A Corpus-based Semantic Analysis of Mandarin Polysemy ti2

• Main Authors: Lin, Meng-Chieh, 林孟潔
• Other Authors: Chung, Siaw-Fong
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2019
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/5ja33s

碩士 === 國立政治大學 === 華語文教學碩博士學位學程 === 107 === This research analyzed the semantics of the Chinese polysemous verb tí. Based on corpus research and Motion-Event frame (Talmy 2000), this study investigated all instances of the single-character tí and its compounds, so as to find the semantic elements that contribute to the different senses, and to figure out the realtion between the multiple senses of tí. The research started from a diachronic perspective by observing the data from corpus. First, we found that there were different meanings of tí in ancient times and nowadays. The most frequent uses of tí in the 220 B.C.to A.D. 220 were ‘lift, carry and raise.’ From the 600s to the 900s, sense of ‘mention, refer to’ appeared, and had become the most frequent use of tí. From analyzing the data of different periods, we found that in the past, the most frequent sense of tí was ‘lifting up an object with hand’; however, in modern Chinese, ti appeared more often as the category of speech instead of actual motion. Senses such as ‘mention, refer to’ were frequently used. According to the metaphors of ‘Container’ and ‘Ideas are Objects’ (Lakoff & Johnson, 2003), the Figure turns to abstract notion like spoken words or thoughts. These senses started to appear during the 600s to the 900s. From the data, we can also see that: tí most of the time appeared as a single-charactered form in ancient Chinese, but as two-charactered form in modern Chinese. Second, the thesis applied the Motion-Event Frame (Talmy, 2000), including Caused-Motion Event as a reference to analyze the differences between every sense. Three significant elements were used to distinguish each sense: ‘Figure’, ‘Motion’ and ‘Path’. The non-siginifant elements are: ‘Cause’ and ‘Ground’. We discovered that the semantic elements of tí follow the prototype effect: from concrete item to abstract notion. In conclusion, this study provided a thorough semantic analysis of the polysemous verb tí and will be a reference to future diachronic lexical semantic research.