| The aggregative monosyllabic verbs existed universally and were widely used in all periods of ancient Chinese.With the passage of time and the development of the language,the semantic system of aggregative monosyllabic verbs has changed a lot.This paper borrows from the grand triangle theory in grammar research,that is,the combination of "Pu Fang Gu",and focuses on the dynamic changes of the theoretical elements on the basis of a detailed examination of more than 50,000 pieces of corpus.The semantic evolution of four commonly used monosyllabic verbs in Chinese,namely "gather","set","pile" and "accumulate",is depicted in detail.By revealing the semantic logic of the evolution of the related meanings,the paper explains how and why the related meanings evolve in the light of human cognitive experience,and discusses the commonalities and individualities reflected in the process of their evolution.Firstly,the article examines a large corpus and describes in detail the semantic evolution of the four words "gather","set","heap" and "accumulate" based on the actual usage of the verbs and the changes of arguments,and the mistakes of the dictionary are also discussed.In addition to the clarification of the original meaning,the semantic system of "gather" is divided into two parts: "the gathering of people" and "the gathering of things";"set "The latter is subdivided into "the collection of people","the collection of documents",and "the collection of other things".The latter is subdivided into three subcategories: "the set of people," "the set of documents," and "the set of other things";"heap" is divided into "the heap of static results" and "the heap of dynamic processes The "heap" is divided into "heap of static results" and "heap of dynamic processes";"product" is also divided into "product of dynamic processes" and"product of static results".At the same time,the usage of some words in dialects is included in the scope of investigation,and an attempt is made to construct a semantic system for each word based on the changes of semantic elements and semantic features.Secondly,the airticle explores and summarizes the evolution patterns and differences in the semantic evolution of the four monosyllabic verbs of the aggregation category on the basis of the previous study.It is found that "gather," "set," "heap," and"accumulate" all have an evolutionary path from It is found that the evolutionary paths of "gather","set","heap" and "accumulation" all have the situation from "spatial displacement" to "result formation" and then to "state prominence".At the same time,they show different degrees of lexicalization,nominalization and quantization.In the subsidiary meaning,there are different degrees of semantic devaluation.Among them,"accumulate" is particularly obvious,which may be related to the length of the verb duration.In terms of differences,all four words show a general evolutionary pattern from concrete to abstract,but "accumulate" shows a shift from space to time in the evolutionary process,while "gather" and "set" show an increase in the number of theoretical elements and an increase in the number of theoretical elements.The number of theoretical elements increases,and there is a change from active to passive.In addition,by examining the semantic categories involved in each word,it is found that there are differences in the strength of their derivation: set > accumulation > gathering >heap,as well as differences in the derivation bias: "set" and "accumulation" are biased toward the category of object movement,while "heap" and "gathering" are biased toward the category of object movement."The semantic derivation bias of "gather" is not obvious.In terms of semantic interpretation,these four words have both similarities and differences in the process of evolution,for example,they all have the common meaning of "meeting and gathering",but different semantic features may lead to differences in specific interpretations.In this paper,based on the core meaning theory,we use two expressions,common core meaning and specific core meaning,to better explain the "similarities" and "differences" in the evolution of word meanings.The former is the cause of "same",while the latter is the cause of "different",the former is the basis of the latter,and the latter is the development of the former.In the process of evolution,the adverbial usage of "gather" and the relative degree of "accumulate" can be explained semantically.In addition,this paper explains the motives and mechanisms of semantic evolution from a cognitive perspective.First,metaphor and metonymy,which are rooted in human thinking,still play an important role in the process of semantic evolution.Second,the shift and clustering of semantic concepts,as well as the morphological features and ambiguities embedded in the lexical meaning of verbs themselves,have had an important impact on their corporalization trend.Finally,the cross-domain projection of verbal morphemes and the activation and diffusion of morphemes are also closely related to the semantic evolution process.The concluding section summarizes the research of this paper,summarizes the relevant findings and shortcomings,and provides a preliminary outlook for future research.The semantic evolution of the commonly used Chinese aggregative monosyllabic verbs and the evolutionary patterns and features they exhibit show the great potential of the study of Chinese aggregative monosyllabic verbs. |
