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Verb-Object Compounds and Idioms in Chinese

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Computational and Corpus-Based Phraseology (EUROPHRAS 2017)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 10596))

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Abstract

This paper addresses central issues about the nature of a construction in the Chinese language that is referred to as Verb-Object Compounds (VOCs). It has long been noted that the relationship between the two or more morphemes of VOCs is partly morphological and partly syntactic in the sense that, on the one hand, they do combine to form a ‘word-like unit’, but on the other hand, some degree of separation is possible between the two parts [4, 8, 9, 10, 12, 16, 17, 22, among others]. The VOC has triggered intense interest and rigorous research on the issue of wordhood in Chinese due to its disharmonious behaviour shown in the two separate modules of syntax and morphology. However, these previous discussions mainly focus on the criteria that can identify a word in Chinese. This paper, rather than belabouring the issue of refining these criteria or proposing new ones, centres on the fact that this type of compound exhibits properties in syntax, as well as lexical features in morphology and semantics. The description and analysis of the syntactic and morphological characteristics of VOCs then provide a foundation for a generalized account of the representation of VOCs and Verb-Object (VO) idioms within the grammatical framework of Lexical-Functional Grammar (LFG).

S. Yu—Independent Scholar.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Curly brackets are used in the text to enclose the morpheme-for-morpheme translation of verb-object phrasal structures or that of Verb-Object Compounds. Although sometimes the constituents of a VOC themselves do not carry unequivocal meanings as they might be bound morphemes, glosses most appropriate to the context are given for illustrative purposes.

  2. 2.

    Symbols and abbreviations used in this paper: * = Ungrammatical; 1 = First Person; 2 = Second Person; 3 = Third Person; A = adjective; ADJ = adjunct; ADV = adverb; ADVP = adverbial phrase; Ag = Agent; AP = adjectival phrase; ASP = aspect; CL = classifier; D = determiner; DE = genitive marker in Mandarin; DP = determiner phrase; EXP = experiential verbal particle; Exp = experiencer; GE = genitive marker in Cantonese; N = noun; NEG = negative marker; NP = noun phrase; NUM = number; OBJ = object; PERF = perfective verbal particle; PERS = person; PL = plural; PRED = predicate; PRO = pronoun; S = sentence; SG = singular; SUBJ = subject; V = verb; VP = verb phrase.

  3. 3.

    These structures are levels of representation in LFG. Readers unfamiliar with LFG are invited to consult introductory references such as Bresnan 2001 and Falk 2001.

  4. 4.

    Space has limited the explanation of the functional annotations in each PSR. Please refer to Bresnan 2001:44–86 and Falk 2001:68–76 for an introduction to functional annotations in LFG.

  5. 5.

    The Universal Hierarchy identifies the most prominent argument which can be selected as the logical subject, and is: agent > beneficiary > experiencer/goal > instrument > patient/theme > locative.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank Prof. John Rennison for native-English speaking proof-editing of our paper in accordance with the requirements of the editors of this volume in which our paper appears. Research, writing, and conference presentation of the paper are funded by the University of Vienna, GADS Research Platform.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Vienna, 1090, Vienna, Austria

    Adams Bodomo & Dewei Che

  2. Hong Kong, China

    So-sum Yu

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  1. Adams Bodomo
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  2. So-sum Yu
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  3. Dewei Che
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Correspondence to Dewei Che .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Wolverhampton, Wolverhampton, United Kingdom

    Ruslan Mitkov

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Bodomo, A., Yu, Ss., Che, D. (2017). Verb-Object Compounds and Idioms in Chinese. In: Mitkov, R. (eds) Computational and Corpus-Based Phraseology. EUROPHRAS 2017. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 10596. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69805-2_27

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69805-2_27

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