A Diachronic Research Into The Chinese Character Yuè From Motion Event Construction Perspective

Compared with Ancient Chinese,Modern Chinese character yuè‘越’demonstrates two significant differences in terms of syntactic behaviors and semantics:Firstly,in Modern Chinese,the character yuè‘越’usually cannot be used independently.It should pair with other verbs to form a verb phrase.And usually,it is positioned in the V₂ slot of a Serial Verb Construction（SVC）or a V₁V₂ construction.Secondly,the meaning of the verb has dramatically reduced.However,the character’s syntactic behaviors and the degree of abstraction are very different from those prepositions that originated from path verbs,which means the verb has not been fully grammaticalized.And it shows a potential to be understood as expressing manner information in the V₁ slot of an SVC and path or result information in the V₂ slot.Previous research focused on the semantic extension of the verb and its adverbialization in“yuèX yuèX”construction.However,few studies paid attention to the overall evolutionary process of the character as a constituent in verb phrases.The thesis is intended to study the diachronic evolution of the character and tries to describe the process of its transition in syntactic behaviors and semantic reduction.The thesis aims to account for the deep motivation and mechanism behind such changes,deepen the understanding of lexicalization patterns in Chinese verbs,clarify the criteria of verb classification,and supplement the knowledge about Chinese’s diachronic evolution.The study is based on Diachronic Construction Grammar and Motion Event Constructions.Through investigating the usage patterns in Ancient Chinese Corpus developed by National Language Commission,the study manages to answer the following questions:（1）How was the verb yuè‘越’used in different periods of Chinese history?（2）How did syntactic behavior and lexical meaning of the verb interactionally change?（3）What are the motivations and mechanisms underlying such changes?The research finds that the verb’s syntactic behavior has undergone a transition from independent use to coordinated form and to Serial Verb Construction and disyllabified“yuè+N”constructions.And the meaning of the verb initially highlights“manner+path”information.However,the verb’s meaning later became a general description of motion under the coercion by simplified Motion Event Construction.Finally,SVCs force the verb to be specialized in expressing result/path information.The internal motivation of such change is that yuèwas a highly synthetic motion verb that lexicalized“motion+manner+result”in Old Chinese.The mechanism of specialization in meaning is the reanalysis of event elements in a verb due to the impact of event integration in Chinese history.