Abstract
Adopting the theoretical framework of Construction Grammar, the present paper aims to examine the internal structures and constructional meanings of six Mandarin idiomatic prefabs: da-X-da-Y ‘big-X-big-Y’, da-X-xiao-Y ‘big-X-small-Y’, xiao-X-xiao-Y ‘small-X-small-Y’, da-X-wu-Y ‘big-X-no-Y’ and wu-X-wu-Y ‘no-X-no-Y’. The analysis has not only identified five constructional meanings among them, but confirmed the weightiness of semantic integration between lexical and constructional senses. The semantic map approach is further applied to characterize these sense relations in illustration of any multiple inheritance nested among distinct constructional meanings. For instance, the sense of intensification or emphasis is prominent in parallel constructions: meanings inherited from the reduplication structure. On the contrary, non-parallel constructions may carry such senses as overallness, equivalence, contrast, or serve a subjunctive mood.
This paper is partially supported by research grant from the Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan (Project number: 105-2420-H-002-009-MY2). The authors would like to express their gratitude for this support.
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Notes
- 1.
Dictionary of Chinese Idioms website (http://dict.idioms.moe.edu.tw/cydic/index.htm).
- 2.
Online Dictionary of Idioms website (http://cy.5156edu.com; http://cy.hwxnet.com/).
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Lu, C., Tsai, IN., Su, IW., Liu, TH. (2018). Internal Structures and Constructional Meanings: ‘Da-X-da-Y’ and Its Related Constructions in Mandarin Chinese. In: Hong, JF., Su, Q., Wu, JS. (eds) Chinese Lexical Semantics. CLSW 2018. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 11173. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04015-4_8
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