Article published In:
Chinese Language and DiscourseVol. 6:1 (2015) ► pp.2–27
On the principled polysemy of -kai in Chinese resultative verbs
The present study sets out to construct a semantic network for -kai in Chinese resultative verbs based on the framework of Principled Polysemy. Our analysis concerning the cognitive-pragmatic motivations for the meaning extensions of postverbal -kai pinpoints the significance of perspective-taking and real-world force dynamics in the conceptual structure of Chinese resultative verbs. With the aid of corpus data, we further demonstrate how pertinent textual cues help to disambiguate polysemous V-kai complex verbs and evoke metaphorical readings of the gestalt V–V constructions, hinting at the distributed and context-sensitive nature of the meaning construction of Chinese resultative verbs.
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