Modern Chinese Serial Verbs Construction From The Perspective Of Event Semantics

Since the introduction of "serial verbs constructions(SVC)",it has always been a hot spot in the field of Chinese grammar.This thesis makes a systematic investigation of SVC in Modern Chinese from the perspective of event semantics,cognitive semantics and other related theories.The main point of view is that SVC can be used to express compound events with multiple event structures,which are composed of several sub-events related to each other in a certain time domain.Moreover,due to the different event structures,Chinese SVC shows a series of differences in syntactic form.According to the event structure,this thesis establishes Chinese SVC type classification system from the event perspective,forming a continuum from core typical members to marginal members:As a typical member of Chinese serial verbs,the sequential compound SVC expresses a sequential event complex.It is composed of a sequence of actions that occur successively in time and is relatively independent,and reflects the speaker's cognition of sequentializing.It has the following basic characteristics:1.There is"sequence" between sub-events,and the sequence of which sentence components in the syntax of "the principle of chronological order" naturally corresponds to the sequence of sub-events in reality in time.2.There is "symmetry" between the sub-events,and the symmetrical relationship is manifested in time continuity and saliency.The sub-events arranged in chronological order are equal in significance and have a symmetrical relationship.Syntactically,the semantic strength between the front and back verb structure is relatively equal,and it is difficult to distinguish the priority.3.There is relative "independence" between sub-events,any sub-event can express that a relatively complete event does not depend on another sub-event to exist.Syntactically,the verb structure does not share tense and aspect components,and can be inserted to express the meaning of time.VP1 is bounded.The delimitation methods of VPi include the tense auxiliary word "le",the final aspect marked as "wan,hao,guo",result complement and trend complement,verb overlap,and quantifier.The different internal aspects of the overall compound-linked compound event reflect a kind of overall cognitive processing of the event under the synoptic mode.The event structure includes core sub-events and non-core sub-events,which play a framework function and a supporting function respectively.They can express concomitant relations,mode relations,and role composition relations.The overall compound type SVC has the following basic characteristics:1.There is "integrity"between the sub-events,and the relationship between the two is compact and interdependent.Syntactically,it is not possible to insert a connection component that represents time between verb structures;VP1 always appears in an unbounded form;verb structures share a completeness mark.2.There is "asymmetry”between the sub-events,which is manifested by the different semantic strengths of the two items before and after the SVC and the lightness of the front and the heaviness of the structure.An explicit syntactic mark of the core sub-event is "the accessibility of the aspect mark".3.There is "synchronicity" between sub-events,and there is a partial overlap on the time axis,and the syntactically often co-occurs with the continuum marked "zhe"(V1 zhe V2").As a marginal member of SVC,the overall compound SVC always has great differences in qualitative terms.Due to the asymmetry,this conjunctive form shows a clear grammatical tendency,and gradually weakens the frequent expression of non-core sub-events.Verb action is in the process of gradual blurring(verb^-preposition).From this point of view,there is no absolute boundary between such interlocking and state-of-the-art structures.There is no absolute boundary link between the types of events,which is a continuum from typical members to marginal members.Under the combined effect of the two cognitive perspectives of sequentialization and globalization,it produces sequential and overall compound SVC.The dual event attributes of style and sequence and integrity:sequence is embodied in compliance with the "principle of chronological order" at the syntactic level,showing "time interdependence" in the time structure;integrity is embodied in the compactness and independence of sub-events.The event relationship is expressed as a "behavior-purpose" relationship which belongs to the unmarked purpose type.There are three main types of sequential and integral serial verbs.The serial verbs representing the "displacement-purpose" relationship can be divided into directional displacement serial verbs(V1+VP2)and terminal displacement serial verbs(V1+L+VP2)according to the presence or absence of terminal information.The contiguous verb expresses the "retention-purpose" relationship,of which the serial verb V1 is mainly used by verbs expressing "retained meaning" and often co-occurs with non-perfect whole markers "zhe" and "qilai".And the contiguous form indicates the "acquisition-purpose",which the V1 can be divided into two types from the syntactic expression,object-sharing type "V1+O+V2" and non-object-sharing type"V1+O1+V2+O2".The former has stricter restrictions on the choice of V2,It depends on whether V2 acts as a telic role.Event semantics is centered on verbs,which provides us with a new perspective to explore Chinese SVC.According to the structure of the event,the Chinese SVC clearly describes and interprets the many complexities and differences at the syntactic level.At the event structure level,it further reveals the mapping law between conjunctive "syntactic structure and event structure",thus reflecting the essence of Chinese SVC.