Action-Motion Expressed by Serial Verb Constructions in Standard Mandarin Chinese and Jinjiang Southern Min

This paper focuses on the phenomenon that the same combination of verbs denoting the meaning of action-motion can occur in two different syntactic subtypes of Serial Verb Construction, i.e., the nuclear serialization and core serialization, based on the general distinction made in studies that adopt a variety of theoretical frameworks. Despite the similar meaning expressed by the two constructions and their instantiations that share the same component verbs, the nuclear and core serializations can be distinguished from each other in terms of their argument structure and constituency structure. In this paper, I attempt to offer an adequate description of the properties of these syntactic subtypes of action-motion SVC attested in two Sinitic varieties: Standard Mandarin Chinese and Jinjiang Southern Min. In addition, I argue that only the directional verb (V2) in the core serialization can be optionally followed by a locative noun phrase due to its partly independent argument structure in the core serialization, a characteristic not observed in the nuclear serialization. While both syntactic subtypes of action-motion SVC can be found in Mandarin Chinese, in Jinjiang Southern Min, the meaning of action-motion can only be encoded by the core serialization. The use of contrasting structures to encode action-motion expressions in Mandarin Chinese and mainland Southern Min also indicates the diversity of grammar found in different Sinitic varieties (also see Chappell 2015; Chappell and Li 2015).

摘要:

本文基千多项研究中显示的关千连动式的一般性区别，集中探讨用以表述"动作—位移"义的相同的一组动词可出现在句法类别不同的连动式(即大、小核心连动式)中的现象。虽然大、小核心连动式可以表达相似的语义且相同的连续动词可以出现在结构不同的连动式中，但是 它们在仑元结构和组成结构方面表现不同。本文试图为汉语普通话和晋江闽南话中表述"动作—位移"意义但句法结构不同的连动式提供充分的描写。此外，本文仑证，正是因为其部分独立的仑元结构，只有 大核心连动式中的方向动词(V2)才允许其后选择性出现地点名词短语，这一特点在小核心连动式中则观察不到。在汉语普通话中，大、小核心连动式均可用以表述"动作—位移"义，而晋江闽南话只用大核心连动式表述相似的意义。汉语普通话与内陆闽南话用不同的结构编码"动作—位移"义也表明了汉语方言语法的多样性(也参见 Chappell 2015; Chappell and Li 2015) 。