SEMANTIC ANALYSIS AND CONTEXTUAL HARMONY OF DURATIONS

Temporal relations, such duration, aspect, frequency, time point and sequence as expressions, describe the relationships between temporal elements and events in complex knowledge networks. Logical compatibility between temporal elements and different types of events has a strong influence on the semantic interpretation and grammaticality of sentences. It is one of the most complicated, frequently used, but least understood concepts in linguistics. In this paper, we focus on durations, and show that syntactic structures (construction patterns) make fine-grained distinctions between durations. We also explain their common functionalities and differences based on semantic harmony. In addition, we show that the usage of durations is affected primarily by their constructional meanings and the types of collocated events; and constructional meaning of durations is main factor which affect the usage of durations. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the morpho-syntactic structure of durations also reduces the flexibility of their usage. We list four types of morpho-syntactic structures of duration expressions, and discuss the constraints on their usage. Based on our observations, we conclude that the properness of a sentence depends on an ordering of the lexical words such that the semantics, syntax, and morphology of the sentence are in harmony.

關鍵字

Semantic harmony ； Constructional meaning ； Durations ； Temporal relation

並列摘要

時間關係包括時貌、時點、時段、頻率及序列等等，它們在複雜的知識網絡中，被用來表達事件和時間成分之間的關係。時間成分與事件類型的合理搭配對語義的理解以及語法的正確性影響很大，這個既複雜又經常出現的語言學課題，尚未有從語義切入的完備分析。在本文中，我們針對時間關係中的時段成分分析其用法，區別出時段詞的細緻語義，說明它們因結構語義而產生的不同用法。我們還指出時段詞所搭配的事件類型和語義內涵是影響它們用法的主要因素。並發現時段的成分結構也影響了它的用法，我們共列出四種時段成分所衍生的組成形式，並討論其語義及用法限制。最終我們歸納認為句子的完備性須符合語義、語法和詞構的語境和諧律。

並列關鍵字

語境和諧律；結構語義；時段；時間關係

國際替代計量

SEMANTIC ANALYSIS AND CONTEXTUAL HARMONY OF DURATIONS

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