A Corpus-based Study Of The Pattern “bǎ+NP+VP” In Mandarin Chinese

Great significance has been ascribed to the pattern “bǎ+NP+VP” due to its high frequency and various usages,but there are some research gaps in existing studies concerning research objects,research methods and theoretical foundation.Existing studies on bǎ-sentences are mainly qualitative ones based on systemic-functional grammar,transformational-generative grammar or dependency grammar.Most studies focus on the grammatical meaning and generation of bǎ-sentence,and analyses on the constituents of “bǎ+NP+VP” remain at the level of isolated attributes.Semantic associations between components and the interaction between meaning and grammar are not fully demonstrated,and little attention has been paid to register differences.Based on a 2.2-million-word corpus,the present study takes pattern grammar and ontology as theoretical foundations and adopts quantitative methods to comprehensively analyze“bǎ+NP+VP” from the perspective of semantics,grammar and register differences.This study aims to answer the following questions:（1）How should semantic distribution and associations within this pattern be better described? What are the key semantic subcategories of head nouns and verbs in this pattern?（2）What are typical usages and grammatical types of this pattern?（3）Do linguistic features of the pattern show variation across different registers? Can the interaction among register,grammar and meaning be proved?The results indicate that semantic categories of head nouns and verbs in this pattern are associated with each other,and simultaneously confined by this pattern.Ab [person] and Id [action of upper limbs] constitute the most important semantic subcategories of noun and verb,respectively,in this pattern.Four typical usages of this pattern are summarized through cooccurrence networks,and eight pattern types are listed according to the grammatical features of VP.Co-occurrence networks show that,compared with the spoken register,the written register has a more complicated and dispersive distribution of semantic features.Finally,the interaction among register（spoken or written）,grammar（pattern types）and meaning（semantic features）,has been proved from the statistical view.The major innovation of this study lies in the addition of the variable “register”,the adoption of the ontology-based semantic coding system of the New Synonym Dictionary,and the utilization of co-occurrence networks for better visualization and description of language data.The present study bears significance in two aspects.From the perspective of linguistics,the comprehensive understanding and objective description of the pattern “bǎ+NP+VP” is achieved through the reveal of semantic distribution and associations between components,as well as the classification of grammatical structures.Most importantly,this study has found statistical evidence for the interaction among register,grammar and meaning,which serves as verification and enrichment of previous theories.In the practical field of education,this study provides not only authentic materials for TCSL textbook compilation,but also reference and concrete situations for speaking and writing exercises in teaching and learning of Chinese as a foreign language,which can help foreign learners of Chinese have a better command of “bǎ” sentences.