Chapter 5
The conceptual spatialization of actions or activities in Chinese
The Adjective + Verb construction
This chapter focuses on the semantics of a grammatical pattern in Chinese that combines an adjective with a verb (Adj + V construction). The pattern contravenes the grammatical traditions, which assume that a noun is typically modified by an adjective (Adj + N) and a verb by an adverbial (Adv + V). This study shows that the Adj + V construction is not only pervasive in Chinese, but that the V may even convey a highly dynamic meaning. Rather than concluding that the existence of the construction is the evidence of a word class shift from verb to noun, from a cognitive perspective, it is argued that the Adj + V construction mirrors a certain way of thinking about actions and activities in terms of entities and substances located in space.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.The spatiality of nouns and the temporality of verbs
- 3.The Adj + V pattern in Chinese
- 4.Conclusion
-
Acknowledgment
-
Notes
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References
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