Languages across the world differ from each other in a number of
respects, and one such difference is in terms of how their lexicons
are categorized. Compared to most European languages with distinct,
functionally dedicated word classes in the traditional sense, quite
a few languages are observed to possess lexical items that can
fulfill the functions typically associated with more than one
traditional word class such as 'noun' and 'verb'. According to
Rijkhoff and van Lier (2013), these lexemes exhibit what is called
'flexibility'. Classical Chinese is observed to feature word-class
flexibility, in the sense that there are lexemes that can be used
to serve the functions of two or more traditional word classes,
without the functional change being marked by any derivational
means. For instance, a lexical item like xin can either function as
a verb meaning 'to be trustworthy [intr.]' or 'to believe, to trust
[tr.]' or serve as a noun meaning 'trust, oath of alliance'.
Similarly, a human-denoting lexeme such as you FRIEND cannot only
mean 'a friend' but also 'to be a friend, to behave friendly
[intr.]', 'to make friends with [tr.]' or 'to consider as a friend
[tr.]'; an instrument word like bian WHIP cannot only mean 'a whip'
but also 'to whip'. This situation is often thought to be related
to the fact that Classical Chinese does not have any kind of
productive morphology in the traditional sense (e.g. Zadrapa 2011).
This is reflected in the lack of markedness distinctions across
Croft's (2000, 2001) conceptual space for parts of speech. This
study ascribes flexibility of parts of speech in Classical Chinese
to precategoriality, in line with Bisang (2008 a, b).
Precategoriality can roughly be defined as the absence of the
noun-verb distinction in the lexicon; instead, the linking of
individual words to the syntactic position of N or V as well as
their text frequency in these positions are subject to pragmatics.
Precategorial lexical items are those that are not preclassified
into parts of speech in the lexicon; rather, their word-class
specification is ultimately determined at the syntactic level,
according to their position/function in a given word-class
indicating construction. From a diachronic viewpoint, this study
assumes that precategoriality and categoriality of individual
lexical items are not static, but that they are potentialities and
tendencies that may change over time. Specifically, (full)
precategoriality and (full) categoriality are assumed to constitute
a continuum in the lexicon of Chinese throughout its history. In
any given historical period, lexical items of the language are
distributed between the two extremes on the continuum, according to
the intensity of the association between their lexical meaning and
the syntactic position/function of e.g. N or V. Generally, along
the continuum at a given historical stage, lexemes with a strong
association between meaning and function (i.e. lexemes that are
normally associated only with one word-class specification for a
particular syntactic role) tend to be located close to the extreme
of (full) categoriality. In contrast, lexemes that are not
necessarily related to one specific association between meaning and
function, but can potentially occur in a variety of such
associations, are assumed to be placed closer to (full)
precategoriality instead. Roughly speaking, the group of lexemes
that is located towards (full) precategoriality are flexible
lexemes, though with varying degrees of flexibility, whose
semantics licenses a syntactic variety and can thus be linked to
more than one word-class specification through syntactic
specification, a syntactically specified process of category
assignment. Based on these considerations, this study aims to
present the results of a corpus-based investigation into
flexibility of parts of speech in Classical Chinese. The research
focuses on two types of syntactic specifications of flexible
lexemes, namely, those using action-denoting lexemes in nominal
function (the V N type), and those using object-denoting lexemes in
verbal function (the N V type). The two types of syntactic
specifications are investigated for this study in the five
Classical Chinese texts (Zuozhuan, Mengzi, Guoyu, Mozi, and
Zhanguoce). Based on empirical facts, flexibility of parts of
speech in Classical Chinese is addressed at three descriptive
levels in this study: First, at the level of syntax, the discussion
focuses on the most important syntactic configurations for the use
of flexible lexemes and their relations to the basic word order of
this language, with flexibility being observed in two positions of
an argument structure construction: the V-position and the
syntactic position of an argument. The findings of this study
demonstrate that as far as the argument structure constructions
formed with flexible lexemes are concerned, VO word order is much
more frequent than OV. This strong preference for VO is, in
connection with lexical flexibility, explained as follows: With the
loss of derivational morphology in early stages of Old Chinese
(e.g. Sagart 1999), word order became the most important indicator
of word class and strongly supported the omission of strict
verb-noun distinctions (co-existence of precategoriality and
categoriality) in the lexicon of this language. Second, at the
level of cognitive semantics (e.g. Lakoff 1987; Koevecses and
Radden 1998; Schoenefeld 2005), the discussion concentrates on the
metonymic relationships that constitute the cognitive-semantic
foundation of the use of flexible lexemes in Classical Chinese. In
a metonymic mapping of either the V N or the N V type, the original
semantics of a lexical item (which may typically be associated with
a certain syntactic role of N or V) is used as a reference point to
provide mental access to the newly derived meaning of the item in
another syntactic function. Given the typologically salient
characteristics of Classical Chinese discussed in this book, the
argument is that the flexible use of an existing word form as a
metonymically related but syntactically distinct item is one of the
most economic ways in this language to name a new concept or a
newly construed situation in discourse. Third, at the level of
argument structure constructions (Bisang 2008a, b), the discussion
focuses on how the different metonymic relationships mentioned
interact with a given argument structure construction (which
carries its own meaning within itself), and how these are further
concretized into rule-based or metaphorically motivated pragmatic
implicatures. A closer examination of an argument structure
construction with an object word in the V-position reveals that
there are two underlying frameworks for deriving the concrete
meaning of the construction. In the rule-based framework, the
verbal function of a given object word can basically be derived
through grammatical analysis of the whole construction. In the
metaphorical framework, the composed semantics of the construction
actively interacts with the outside world in our conceptual system,
where metaphor (Lakoff 1987, 1993; Koevecses 2010) serves as an
essential cognitive principle in establishing and (re-)interpreting
relations in the construction. The two mechanisms, rule-based and
metaphorical, complement each other and work together to account
for flexibility in Classical Chinese. This study argues that
flexibility of parts of speech in Classical Chinese can only be
fully understood by integrating a wide range of aspects, both
linguistic and non-linguistic. The components that are needed to
account for it include constructions (form-meaning pairings),
semantics (Croft's conceptual space), pragmatic implicatures,
metonymies, metaphors, as well as world knowledge as reflected
within a culture. In my view, it is reasonable to argue that these
components need not be specific to the language investigated here;
they are applicable to any language that shows flexibility in its
parts-of-speech system.
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