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Cognitive Linguistics and the Study of Chinese
Edited by Dingfang Shu, Hui Zhang and Lifei Zhang
[Human Cognitive Processing 67] 2019
► pp. 157–182

Chapter 5
The conceptual spatialization of actions or activities in Chinese

The Adjective + Verb construction

| Beijing Foreign Studies University

This chapter focuses on the semantics of a grammatical pattern in Chinese that combines an adjective with a verb (Adj + V construction). The pattern contravenes the grammatical traditions, which assume that a noun is typically modified by an adjective (Adj + N) and a verb by an adverbial (Adv + V). This study shows that the Adj + V construction is not only pervasive in Chinese, but that the V may even convey a highly dynamic meaning. Rather than concluding that the existence of the construction is the evidence of a word class shift from verb to noun, from a cognitive perspective, it is argued that the Adj + V construction mirrors a certain way of thinking about actions and activities in terms of entities and substances located in space.

Keywords: cognitive perspective, grammatical pattern, word class shift
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The spatiality of nouns and the temporality of verbs
  • 3.The Adj + V pattern in Chinese
  • 4.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgment
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 20 November 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/hcp.67.07wan
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