Motion, Direction and Spatial Configuration:
A lexical semantic study of ‘hang’ verbs in
Mandarin
Mei-chun, Liu
Presenter: Wan-yi, Hung
Introduction
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Introduction (1)
• This paper presents a lexical semantic analysis
of a sub-class of spatial configuration verbs in
Mandarin—verbs of hanging.
• Lexical Semantics: ‘the behavior of a verb,
particularly with respect to the expression and
interpretation of its arguments, is to a large
extent determined by its meaning.’
(Levin 1993:1)
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Introduction (2)
• Aim: illustrate that the semantic components ‘motion,’
‘direction,’ and ‘contact’ all play a role in defining and
differentiating the three Mandarin near-synonyms of
hang: 掛，懸，吊.
Question:
1. What is the shared conceptual frame, if any?
2. What are the semantic distinctions lexically encoded
in the three verbs?
3. In what way are the distinctions syntactically realized?
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The Data
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The Data
Table 1: Distribution of Mandarin verbs of hanging in Sinica Corpus
Verbs
掛
懸
吊
Number of occurrences
234
36
29
What is the semantic basis for 掛’s wide range of uses?
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Grammatical distribution &
event structure
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Grammatical distribution & event structure
(1)
Three types of constructions:
• agentive transitive construction
(i) 工人把一袋淺掛/懸/吊在樹上。
(agent-oriented)
• theme-locative intransitive construction
(ii) 一袋淺掛/懸/吊在樹上。
(figure-oriented)
• locative inversion construction
(iii) 樹上掛/懸/吊著一袋淺。
(ground-oriented)
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Grammatical distribution & event
structure (2)
Complex event structure of ‘hang’
a. Act of putting:
‘I hung a clock on the wall.’
b. Endpoint of putting:
‘A clock (is) hung on the wall.’
c. Resultant state of spatial relation:
(a) Figure-oriented:
‘A clock hangs on the wall.’
(b) Ground-oriented:
‘On the wall hangs a clock.’
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Grammatical distribution & event
structure (3)
• Schematic representation of the event structure
(Huang et al 2000)
Motion-Boundary-State: /‧____
Table 2: Distributional variation in grammatical construction
Agentive Transitive
掛
N=234
懸
N=36
26% 61)
3% (1)
Theme-locative intran
35% (82) 50%(18) 7% (2)
Endpoint
Locative Inversion
31% (72) 22% (8)
10% (3)
State
Other(mostly intran)
8% (19)
7% (2)
25% (9)
吊
N=29
76% 22)
Motion
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Locative inversion &
conceptualization of spatial
relation
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Locative inversion & conceptualization
of Spatial Relation (1)
• Ways of conceptualizing the event of hanging
a. Agentive Transitive:
Agent-oriented causal predication
b. Theme-Locative Intransitive:
Figure-oriented spatial predication
c. Locative inversion:
Ground-oriented spatial predication
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Locative inversion & conceptualization
of Spatial Relation (2)
Two types of Locative Inversion:
• Existential Locative Inversion
• Directional Locative Inversion
(Levin 1993:94)
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Locative Inversion (1)
Existential Locative Inversion
• the existence of a Figure by positioning the
Figure within the spatial boundary of a
Ground
• Eg: In the car[Ground]is a dog[Figure]
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Locative Inversion (1)
• In Mandarin, to mark spatial existence as a
durative state, the durative aspect marker – 著
is often used
Spatial
existence
(i) 地上躺著一個人。
(ii) 牆上掛/懸/吊著一幅畫。
Resultant state
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Locative Inversion (2)
Directional Locative Inversion
• the sense of appearance, or coming into sight,
by specifying the direction of motion as a
Cause for a Figure to come into the spatial
boundary of a Ground
• Eg: into the car[Ground] comes a dog[Figure]
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Locative Inversion (2)
Directional Locative Inversion
Verbs of Manner of Motion
a. 前面跑[來]Deictic一個人。
b. *前面跑[__]一個人。
Verbs of ‘Hanging’
c. 橋上吊(*掛/*懸)起一部車。
d.河裡吊(*掛/*懸)起一部車。
Directional 起
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Image schema & semantic
attributes
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Image schema & semantic attributes (1)
牆上掛/懸/吊著一幅畫。
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Image schema & semantic attributes (2)
a. 掛: [contact] [ground support]
Figure 1: Image schema of 掛
(i) 他掛彩了。
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Image schema & semantic attributes (3)
b. 懸: [no contact] [no ground support]
Figure 2: Image schema of 懸
(i) 他心懸/?吊/*掛在空中。
(ii) 空缺上懸(*掛/*吊)著。
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Image schema & semantic attributes (4)
c. 吊: [with a trajectory]
Figure 3: Image schema of 吊
(i) 吊單槓
(ii) 吊死
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Conclusion
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Conclusion (1)
 Grammatical distributions
– Help to decipher the semantic orientations or ‘event
focuses’ of individual verbs.
 Collocational patterns
– Help us to identify fine-grained semantic distinctions
among 懸、掛、吊
 Image schema & semantic attributes
– 掛: [contact] [ground support]
– 懸: [no contact] [no ground support]
– 吊: [support with a string]
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Conclusion (2)
• Although the study focuses on the ‘hang’ verbs in Mandarin,
it touches upon some important issues regarding verbs of
spatial configuration in general. Verbs like ‘sit,’ ‘lie,’
‘crouch,’ or ‘lean’ display a wide range of uses, and most
are categorized into multiple classes in Levin (1993). They
are 1) verbs of putting in spatial configuration, 2) verbs of
spatial configuration, 3) verbs of assuming a position.
• In Levin’s approach, these are separate senses or
independent uses of the verb. But in our analysis, the three
senses are viewed as related subparts, or phases of a
complex event structure, namely, Motion, followed by
Directional/locational Endpoint, followed by Resultant
State of Spatial Configuration.
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Conclusion (3)
• If verbal semantics is to be studied in a fashion similar to
that of nominal semantics, then the senses distinguished by
Levin (1993) may be considered different meaning ‘facets’
of the same sense, as argued in Pustejovsky (1995).
Formal role
Constitutive role
‘This is a beautiful book.’
‘This is a good book.’
Agentive role
‘It takes ten years to write this book.’
Telic role
‘This book is hard to read.’
• The analysis put forward in this paper offers an alternative
way to link related verbal senses with one underlying
structure. For verbs of spatial configuration, the composite
nature of their event structure may be one of the unique
semantic properties characteristic of the class.
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