《Shi Shuo Xin Yu》Semantic Werb Behavior Research

From the perspective of semantic features and argument structures, this paper takes an systematic semantic research about the action verbs in Shi Shuo Xin Yu for the first time. This paper first adopts the exhaustive statistical method to sort out the 953 action verbs in Shi Shuo Xin Yu, then classify them into eleven categories based on different semantics:displacement verbs (184), acquired verbs (153), dative verbs (164), causative verbs (24), psychological verbs (87), visual verbs (51), speech verbs (174), feast verbs (33), scrawled verbs (34), result verbs (24), and other items (25). After that, by using argument theory, the paper takes an argument structure analysis about each verb category, classify the types and expression of argument structures for each verb category, concluding the argument structure features of the action verbs in Shi Shuo Xin Yu. At last, by means of semantic feature analysis, the paper analyzes each verb category from the perspectives of semantic features and semantic choice, then conclude the semantic features of the action verbs in Shi Shuo Xin Yu. The results of the study are as follows:(1) In Shi Shuo Xin Yu, the action verbs with a single syllable are the majority, and they are more widely used than the action verbs with double syllables. The displacement verbs and speech verbs are used more frequently.(2) The semantic roles that the action verbs in Shi Shuo Xin Yu can contact or dominate include the subject semantic roles and object semantic roles, among which there are four types of subject roles and fourteen types of object roles.(3) The action verbs in Shi Shuo Xin Yu has five types of argument structure. The double argument structures are dominant. It’s very common that the argument is often omitted. The patient argument is prominent in Shi Shuo Xin Yu. The distribution of argument structure types for each verb category is different. When the action verb’s argument structure is single argument and the action verb has [+abstract] semantic feature, the action verb mostly has the passive meaning.(4) There are altogether 24 types of semantic structures for the action verbs in Shi Shuo Xin Yu. The semantic choice of the action verb’s subject and object is influenced by the three semantic features:[independent], [specific] and [alive].(5) From the perspective of pragmatic effect, the patient argument is more prominent while the subject argument is often neglected.