A Study on Semantic Analysis of Verbal Suffixes in Chinese Mandarin

陳建平

《復興崗學報》 55期 (1995/09) Pp. 50-66

並列摘要

This paper is aimed at analyzing the semantic properties of verbal suffixes in Chinese Mandarin. Mandarin has different kinds of affixes in which suffixes are more common than prefixes and infixes. However, the verbal suffix is the most common and important one among the various affixes.
Mandarin verbs can either take different types of suffixes or a zero suffix. With the presence or absence of verbal suffixes, the meanings of words or expressions vary. Verbs that take different types of suffixes indicate various aspects in meaning. Therefore, the existence of verbal suffixes plays an important role of meaning description in Chinese Mandarin.
Despite this, the normative use of verbal suffixes cannot be given the hard and fast rules because of its facultative quality-the use of suffixes is sometimes optional in Mandarin. It is this reason that the paper puts an emphasis on explaining and analyzing the uses and meanings in some simple and complex sentences related to the presence of verbal suffixes.