Semantic And Syntactic Contrast Between Chinese "Huoqu"(获取) Verbs And English Get-Verbs

The action of “huoqu” or “obtaining”(获取) is essential and common in human’sdaily life. This study mainly investigates the semantic and syntactic similarities anddifferences between the Chinese “huoqu” verbs and their English counterparts, i.e.,get-verbs.In this thesis,“huoqu” verbs---with the meaning of “obtaining”---are defined asmonosyllabic verbs, such as “买---buy,偷---steal,抢---rob”, which express the meaningof actively and consciously claiming something and deprive the other party of it. Byreferring to Levin’s(1993) classification of get-verbs (52in total) and Dong Ci Yong Fa CiDian(《动词用法词典》)(2003) and taking Chinese verbs as the contrastive starting point,our choice of five pairs of Chinese “huoqu” verbs and their corresponding English“get-verbs” is based on the prototype theory and our own definition of “huoqu” verbs.They are “买---buy,偷---steal,抢---rob,拉---pull,取---take”. This corpus-basedcontrastive study draws on the semantic and syntactic contrast of Chinese “huoqu” verbsand English “get-verbs” and their semantics-syntax linking models based on the linkingtheory, specifically the linking model of “event structure---argument structure---cognitivestructure---syntactic structure”, by utilizing LCMC (the Lancaster Corpus of MandarinChinese) and FROWN (Freiburg-Brown Corpus of American English).The result shows that:(1) Chinese “huoqu” verbs and English “get-verbs” differ in semantic features suchas manner, exerting force, legitimacy and direction in spite of similarities in the meaning“one entity exerting force on the other entity so as to make something shift from the latterto the former”.(2) Both the basic meaning of “obtaining” and the extended meaning of “giving” arefound in English “get-verbs”. However, Chinese “huoqu” verbs only have the meaning of“obtaining”. Besides, English “get-verbs” are capable of singularly denoting complex lexical meanings with single word when Chinese “huoqu” verbs have to resort tocompound phrases or syntactic structures. For instance, the corresponding Englishtranslation for the Chinese phrases “买好了�'菜”,“偷他人财物” can be simplified as theverb phrases:“have bought food and wine” and “steal”. Moreover, in Chinese the“V+adj/adv/NP” structure is frequently used to express the action and result of a motion. InEnglish, it is inclined to use one single word such as “overcharged” for “买贵了” and“buy” for “买通,买账”.(3) Almost all of the Chinese “huoqu” verbs can be used in the syntactic structure of“V+NP”,“Vbare” and “V+resultative complement”. This type of verbs can also combinewith another monosyllabic verb to form verbal phrases. The “NP” in “V+NP” revealshierarchical disparities from concrete nouns to abstract nouns, and then to nouns withmetonymic meaning. English “get-verbs”, by contrast, are characterized by prepositionalconstructions with solid meaning, such as “buy off, steal of, pull off”.(4) Chinese “huoqu” verbs can be largely used in the “NP1+V+NP2+NP3” structure.“NP1” is mainly the living entity with the characteristics of [+human],[+controllable] and[+autonomy], while “NP2” bears the semantic features of [+detailed],[+possessive] and[+passive] and “NP3” the semantic features of [+passive],[+transferring] and[+independent].(5) Both Chinese “huoqu” verbs and English “get-verbs” can be used in the structuresof “NP1agent+Vobtaining+NP2ending-point/starting-point+NP3object” and“NP1agent+Vobtaining+NP3object”. However, Chinese “huoqu” verbs can also be used in the“NP2ending-point/starting-point+Vobtaining+NP3object” structure. It is possible to add locative nounsin the middle of the agent and the Chinese “huoqu” verbs to illustrate the source of what isobtained, such as “他从商店买了条裙子”,“他从银行抢了500万”,“他从国防部偷了份情报”.(6) Adjectives are allowed to show up directly before or after Chinese “huoqu” verbsto illustrate the state or the result of a motion, such as “这本书好买/买红了/买贵了/买错了”. However, such instances are very rare in English “get-verbs”. Only “pull” has thesimilar usage.(7) Chinese “huoqu” verbs and English “get-verbs” share common semantic featuresof “cause, Objectterminal” and “Pathterminal”. But only two semantics-syntax linking modelsare needed by the Chinese group as opposed to the four models by the Englishcounterparts.It can be concluded that there are similarities and differences in semantics, syntax as well as semantics-syntax linking patterns between Chinese “huoqu” verbs and English“get-verbs”.This study has arrived at two main findings:1) The intrinsic semantic properties ofboth Chinese and English verbs can basically predict their syntactic behavior, and theirdifferent semantics will lead to various syntactic structures;2) Chinese tend to be analyticwhile English is more synthetic. This contrastive research also suggests that differences areapparent while similarities are relative between the Chinese and English languages.