A Study On The Bonding Structure Of The Tendency Verbs

With directional verbs "shang/xia" as the complements, the structures of "V shang/xia" have a high frequency of utility in modern Chinese. According to the reasons of the semantic diversity within directional verbs "shang/xia", the differences of grammaticalization and the asymmetry between "V shang" and "V xia", the structures of "V shang/xia" show a high degree of complexity, which have attracted wide attention in academia, and have attained fruitful research results. It is of great significance in deepening the understanding of these two structures to comprehensively study the grammaticalization processes of the two types’"verb+complement" structures, to analyze the semantic types and combined features of these two structures in modern Chinese, and to investigate the performances and causes of their asymmetry.The structures of "V shang" and "V xia" underwent lengthy grammaticalization processes, which can be divided into3major stages. The initial stage is Han Dynasty when they emerged and were mostly used as "verbverb" structures. Because of the location of "shang/xia" and the simplicity of their verbal meanings, there appeared the germinations of grammaticalization. During the solidified stage from the Three Kingdoms period to Tang Dynasty,"shang/xia" were mostly used as directional complements. In Tang Dynasty,"V shang" generated the usage of resultant complement meaning "completed", while "V xia" emerged the same usage in as early as Jin Dynasty, because it evolved from the verbal meaning of "obtain" as well as from the function of directional complement. Besides,"xia" emerged the usage of resultant complement meaning "left" in Tang Dynasty. After Song Dynasty, the semantics of "V shang/xia" structure gradually diversified and developed usages similar to today in Qing Dynasty. These diversified usages performed as the generalization of "shang/xia" as directional complements, the diversification of "shang/xia" as resultant complements, the deepening of structures’subjectivity, the derogatory of "V xia", the emergence and development of "V shang/xia+quantity", and the function as a mark of progressive aspect evolved from different paths.According to the characters and meanings of complement "shang/xia","V shang" and "V xia" can be divided into8kinds with15meanings, including rudimentary directional structures of "V shang/xia1", specific resultant structures of "V shang/xia2", abstract resultant structures of "V shang/xia3", subjective quantity mark of "V shang4", and progressive aspect mark of "V shang5". Among these structures,"V shang/xia1" is the basic types, which develop into others through mirror model, single-domain model, or dual-domain model conceptual integration. During the15meanings, horizontally directional structures of "V shang1" and "V xia1","completed" meant structures of "V shang3" and "V xia3", and subjective quantity mark of "V shang4" and "contained" meant "V xia3" have convergent or approximate semantics, while vertical directional structures of "V shang1" and "V xia1""contacted" meant "V shang2" and "separated" meant "V xia2", and "achieved" meant "V shang3" and "possessed" meant "V xia3" have opposite semantics. Compared with the superficial phenomena of convergence or approximation, the opposition of semantics is the nature of complements "shang" and "xia". Except for "V shang4", all other "V shang/xia" structures have specific semantic requirements on verbs inside the structures. Complements "shang/xia" generally point to object, but "shang/xia1" point to subject when the trajector moves itself;"shang3" and "shang5" point to verbs inside the structures, while "shang4" points to quantity. The differences show that "V shang" structures have higher degree of compactness and grammaticalization than "V xia"Asymmetric phenomena widely exist in "V shang/xia" structures, mainly performed as the degrees of grammaticalization, the verbs within the structures, and the jointly-appeared components. On the foundation of the opposite prototypes, the internal mechanism of these asymmetric phenomena is Chinese people’ cognitive trend, representing externally as the difference in quantity of marks that "V shang/xia" structures carry with."V shang/xia" structures’ characters, functions, and differences can be more fully explained through the study of the performance and causes of asymmetry.