Mismatches in verb complements: A corpus-based study of the complement coercion operation in Chinese
Journal
Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory
Journal Volume
2015
Date Issued
2015
Author(s)
Hsu, C.-C.
Abstract
While much attention has been paid to the complement coercion operation in English (e.g., began a book), the same phenomenon in Chinese is still under-researched. Our study examines twenty coercing verbs in Chinese, creating a coercion profile for each verb and conducting a cluster analysis based on the coercion profiles. The results suggest that semantically related verbs in Chinese tend to have similar coercion profiles. We also identify a diverse range of nouns that can be coerced in Chinese. Finally, it is demonstrated that generative approaches to the complement coercion operation in Chinese can be complemented by cognitive-functional approaches.
Type
journal article