicate the internal stage of the process. By viewing

a number of identical punctual situations as a unit, we can talk about them with imperfective

perspective. As sentence 16 shows, the  verb  denotes  a  set  of  repetitive  motion  in  which  each  time  the  woman  shake  her  head  from  left  to  right  briefly.  Therefore,  we  can  conclude  that  the  verb  yáo  ‘shake’  here  is  a  semelfactive.

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16 Yang Xiangqin de mǔqīn yáo zhe tóu duì jìzhě tànxī Name GEN mother shake PROG head to journalist sigh Shaking her head, Yang's mother sighed to the journalist.

Logical structure:

Perfective aspect can also occur naturally with punctual verbs. Because by definition,

perfective aspect presents a situation as a single whole, and punctual verbs provide ideal

instantiations of such viewpoint. Punctual verbs depict situations as single points without

internal structure. Therefore sentence 17 below should be think of causative achievement

rather than semelfactive. Because we do see the internal structure of the event – someone got

hit and its done.

17 dǎ le nǐ jǐ tiān ?

hit PRFV you how many day

For how many days did (someone) beat you? Xiao, 2004, pp55

Logical structure of sentence 17 might have two representations, but (2) is preferred here.

(1) for how many days’ {>}

(2) for how many days’ {>>} 4. Conclusion

In this short paper, I discussed several markers that often co-occur with Chinese

semelfactive verbs, or serves as a catalyst to exaggerated the punctuality, atelic feature in a

verb. By looking at verbs by putting it in to the yīxià, preverbal yī and verbal classifier phrases,

we are able to determine whether a verb is a semelfactive. Besides, by using the logical

structure representation in RRG, it’s much easier to tell different states of different verbs when

modified by the same marker. Getting an understanding of RRG, situation types, and logical

structure helps understanding the internal structure of different verbs. It’s also meaningful to

put this into practice in Chinese teaching. I used to explain students ‘yīxià’ as ‘ postverbal

adverbial, means a brief action’, but apparently that is not going to cover the difference

between zhǎ yīxià ‘one wink’, pǎo yīxià ‘run a while’, and shì yīxià ‘have a try’. With the help of

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verb situation types, its more clear to tell that the difference come from semelfactive, activity,

and accomplishment. I will keep looking at semelfactive verbs since lots of questions are still

uncovered. What is the internal relationship between the choice of aspect and verb internal

state? How do people express semelfactive in spoken language, is it as analyzed here? Or do

people prefer other ways of describing a punctual, atelic event? Let me take this short paper as

a start of my future discovery on Chinese verbs and aspects.

Reference:

[1] Chen, Ping. 1988. Lun Xiandai Hanyu shijian xitong de sanyuan jiegou [On tripartite

organization of the temporal system in Modern Chinese]. Zhongguo Yuwen [Studies of the

Chinese Language] 1988.6:401-4

[2] Dan Xu, Jingqi Fu, Chinese Semelfactives and Body Movements. Retrieved on line:

http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-10040-1_12/fulltext.html

[3] Lin, Jingxia, Jeeyoung Peck, Chaofen Sun, 2013. Aspetual Classification of Mandarin

Chinese Verbs: A Perspective of Scale Structure. Language and Linguistics 14.4:663-7--, 2013.

[4] Saeed, John I. (2009). Semantics. (3rd. ed.) MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009.

[5] Xiao, Richard, and Tony McEnery. 2004. Aspect in Mandarin Chinese: A Corpus- Based

Study. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

[6] Van Valin. (2005). Exploring the syntax-semantics interface. Cambridge University Press,

2005.

[6] Course materials in LING202A, Fall 14, San Jose State University

Corpus:

[1] CCL online corpus: provided by the Center for Chinese Linguistics of the University of

Peking (http://ccl.pku.edu.cn:8080/ccl_corpus/).