Cover not available
Article published In:
Chinese Language and Discourse
Vol. 14:2 (2023) ► pp.232–264

Mandarin chī ‘eat’ sentences in elicitation and corpus data

ORCID logo | Monash University | The University of Alberta
ORCID logo | Hunan Normal University

When collected methodically through elicitation experiments, invented examples prompted by a cue word provide evidence for how speakers think about that word. This study explores characteristics of Mandarin chī ‘eat’ sentences obtained through an elicitation experiment and SMS, newspaper, and fiction corpora. Our findings support the view that invented examples collected methodically represent a valuable data type with its own characteristics worthy of attention and analysis.

Keywords: elicitation, corpus, methodology, subject, object, ingestion
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Mandarin chī ‘eat’
  • 3.Invented examples
  • 4.Data and methods
    • 4.1The elicitation experiment
    • 4.2Corpus data
    • 4.3Statistical tests
  • 5.Analysis
    • 5.1Sentence type
    • 5.2Subject and object
      • 5.2.1Subject
      • 5.2.2Object
      • 5.2.3Verb + chī constructions
  • 6.Discussion
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Data availability
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 24 January 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/cld.21017.new
References
Agyepong, Dorothy Pokua, Nana Aba Appiah Amfo, and E. Kweku Osam
2017 “Literal and metaphorical usages of ‘eat’ and ‘drink’ in Akan.” Nordic Journal of African Studies 26 (1): 62–78.Google Scholar
Arppe, Antti, and Juhani Järvikivi
2007 “Every method counts: Combining corpus-based and experimental evidence in the study of synonymy.” Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory 3 (2): 131–159. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Benoit, Kenneth, Kohei Watanabe, Haiyan Wang, Paul Nulty, Adam Obeng, Stefan Müller, and Akitaka Matsuo
2018 “quanteda: An R package for the quantitative analysis of textual data.” Journal of Open Source Software 3 (30): 774. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Brysbaert, Marc, and Boris New
2009 “Moving beyond Kučera and Francis: A critical evaluation of current word frequency norms and the introduction of a new and improved word frequency measure for American English.” Behavior Research Methods 41 (4): 977–990. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Burenhult, Niclas, and Nicole Kruspe
2016 “The language of eating and drinking: A window on Orang Asli meaning-making.” Malaysia’s Original People: Past, Present and Future of the Orang Asli, ed. by K. Endicott, 175–199. Singapore: National University of Singapore Press.Google Scholar
Chao, Yuen Ren
1968 A Grammar of Spoken Chinese. Berkeley, CA: Univ. of California Press.Google Scholar
Chen, Tao, and Min-Yen Kan
2013 “Creating a live, public short message service corpus: The NUS SMS corpus.” Language Resources and Evaluation 47 (2): 299–335.Google Scholar
Connine, Cynthia, Fernanda Ferreira, Charlie Jones, Charles Clifton, and Lyn Frazier
1984 “Verb frame preferences: Descriptive norms.” Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 13 (4): 307–319. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Deng, Yunhua, and Guangping Huang
2021 “英汉超常动宾构式的认知对比——以‘eat/have’和‘吃’类构式为例 [A cognitive contrastive study of English and Chinese supernormal V-O constructions: taking ‘eat/have’ and chī constructions as examples].” 中国外语 [Foreign Languages in China] 31: 31–39.Google Scholar
Ferreira, Victor S.
1996 “Is it better to give than to donate? Syntactic flexibility in language production.” Journal of Memory and Language 35 (5): 724–755. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Garnsey, Susan M., Neal J. Pearlmutter, Elizabeth Myers, and Melanie A. Lotocky
1997 “The contributions of verb bias and plausibility to the comprehension of temporarily ambiguous sentences.” Journal of Memory and Language 37 (1): 58–93. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gries, Stefan Th
2009 Statistics for Linguistics with R: A Practical Introduction. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hu, Yong
2016 “吃食堂的认知功能分析 [A cognitive-functional analysis of Mandarin construction chī shítáng ].” 世界汉语教学 [Chinese Teaching in the World] 31: 342–355.Google Scholar
Huang, Jie
2015 “吃+NP_(-p)语义网络建构及主观性阐 [The semantic network of chī + NP-p construction and its subjectivity].” 外语与外语教学 [Foreign Languages and Their Teaching] 21: 26–31.Google Scholar
Jia, Yanzi, and Fuxiang Wu
2017 “词汇类型学视角的汉语‘吃’ ‘喝’动词研究 [Lexical typological approach to Chinese Eat and Drink verbs].” 世界汉语教学 [Chinese Teaching in the World] 31: 361–381.Google Scholar
Jiang, Zhaozi
2015 “吃食堂及其相关句式中的非对称性 [Asymmetries in the ‘eat canteen’-construction and its relevant sentence patterns].” 现代外语 [Modern Foreign Languages] 11: 15–25, 145.Google Scholar
Kaiser, Elsi
2013 “Experimental paradigms in psycholinguistics.” In Research Methods in Linguistics, ed. by Robert J. Podesva, and Devyani Sharma, 135–168. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Keuleers, Emmanuel, Marc Brysbaert, and Boris New
2010 “SUBTLEX-NL: A new measure for Dutch word frequency based on film subtitles.” Behavior Research Methods 42 (3): 643–650. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Li, Charles N., and Sandra A. Thompson
1981 Mandarin Chinese: A Functional Reference Grammar. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Li, Yanzhi, and Yicheng Wu
2018 “V+非受事NP表达式的构式演变 [On the evolution of V + Non-patient NP constructions].” 现代外语 [Modern Foreign Languages] 21: 147–160.Google Scholar
Liu, Yuhong, Xiaodong Xu, and Klaus-Uwe Panther
2013 “An ERP approach to thematic hierarchies regarding grammatical objects of the Chinese verb Chi (eat).” Language Sciences 401: 36–44. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Matlock, Teenie, and Bodo Winter
2015 “Experimental semantics.” In The Oxford Handbook of Linguistics Analysis, ed. by Bernd Heine, and Heiko Narrog, 771–790. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
McGill, Robert, John W. Tukey, and Wayne A. Larsen
1978 “Variations of box plots.” The American Statistician 32 (1): 12–16.Google Scholar
Næss, Åshild
2011 “The grammar of eating and drinking verbs.” Language and Linguistics Compass 5 (6): 413–423. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
New, Boris, Marc Brysbaert, Jean Veronis, and Christophe Pallier
2007 “The use of film subtitles to estimate word frequencies.” Applied Psycholinguistics 28 (4): 661–677. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Newman, John
1997 “Eating and drinking as sources of metaphor in English.” Cuadernos de Filologia Inglesa 6 (2): 213–231.Google Scholar
2009a “A cross-linguistic overview of ‘eat’ and ‘drink’.” In The Linguistics of Eating and Drinking, ed. by John Newman, 1–25. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(ed.) 2009b The Linguistics of Eating and Drinking. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Newman, John, and Tamara Sorenson Duncan
2019 “The subject of ROAR in the mind and in the corpus: What divergent results can teach us.” Linguistica Atlantica 37 (1): 1–27.Google Scholar
Nie, Ya-ning
2008 “从体验论看汉语‘吃’的转喻和隐喻认知模式及其特点 [On Cognitive Models and characteristics of Chinese metaphors and metonymies of ‘eat’ in terms of embodied realism].” 湖南大学学报 [Journal of Hunan University] 21: 113–117.Google Scholar
Nordquist, Dawn
2004 “Comparing elicited data and corpora.” In Language, Culture and Mind, ed. by Michel Achard, and Suzanne Kemmer, 211–224. Stanford, CA: CSLI.Google Scholar
R Core Team
2020 R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing. Vienna, Austria: R Foundation for Statistical Computing.Google Scholar
Roland, Douglas, and Daniel Jurafsky
2002 “Verb sense and verb subcategorization probabilities.” In The Lexical Basis of Sentence Processing: Formal, Computational, and Experimental Issues, ed. by Paolo Merlo, and Suzanne Stevenson, 325–346. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Scheibman, Joanne
2001 “Local patterns of subjectivity in person and verb type in American English conversation.” In Frequency and the Emergence of Linguistic Structure, ed. by Joan Bybee, and Paul Hopper, 61–89. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sheskin, David J.
2007 Handbook of Parametric and Nonparametric Statistical Procedures. Boca Raton, FLA: Chapman & Hall/CRC.Google Scholar
Sinclair, John
1991 Corpus, Concordance, Collocation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Smead, Robert N., and John M. Chaston
2014 “Assertives and mood in Spanish: Some critical observations.” In New Directions in Hispanic Linguistics, ed. by Orozco Rafael, 237–257. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.Google Scholar
Taljard, Elsabé, and Nerina Bosman
2014 “The semantics of eating in Afrikaans and Northern Sotho: Cross-linguistic variation in metaphor.” Metaphor and Symbol 29 (3): 224–245. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tao, Hongyin
2000 “从‘吃’看动词论元结构的动态特征 [Eating and emergent argument structure].” 语言研究 [Studies in Language and Linguistics] 31: 21–38.Google Scholar
Tian, Liangbin, Wentong Sun, and Huibin Zhuang
2021 “吃食堂类结构的外框架模型诠释 [An exo-skeletal model to the chī shítáng structure].” 现代外语 [Modern Foreign Languages] 11: 1–12.Google Scholar
Ting, Jen
2006 “The middle construction in Mandarin Chinese and the presyntactic approach.” Concentric: Studies in Linguistics 32 (1): 89–117.Google Scholar
Tummers, Jose, Kris Heylen, and Dirk Geeraerts
2005 “Usage-based approaches in Cognitive Linguistics: A technical state of the art.” Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory 1 (2): 225–261. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Verzani, John
2004 Using R for Introductory Statistics. Boca Raton, FLA, London, New York, & Washington, D.C.: Chapman & Hall/CRC. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wang, Wenbin
2015 “从图形与背景的可逆性看一词多义的成因——以汉语动词‘吃’和英语动词 ‘make’为例 [An investigation into the cognitive cause of polysemy from the perspective of the reversibility of figure and ground: taking the Chinese verb chī and the English verb make for instance].” 外语与外语教学 [Foreign Languages and Their Teaching] 51: 36–41.Google Scholar
Wang, Yin
2007 “汉语动名构造与英语VN构造的对比——一项基于语料库吃/eat构造的对比研究 [A comparison of Chinese and English VN constructions: A corpus study of the chī /eat-N construction].” 外语教学 [Foreign Language Education] 21: 1–6.Google Scholar
Wang, Zhanhua
2000 “吃食堂的认知考察 [A cognitive study of chī shítáng].” 语言教学与研究 [Language Teaching and Linguistic Studies] 21: 58–64.Google Scholar
Wickham, Hadley
2016 ggplot2: Elegant Graphics for Data Analysis. New York: Springer-Verlag. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wierzbicka, Anna
1982 “Why can you have a drink when you can’t *have an eat? ” Language 58 (4): 753–799. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1996 Semantics: Primes and Universals. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Xie, Xiaoming, and Shuangju Zuo
2007 “饮食义动词‘吃’带宾情况的历史考察 [Diachronic study of the verb chī (吃) and its objects].” 古汉语研究 [Research in Ancient Chinses Language] 41: 91–96.Google Scholar
Xiong, Xueliang
2009 “论‘吃’在‘吃+NP’结构中的功能承载量和分辨度 [Functional load and resolution of chī (吃, ‘eat’) in the Chinese chī +NP structure].” 外语研究 [Foreign Languages Research] 7–12, 112.Google Scholar
Yang, Chunsheng
2004 “英汉语中与‘吃’有关的隐喻比较 [A comparison of metaphors related to ‘eating’ in English and Chinese].” 外语与外语教学 [Foreign Languages and Their Teaching] 121: 46–48.Google Scholar
Ye, Zhengdao
2010 “Eating and drinking in Mandarin and Shanghainese: A lexical-conceptual analysis.” In ASCS09: Proceedings of the 9th Conference of the Australasian Society for Cognitive Science, ed. by Elizabeth Schier, Wayne Christensen, and John Sutton, 375–383. Sydney: Macquarie Centre for Cognitive Science. DOI logoGoogle Scholar