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Article In: Review of Cognitive Linguistics: Online-First Articles

A multifactorial aspectual analysis of variations in the completive markers wán (‘finished’) and hǎo (‘well’) in Mandarin

ORCiD logo with link | Beihang UniversityBeijing
ORCiD logo with link | Beihang UniversityBeijing
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Abstract
This study presents a multifactorial aspectual analysis of the Mandarin completive markers wán and hǎo. Using multiple correspondence analysis, conditional inference trees, and conditional random forests, we examine the distribution, prototypical features, and conditional importance of the constructions V wán and V hǎo across thirteen semantic and syntactic variables. The results indicate that eight variables, namely creativity, situation type, telicity, agentivity, concreteness, boundedness, animacy, and definiteness, play the most significant roles in distinguishing between these two constructions. In contrast, five variables, including semantic orientation, dynamicity, the aspectual marker le, plurality, and durativity, demonstrate comparatively weaker influence. We argue that specialization and generalization are the cognitive mechanisms underlying variation between the two constructions. The study proposes the Completive Aspect Hypothesis, refining Bybee’s classification of the completive aspect, and offers empirical support for Chinese completive-aspect typology and second language pedagogy.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Completive aspect
    • 2.1Definitions of completive aspect
    • 2.2Completive aspect in Mandarin
    • 2.3Completive markers wán and hǎo in Mandarin
      • 2.3.1Syntactic features of Mandarin completive markers wán and hǎo
      • 2.3.2Semantic features of Mandarin completive markers wán and hǎo
  • 3.Methodology
    • 3.1Data retrieval
    • 3.2Data annotation
    • 3.3Statistical techniques
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1General results: Distribution of variables of V wán and V hǎo
    • 4.2Assessing the prototypical features using MCA
    • 4.3Assessing the effect of predictors using CITs
    • 4.4Assessing the effect of predictors using CRFs
  • 5.Discussion
    • 5.1Refining the completive aspect in Mandarin
    • 5.2Mechanisms underlying the completive aspect in Mandarin
  • 6.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
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