Metaphorical Transfer and Pragmatic Strengthening: On the Development of V-diao in Mandarin

In this synchronic study, I shall adopt a corpus-based approach to investigate the semantic change of V-diao in Mandarin. Semantically, V-diao constructions fall into three categories: A) Physical disappearance from its original position, with the V slot filled by physical verbs, such as tao-diao “escape,” diu-diao “throw away,” and so on. B) Disappearance from a certain conceptual domain, rather than from the physical space, with the V slot filled by less physically perceivable verbs, such as jie-diao “quit,” wang-diao “forget,” and the like. C) The third category of V-diao involves the speaker’s subjective, always negative, attitude toward the result. Examples include: lan-diao “rot,” ruan-diao “soften,” huang-diao “yellow,” and so forth. It is claimed in this paper that the polysemy between types A and B is motivated by metaphorical transfer [Sweetser, 1990; Bybee, Perkins and Pagliuca, 1994; Heine, Claudi and Hunnemeyer, 1991]. Based roughly on Huang and Chang [1996], I demonstrate that a cognitive restriction on selection of the verb will cause further repetitive occurrence of negative verbs in the V slot. Finally, I shall claim that pragmatic strengthening [Hopper and Traugott, 1993; Bybee, Perkins and Pagliuca, 1994] contributes to the emergence of unfavourable meaning in Type C. Hopefully, this research can serve as a valid argument for the interaction of language use and grammar, and the conceptual basis of human language.