Abstract
Rappaport Hovav and Levin[1,2] propose the manner/result complementarity (MRC), which predicts the non-existence of verbs lexicalizing both manner and result at a time. Scholars [3, 4] argue against the MRC as a general lexical principle governing the lexicalization patterns of verbs by naming verbs which seem to encode both meaning components simultaneously. One type of counterexample verbs are based on the lexicalization properties of typologically different languages. Following Slobin [5], Shi and Wu [6] suggest that manner and result meaning components exhibit complementary distribution in satellite-framed languages but not verb-framed languages. Though Modern Chinese is generally classified as a satellite-framed language, Old Chinese is regarded as a verb-framed language and the lexicalization patterns of Old Chinese motion verbs are also subjected to controversy. Drawing evidence from motion verbs in Old Chinese, this study tries to answer whether the MRC constrains the possible lexicalization patterns of motion verbs in verb-framed languages. Detailed analysis indicates that though typologically different languages may use morphosyntactic devices specific to the language to differentiate verbs falling into different ontological categories, Old Chinese motion verbs conform to the MRC hypothesis.
Highlights
Across languages based on what conceptual components a verb may include in its lexical meaning, motion verbs can be roughly divided into ontologically two different types: manner of motion verbs, which specify how the motion is carried out and path or directed motion verbs, which describe the trajectory over which an entity moves with respect to a reference object [7, 2]
Slobin only names some isolated motion verbs such as Turkish motion verb tirmanmak ‘climb up’ which he assumes to violate the lexical constraint manner/result complementarity (MRC), but he does not discuss the lexical meaning of motion verbs under the tenets of MRC hypothesis systematically
Though the MRC hypothesis is reflected in lexicalized meaning and grammatical behaviors in both change of state and motion domain, the present study mainly focuses on motion verbs in Old Chinese, since with respect to lexicalization patterns of motion verbs researchers especially doubt the validity of the MRC in verb-framed language such as Old Chinese
Summary
Across languages based on what conceptual components a verb may include in its lexical meaning, motion verbs can be roughly divided into ontologically two different types: manner of motion verbs, which specify how the motion is carried out and path or directed motion verbs, which describe the trajectory over which an entity moves with respect to a reference object [7, 2]. Following Slobin [5], Shi and Wu [6] suggest that the lexicalization of manner and path in motion verbs only exhibits a complementary distribution in satellite-framed languages, but not in verb-framed languages. Concerning Old Chinese, Ma [12] and Shi and Wu [6] argue that Old Chinese allows a type of semantically synthetic verbs which lexicalize both manner and path meaning simultaneously. Upon these controversies, motion verbs in Old Chinese deserve independent investigation.
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