Abstract
The paper discusses the divergence and convergence in aspect and tense meanings via semantic feature analysis. Arguably, the divergence of the experiential marker guo过 and the actualize marker le了 are embodied in aspect and tense meanings. In particular, the tense and aspect meanings of guo过 indicates factual connection between the past event and current one. As such, the reality of event is accentuated by backtracking the past experience. The tense and aspect meanings of le了is involved with eventual connection between the past event and current one, which express the actualization of event via highlighting the action perfective. The convergence of the tense of guo过 and le了 can be rendered by a couple of conditions, including (1) the suppression of le了 on guo过 in the syntactic structure of “V-guo-le-O”, which leads to the semantic meaning of the close-temporal past event; (2) the force of temporal adverbials on the distance between the event time and speech time (reference time); (3) the compliment of frequency induce the number of times that the past event happened, which emphasized the same “Perfective” meaning of guo过 and le了.
The data of examples in current paper are sourced from both the annotated Modern Chinese Corpus by Beijing Language and Culture University (BCC) and the self-prepared corpus.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
The detailed description can be seen in [6]: 166–168.
- 2.
The “fact” is the indirect forces for the elaboration see details in Sect. 3 “V + guò过 + le了 + O”.
- 3.
Ass the claim by Michaelis [15], “direct impact” means that the result of the event is irrevocable in current time. For example, the direct impact in “tā dǎ suì le bēi zi (he has broken the cup)” is “the broken cup”. The “indirect effect” means that the result of the event is revocable in current time. For instance, the cup is not necessary for being broke in the sentence “tā dǎ suì guò bēi zi (he broke the cup)”.
References
Smith, C.: The Parameter of Aspect. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht (1991)
Dai, Y.J.: Research on the Modern Chinese Tense System. Zhejiang Education Publishing House, Zhejiang (1997). (in Chinese)
Langacker, R.W.: The English present: temporal coincidence vs. epistemic immediacy. In: Patard, A., Brisard. F. (eds.) Cognitive Approaches to Tense, Aspect, and Epistemic Modality, pp. 45–86. John Benjamins Pub. Co. (2011)
Comrie, B.: Aspect. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (1976)
Li, C.N., Thompson, S.A.: Mandarin Chinese: A Functional Reference Grammar. University of California Press, Berkeley (1981)
Yeh, M.: Stative situations and the imperfective -zhe in Mandarin. J. Chin. Lang. Teach. Assoc. 28, 69–98 (1993)
Givón, T.: Syntax. John Benjamins, Amsterdam/Philadelphia (2001)
Smith, A.: Theory of Aspectual Choice. Linguistic Society of America, Language (1983)
Chao, Y.R.: A Grammar of Spoken Chinese. University of California Press, Berkeley (1968)
Smith, C.S.: The syntax and interpretation of temporal expressions in English. In: Meier, R., Aristar-Dry, H., Destruel, E. (eds.) Text, Time, and Context, pp. 95–146. Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy, vol. 87. Springer, Dordrecht (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2617-0_4
Dahl, Ö.: Tense and Aspect System. The Bath Press, Bath (1985)
Lu, S.X: Xiandao Hanyu Babai Ci [800 Words of Contemporary Chinese], Beijing: Shangwu Publishers (1980). (in Chinese)
Vendler, Z.: Linguistics in Philosophy. Cornell University Press, Itchaca (1967)
Klein, W., Li, P., Hendriks, H.: Aspect and assertion in Mandarin Chinese. Nat. Lang. Linguist. Theory 18(4), 723–770 (2000)
Michaelis, L.: Toward a grammar of aspect: the case of the English perfect construction. Dissertations. UC Berkeley (1993)
Kong, L.D.: About the dynamic auxiliaries guò过1” and “guò过2”. J. Anhui Normal Univ. (Natural Science) 4, 104–110 (1986). (in Chinese)
Wang, Y.G.Z.: The “perfective aspect” in Chinese. Chinese Lang. Learn. 1, 12–16 (2000). (in Chinese)
Liu, M.C., Xu, Z.: The Grammatical Evolution and Constructive Function of guo过-An Application to Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language: Essays in Honor of Mr. Dong Pengcheng (2021). (in Chinese)
Dai, Y.J.: Semantic analysis of the modern Chinese “zhe着” word for continuum. Lang. Teach. Linguist, Stud. 2, 92–106 (1991). (in Chinese)
Ouyang, X.F.: Reanalysis of the function of “zheng” “zai” and “zhe.” Stud. Lang. Linguist. 40(3), 59–68 (2020). (in Chinese)
Acknowledgments
This study was funded by the National Social Science Foundation of China under the project “Development of a grammar syllabus for teaching Chinese as a foreign language and a reference grammar book series (multi-volume version)” (17ZDA307).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Xu, Z., Wu, Z. (2023). Divergence and Convergence in Tense and Aspect Meanings of “guo” and “le”. In: Su, Q., Xu, G., Yang, X. (eds) Chinese Lexical Semantics. CLSW 2022. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 13495. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-28953-8_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-28953-8_1
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-28952-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-28953-8
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)