A quantitative study of the polysemy of Mandarin Chinese perception verb kàn ‘look/see’

Abstract

ABSTRACT This study presents a quantitative study of the polysemy of the Chinese perception verb kàn ‘look/see’ by using a corpus-based behavioural profile approach. The analysis yields the following findings. First, two significant meaning clusters of kàn can be distinguished: the first represents physical perceptual senses, and the second groups together cognitive senses. Second, both the frequency and behavioural profiles are used to determine the prototypicality of kàn. They lead to the same conclusion that the sense ‘perceive with eyes’ is the prototypical meaning of kàn. Based on the corpus results, a semantic network of kàn has been proposed and the cognitive mechanisms underlying its meaning extension have been addressed. It is found that its meaning extensions in the domain of physical perception are attributed to the metonymy SUBEVENT FOR WHOLE EVENT, while its meaning extensions in the domain of cognition are ascribed to the metaphor COGNITION IS PERCEPTUAL VISION. These results not only provide usage-based evidence for the universal interconnections between perception and cognition, but also confirm the effectiveness and viability of a behavioural profile analysis in studying the polysemy of perception verbs. This study also demonstrates that quantitative methods are essential for the description and understanding of semasiological structures.