Verb Semantics And On The Configuration

This dissertation explores into the interrelationships between the lexical meanings of verbs and their argument alternations as instanced by some Chinese verbs. It tries to reveal the semantic factors of these verbs as shown in different argument configurations. It argues that syntactic environment, herein argument configuration, is closely related to verb meaning. A certain semantic factor of a verb does not present in all its argument configurations, and verb meaning may increment with argument alternations. Hence the polysemy of verbs. A Verb Category is usually prototypical, and there exists family resemblance between meanings of different verbs belonging to the same lexicalized category, which is remarkably shown in the cross-classification of verbs. Verbs belonging to the same basic semantic class, though they may differ in lexical meaning, may have great similarities in syntactic configuration, while verbs in different basic semantic lexicalized category show great differences in syntactic configuration even if they have similar lexical meanings. Members of the same Verb Category are interrelated to each other, and thus form a complex semantic network.The article holds that lexical meaning of a verb and meaning of the construction it enters both play very important part in the basic sentence structure generation and syntactic configuration. The meaning of a basic sentence derives from the blending of both the lexical meaning of its predicative verb and the constructional meaning, which interact with each other in the process. Lexical meaning of a verb determines to a certain extent its syntax, while constructional meaning plays a decisive role in pinning down the verb meaning. The meaning of a verb may change with certain constructions it frequently enters, and thus new meanings or new lexical items may emerge. Based on the points afore-mentioned, the paper proposes a new sentence generation model, which involves multiple mappings between syntax and semantics. Finally, applying the theoretical notions derived from frame semantics and cognitive semantics, it provides a fresh way to characterize some polysemous phenomena and to interpret the exchangeability between zhe (着)and le (了) in Chinese existential constructions.