The Art of Falling: A Corpus-based Study of Near-synonymous Verbs 落luò and 掉 diào in Mandarin Chinese

下墜的藝術：以語料庫為本比較中文近義詞「落」與「掉」

余瑞瑩(Jui-ying Yu)

《臺中教育大學學報：人文藝術類》 35卷2期 (2021/12) Pp. 43-81

摘要

This paper compares two near-synonymous verbs of falling in Mandarin Chinese, 落 luò and 掉diào, based on data of the Sinica Corpus. According to the word list of Academia Sinica, luò and diào are the two most frequently used verbs meaning falling. Though they are interchangeable in dictionaries, their distinctive semantic meanings have yet to be investigated. The present study compares the syntactic patterns and collocates of luò and diào in unaccusative use, which is their predominant use, and identifies their crucial differences in the types of motion, genre distribution, and extent of semantic change. Specifically, luò depicts distant, smooth motion in nature and relates to written texts, and it has revealed a dominant use as a linking verb signaling a change into a new state. As for diào, it portrays proximal, abrupt motion related to human participation and occurs in natural spoken texts, and its use as a motion verb predominates. In addition to these major differences, the current study also teases out the nuanced difference between the two verbs in terms of boundedness, the initial/medial/final process of motion, the speaker's viewpoint of the motion, and the wholeness of the entity in motion. The semantic differences between luò and diào are compared based on Talmy's (2000) Conceptual Structuring System, although the limitations of the system are also suggested. The semantic change of luò is accounted for by the notions of semantic narrowing and broadening and metaphorical extension. The findings are expected to pave the way for further studies of downward motion verbs.

關鍵字

near-synonym ； verb of falling ； unaccusative ； Conceptual Structuring System ； metaphorical extension

並列摘要

本文分析平衡語料庫語料，比較中文兩個下墜動詞「落」與「掉」。根據中研院的詞頻表，在表下墜的動詞中，落與掉的使用頻率最高。在國語辭典中兩者可相互替換，然而個別的語意特徵有待探究。兩動詞皆有作為非賓格與非作格動詞用法，本文探討出現頻率較高的前者，提出兩者在動作類型、語體分布與語意變化程度上有顯著差異。「落」描述遙遠、輕盈、與大自然相關的移動，出現在書面語，主要作為連綴動詞，表達「轉變成新狀態」之意。「掉」表達近距離、與人類活動相關的突發動作，出現在自然口語，主要仍作為移動動詞。除此之外，本文也點出兩動詞在表有界性、動作發生的初期／中期／後期階段、說話者視角以及客體的整體性上的差異。兩個動詞語意差異以Talmy（2000）的概念結構系統以及譬喻延伸、語意擴大與窄化的概念來解釋，概念結構系統應用的限制亦被提及。本文研究結果盼能對下移動詞組的研究有所裨益。

並列關鍵字

近義詞 ； 下墜動詞 ； 非賓格動詞 ； 概念結構系統 ； 譬喻延伸

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