Abstract
The focus of this chapter is on the internal changes of constructions during the process of building and shaping a polysemy model. This chapter takes a constructional approach to show how a synchronic polysemy network has been shaped by diachronic realignments of form and meaning. The synchronic and diachronic connection is illustrated by the interpretational variability of Mandarin Chinese ‘one’-phrases. When the numeral is ‘one’, the combination is not only used for counting, referencing, and quantifying, but also used as an emphatic negative polarity item (NPI), and an attenuating positive polarity item (PPI). Not only do the results show that the conceptualization of quantity denoted by Chinese numeral phrases varies with the scales provided by these constructions, but they also provide evidence of the cognitive mechanism of making generalizations which result in semantic extensions.
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- 1.
The tone of yī and bù ‘neg’ varies with its environment due to tone shandi.
- 2.
See Footnote 1.
- 3.
According to Szabolcsi (2004: 414), anti-additivity is defined as follows: A function f is anti-additive if f(a ˅ b) = fa ˄ fb. For example, ‘no one walks or talks’ = ‘no one walks and no one talks’.
- 4.
Giannakidou (2011: 1674) defines veridicality as a property of sentence embedded functions: a function f is veridical if fp entails or presupposes the truth of p. If inference to the truth of p under f is not possible, f is nonveridical. Particularly, nonveridical expressions express lack of commitment.
- 5.
According to Kadmon and Landman (1993), the NPI any widens the interpretation of the common noun phrase along a contextual dimension such as types, kinds, and quantity (e.g. I don’t have any vegetables.). This condition is termed widening. strengthening refers to the condition that the domain widened statement has to entail the non-widened one.
- 6.
The genres from the corpus are restricted to press releases in written Chinese, which is stylistically formal. VO is normally preferred in a formal register. Given the restriction, the data still show the OV is the preferred construction.
- 7.
Questions are typically environments for NPIs. The phenomenon that only rhetorical questions are found in the database is possibly due to the limitation of the genres included. The questions discussed in this section are labeled as ‘rhetorical questions’ because they are negatively biased.
- 8.
This sentence is a short answer with its subject omitted to a question.
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Chen, IH. (2018). The Development of the Polysemous Networks of ‘One’-Phrase Through Constructional Changes. In: Diachronic Changes Underlying Synchronic Distribution . Studies in East Asian Linguistics. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0170-4_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0170-4_3
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