Aspect construal in Mandarin: a usage-based constructionist perspective on LE
Despite extensive research efforts to explain the Mandarin Chinese particle le, confusion persists in the absence of a unitary theory and sufficient empirical evidence. This study provides a unitary account of le by adopting a usage-based constructionist approach, one that liberates grammatical aspe...
| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
De Gruyter
2022-03-01
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| Series: | Linguistics |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1515/ling-2020-0198 |
| _version_ | 1797208481634189312 |
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| author | Jing-Schmidt Zhuo Lang Jun Shi Heidi Hui Hung Steffi H. Zhu Lin |
| author_facet | Jing-Schmidt Zhuo Lang Jun Shi Heidi Hui Hung Steffi H. Zhu Lin |
| author_sort | Jing-Schmidt Zhuo |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Despite extensive research efforts to explain the Mandarin Chinese particle le, confusion persists in the absence of a unitary theory and sufficient empirical evidence. This study provides a unitary account of le by adopting a usage-based constructionist approach, one that liberates grammatical aspect from, and is able to accommodate, lexical aspect. We argue that le participates in two distinct family resemblance constructions of aspect construal associated with two distinct sentential positions. The clause-internal le construction construes the closing or final boundary of an event and the clause-final le construction construes the opening or initial boundary of an event. Corpus analysis showed that the two aspect constructions have distinct patterns in natural language uses that are consistent with the proposed construals. Results from elicited response data showed that native speakers paid attention to construction-level formal and semantic cues in making family resemblance judgments about tokens of the two constructions. This study has both theoretical and methodological implications for crosslinguistic research on grammatical aspect in relation to lexical aspect and for usage-based constructionist approaches to grammatical categories beyond aspect. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-24T09:39:30Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-1f5ffc0358bb417aab4e9ecae36aaf83 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 0024-3949 1613-396X |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-24T09:39:30Z |
| publishDate | 2022-03-01 |
| publisher | De Gruyter |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Linguistics |
| spelling | doaj.art-1f5ffc0358bb417aab4e9ecae36aaf832024-04-15T07:41:57ZengDe GruyterLinguistics0024-39491613-396X2022-03-0160254157710.1515/ling-2020-0198Aspect construal in Mandarin: a usage-based constructionist perspective on LEJing-Schmidt Zhuo0Lang Jun1Shi Heidi Hui2Hung Steffi H.3Zhu Lin4Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures, 1248 University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, USADepartment of East Asian Languages and Literatures, 1248 University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, USADepartment of East Asian Languages and Literatures, 1248 University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, USADepartment of East Asian Languages and Literatures, 1248 University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, USADepartment of East Asian Languages and Literatures, 1248 University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, USADespite extensive research efforts to explain the Mandarin Chinese particle le, confusion persists in the absence of a unitary theory and sufficient empirical evidence. This study provides a unitary account of le by adopting a usage-based constructionist approach, one that liberates grammatical aspect from, and is able to accommodate, lexical aspect. We argue that le participates in two distinct family resemblance constructions of aspect construal associated with two distinct sentential positions. The clause-internal le construction construes the closing or final boundary of an event and the clause-final le construction construes the opening or initial boundary of an event. Corpus analysis showed that the two aspect constructions have distinct patterns in natural language uses that are consistent with the proposed construals. Results from elicited response data showed that native speakers paid attention to construction-level formal and semantic cues in making family resemblance judgments about tokens of the two constructions. This study has both theoretical and methodological implications for crosslinguistic research on grammatical aspect in relation to lexical aspect and for usage-based constructionist approaches to grammatical categories beyond aspect.https://doi.org/10.1515/ling-2020-0198aspect markerconstrualusage-based constructionist approach |
| spellingShingle | Jing-Schmidt Zhuo Lang Jun Shi Heidi Hui Hung Steffi H. Zhu Lin Aspect construal in Mandarin: a usage-based constructionist perspective on LE Linguistics aspect marker construal usage-based constructionist approach |
| title | Aspect construal in Mandarin: a usage-based constructionist perspective on LE |
| title_full | Aspect construal in Mandarin: a usage-based constructionist perspective on LE |
| title_fullStr | Aspect construal in Mandarin: a usage-based constructionist perspective on LE |
| title_full_unstemmed | Aspect construal in Mandarin: a usage-based constructionist perspective on LE |
| title_short | Aspect construal in Mandarin: a usage-based constructionist perspective on LE |
| title_sort | aspect construal in mandarin a usage based constructionist perspective on le |
| topic | aspect marker construal usage-based constructionist approach |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1515/ling-2020-0198 |
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