老化学楼
The talk will address an important and puzzling issue in Chinese linguistics: how should Chinese verbs be analyzed, classified and represented? It is well known that Mandarin verbs behave different from their English counterparts in semantic scopes and polysemous ranges. However, what is still unsettled is a principled and effective framework for a comprehensive investigation of Chinese verbs. A newly proposed approach in Liu (2017, to appear), called Frame-based Constructional approach, makes use of Frame Semantics (Fillmore 1985, 1992) and Construction Grammar (Goldberg 1995, 2006) to define the interactional patterns between verbs and constructions. The study presents a case study on Mandarin placement verbs such as 放/摆/挂 ‘to put/set/hang’ and redefines the class with semantic-to-syntactic distinctions based on corpus observations. It is shown that placement verbs lexicalize a cognitively salient causal chain that extends from an agentive motion, to locational change, and to resultant spatial configuration. The event chain serves as the conceptual basis for profiling different causal stages: from caused-to-move, to caused-to-be, and then to ground-figure relation. Although English placement verbs (put or hang) are typically viewed as caused-motion verbs, the study shows that Mandarin placement verbs are syntactically and semantically distinct from pure Caused-Motion verbs (搬 ‘move’) and posture-based Spatial Configuration verbs (立 ‘stand’). Placement verbs can encompasses the widest semantic scope, associated with the widest range of constructional variations. It also shows that polysemous verbs such as 挤 ‘squeeze’ can be accounted for with a clear representation of frame-based event schema and varied semantic profiles that are associated with varied constructional patterns. The proposed framework helps to tease out important form-meaning pairing mechanisms that are constructionally definable and categorically revealing in Mandarin. The findings are then incorporated into the construction of Mandarin VerbNet, in order to provide a database on Mandarin verbs that is cognitively motivated, linguistically validated, computationally feasible, and most importantly, Chinese-appropriate.
刘美君教授现为香港城市大学翻译及语言学系主任，教授，及博导。同时为香港人文学院院士，国家语委汉语辞书中心学术顾问，汉语词汇语义学会议学术指导委员，及香港研资局合作计划委员会委员。刘教授毕业于台大外文系，获得美国科罗拉多大学语言学博士学位及认知语言学证书，在台湾交通大学外国语文学系任教20年。曾担任外文系主任暨研究所长, 图书馆长及国际交流组长, 并为美国斯坦福大学及科罗拉多大学访问学者。曾获得三次杰出教学奖，两次杰出论文/专书奖，一次优良导师奖。其研究专长包括功能语法、构式语法，词汇语义学、认知语言学及语料库语言学，擅长结合理论与应用，推展跨领域研究合作。曾连续多年获台湾科技部奖励资助，从事创新性中文动词语义类型研究，有系统地剖析动词与构式间的互动关系，创建【中文动词语义网】（Mandarin VerbNet）分享研究成果。目前亦着手建立【文法问问我】（Ask-me-Why）互动式平台，强调不同语言有不同的“语性”和形意搭配原则。刘教授学术兴趣广泛，著作丰富：已出版4本专书，65篇国际期刊或专书论文，120篇以上国际会议论文，并多次担任特邀讲者。其两本专书《英文文法有道理》及《英文写作有诀窍》将专业知识普及化，名列台湾语文类畅销著作。