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Mandarin Analytic Causative Constructions with Shǐ and Ràng: A Usage-Based Collostructional Analysis

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Chinese Lexical Semantics (CLSW 2022)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 13495))

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Abstract

Analytic causative constructions with 使 shǐ ‘make’ and 让 ràng ‘make, let’, commonly used as [NP1 + SHI/RANG + NP2 + VP], are canonical constructions in Mandarin. Previous scholarship has rarely compared the interactions between the two constructions and the verbs in the VP slot. This study fills this gap by using a collostructional analysis. The prototypical verbs, prototypical constructional meanings and distinctive verbs are investigated. It is found that 1) The prototypical verbs used in SHI construction are change-of-state and change-of-possession verbs, whose constructional meaning refers to the change of NP2 in quantity or quality under the effect of NP1; for RANG construction, its prototypical verbs are psychological verbs and verbs of getting information, and its constructional meaning refers to NP2’s perception of something under the influence of NP1; 2) The 17 distinctive verbs for SHI construction are change-of-possession verbs, existential verbs, motion verbs, verbs of phenomenon, change-of-state verbs, verbs of physical manipulation and creation; the 14 distinctive verbs for RANG construction are change-of-state verbs, psychological verbs, verbs of getting information, intellectual verbs and change-of-possession verbs. Although there is overlap in verb categories, the specific verbs which have different preferences for the two constructions are significantly different.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    ToRCH is the acronym of ‘Texts Of Recent CHinese’.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the anonymous reviewers of CLSW 2022 for helpful comments and suggestions. This study is supported by the Chinese Government Scholarship Project (Award number: 202006020199, PI: Na Liu) and the National Social Science Foundation Project titled A Diachronic Typological Study on the Chinese Verb-complement of Macro-event (Award number: 21BYY045, PI: Fuyin Li).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Foreign Languages, Beihang University, Beijing, 100191, China

    Na Liu & Fuyin Li

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  1. Na Liu
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  2. Fuyin Li
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Correspondence to Na Liu .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Peking University, Beijing, China

    Qi Su

  2. Minjiang University, Fuzhou, China

    Ge Xu

  3. Minjiang University, Fuzhou, China

    Xiaoyan Yang

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Liu, N., Li, F. (2023). Mandarin Analytic Causative Constructions with Shǐ and Ràng: A Usage-Based Collostructional Analysis. 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_39

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-28953-8_39

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-031-28952-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-031-28953-8

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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