Direction Verbs As Direction Localizers In Chinese: A Preliminary Investigation

In Chinese, there is an interesting phenomenon:location words have two usages, which are to indicate the location ("在医院北边--at hospital north--at the north of hospital"), and to indicate the direction ("往里走--to inside walk--walk inside"). While indicating the direction, there is another kind of words called directional verbs also providing the same usage (''往进走--to enter walk--walk inside"). Although this usage has been emerged in Mandarin, it has not appeared on all the directional verbs, and its acceptance varies in different dialects of modern Chinese. If we know when/where/how/why this phenomenon emerges, we can provide the convincing examples for the language development, and the evidence for the possible mechanism of language evolution. In addition, we can contribute our works to complete the Modern Chinese grammar system.Currently, research on this phenomenon is almost vacant, because many related phenomenon have restraints of dialects. Therefore, our research is the first work to understand when/where/how/why this phenomenon emerges. The aim of our research is to provide a preliminary exploration of this language phenomenon. We investigate this phenomenon in three aspects:Mandarin, Chinese dialects, and ancient Chinese. Our research approaches mainly are:(1) The classification statistics and analysis of corpus language material. (2) The analysis of dialects investigation.Firstly, we use the CCL Corpus of Modern Chinese to classify and analyze the language material from different directional verbs\ different language type\ different dialect districts of the writers. We found"回"is already enter the grammar system of Mandarin,"起,过,出"are in their way from dialects to Mandarin, PQV(Preposition+ directional verb+ Verb, Q is short of directional verb) forms of other direction verbs are still belong dialects phenomenon.Secondly, our dialects investigation uses the questionnaire survey combined with individual interview, to investigate the acceptance of this phenomenon in different dialects. Research of the existences of similar language phenomenon is included in the investigation. We also analyze the data from another similar grammar form "Preposition+Adj.+ Li(里)+Verb" ("PA里V" for short), trying to find out whether there is relationship between the form PA里V and the form PQV. We found that the PQV form become less from north to south, and from west to east. And the situation of PA里V forms is the same. They tend to co-occur. We propose the following hierarchy:P来V(?)P去V(?)P进V(?)P起|过|出V(?)P回VLastly, we use the CCL Corpus of Ancient Chinese to find out sources and possible relationship of this phenomenon and the similar language phenomenon. We found that PQV forms occurred at the middle period of Qing Dinasty. the emerging of PQV forms and the extensive using time of the PA里V forms are almost the same. We also found that the sequences of PQV forms in Mandarin\Chinese dialect\Ancient Chinese are similar.We also analyze the possible reason of PQV forms'appearance and the similarity of PQV and PA里V in terms of cognitive linguistic theories.