SEMANTIC PROSODY AND SEMANTIC COERCION OF CHINESE EXCESSIVE DEGREE ADVERBS

School of Foreign Languages,Jianghan University,Wuhan,China Email:zhongwu2000@163.com

[Abstract]The semantic prosodies and semantic coercion of two excessive degree adverbs are investigated by searching a balanced corpus of modern Chinese,the ToRCH2014.It is found that“guoyu”(過于‘over’)has a negative semantic prosody and“tai”(太‘too’)has a neutral one.In addition,as excessive degree adverbs signify“exceeding the limit”,they have the function of semantic coercion.According to statistics,all“guoyu+X”demonstrate negative affective meaning as“guoyu”is a typical excessive degree adverb,while context should be taken into consideration when judging the associative meaning of“tai+X”phrases.

[Keywords]Excessive Degree Adverbs;Semantic Prosody;Semantic Coercion

INTROCUCTION

Degree adverb is a significant sub-category of modern Chinese adverbs and falls into excessive degree adverbs,intensifiers and downtoners according to the magnitude and characteristics.Generally,the excessive degree adverbs mainly include“guoyu”(过于‘over’),“guofen”(过分‘too much’),“guo”(过‘over’),“tai”(太‘too’)and so on.

Although adverbs“guoyu”and“tai”both indicate“excessive”,they have slight differences.Zhang(2001)believes that“tai”closely associate with unsatisfactory things when it means“too much”,and points out that when“guoyu”modifies commendatory words,the phrases often have derogatory connotation.However,the above conclusions mainly derived from intuition,without sufficient statistics and experimental data.Therefore,corpus and semantic prosody provide a new perspective to study such linguistic phenomena.

PROSODY AND RELATED RESEARCHES

Semantic prosody,focusing on co-occurrence of two or more words,describes the way in which nodes can be perceived with positive or negative associations through frequent occurrences with particular collocations.Louw(1993,p.157)states that semantic prosody is“a consistent aura of meaning with which a form is imbued by its collocates”.When a keyword frequently co-occurs with a certain linguistic unit having the same or similar semantic features,this word will generate a special semantic atmosphere.From the functional perspective,semantic prosodies are usually divided into three categories,namely,positive prosody,neutral prosody and negative prosody(Stubbs,1995).

RESEARCH DESIGN

Corpus

The corpus used in this research is ToRCH2014 Corpus(Texts of Recent CHinese),which consists of 1,029,385 tokenized words and 53,321 word types in 657 files.The sampling frame of the Brown Corpus was closely followed,including four genres:press,general,learned,and fiction.Thus,the size and structure of the corpus is sufficient for present study.

Research methods

A software AntConc3.3.4w will be used to search the ToRCH2014 Corpus with two common degree adverbs,“guoyu”and“tai”,as the node words.Then,the number of hits can be found directly and all concordances can be downloaded from the corpus.After that,the number of hits,ratio will be counted and the prosodies of selected concordances will be analyzed.

Research questions

As“guoyu”and“tai”are degree adverbs,they are modifiers of head words.In order to study the semantic prosodies of them,this research tries to answer the following questions:a)Are semantic prosodies of“guoyu”and“tai”positive,neutral or negative?b)Are affective meaning of“guoyu+X”and“tai+X”positive,neutral or negative?c)If excessive adverbs have the function of semantic coercion,what are possible reasons for that?

RESULTS AND ANALYSIS

After searching the ToRCH2014 Corpus with the node words,44 valid concordances containing“guoyu”and 410 concordances containing“tai”were found.Then，“Randomizer”,a software was used to choose the downloaded and numbered concordances randomly.After that,all concordances with“guoyu”and 200 selected concordances containing“tai”will be counted and analyzed.

As“guoyu”and“tai”are degree adverbs,the colligation of these two words in the corpus fall into two categories:“guoyu/tai+AP”and“guoyu/tai+VP”.

The prosodies of“guoyu”and“tai”

Because no software can automatically recognize positive,neutral and negative connotation of collocated AP and VP of“guoyu”and“tai”,the classification has been done by three native speakers.In the selected concordances,the heads which are modified by“guoyu”and“tai”will be judged by their affective meaning.For example:

Eg 1.（我）恐怕 很 难 对此抱有过于乐观的预期。

（wo）Kongpa hen nan dui ci bao youguoyuleguande yuqi.

(I)am afraid it is difficult to have over-optimistic expectations about this.

Eg 2.数学 教学过于关注知识的 掌握。

shuxue jiaoxueguoyu guanzhuzhishi de zhangwo.

Mathematics teaching isfocused too muchon the mastery of knowledge.

Eg 3.原因 是太油腻了。

Yuanyin shitai younile.

The reason istoo greasy.

As the software can not automatically recognize the affective meaning of words,three native Chinese speakers were invited as the judge in the study.In the 3 cases above,the excessive degree adverbs“guoyu”(过于‘over’)and“tai”(太‘too’)modify“leguan”(乐观‘optimistic’),“guanzhu”(关注‘concern’)and“youni”(油腻‘greasy’).And these head words are classified as positive,neutral and negative respectively.In the light of this standard,all selected concordances were analyzed and filled in the following table:

Table1:The Semantic Prosody of“Guoyu”and“Tai”in ToRCH2014 Corpus

The statistic shown in Table 1 indicates the hits and ratio of positive,neutral and negative concordances of“guoyu”and“tai”.It shows that the ratio of positive,neutral and negative is 27.27%,25.00%and 47.73%respectively for“guoyu”while it is 29.00%,38.00% and 33.00% for“tai”.And a safe conclusion can be reached that“guoyu”has a negative prosody while“tai”has a neutral one.

The Semantic Coercion of“guoyu+X”and“tai+X”

The study of semantic prosody in the past,as shown above,mainly focused on node words.However,many linguistic phenomena could not be found by observation of a single word.As such,the linguistic unit can be extended to a phrase or a construction.

Generally speaking,when the degree adverb modifies the head word in“XP(adverb+X)”,it is the head word“X”that determines its associative meaning,while the degree adverb only acts as a fine adjustment.For instance:

Eg 4.这 招待 得也太寒酸了...

Zhe zhaodai de yetaihansuanle...

The reception istoo meanly.

In the above example,the head word“hansuan”(寒酸‘meanly’)in“tai+ X”is derogatory.Thus,the whole phrase is negative in itself.However,the construction and context also play a key role in determining the affective meaning of the“XP”.For example:

Eg 5.该反思的...还有过于宽容的媒体和 大众。

Gai fansi de...haiyouguoyukuanrongde meiti he dazhong.

He who should reflect...includes the media and the public who aretoo tolerant.

The head“kuanrong”(宽容‘tolerant’)in Eg.5 is a commentary word.However,when it is modified by the typical excessive degree adverb“guoyu”,the phrase is derogatory.That is to say,construction and context are also critical in determining the affective meaning of the collocations.In this way,three judges were asked to classify all selected concordances and the number and ratio are shown in the following table:

Table2:The Affective Meaning of“Guoyu+X”and“Tai+X”in ToRCH2014 Corpus

The statistics of affective meaning of“guoyu+X”and“tai+X”is demonstrated in table 2.The hits of positive,neutral and negative affective meaning of“guoyu+X”are 0,0,44,and the ratio are 0%,0%,and 100%.As for“tai+X”,the hits of positive,neutral and negative are 48,12 and 140 respectively,and the ratio are 24.00%,6.00%and 70.00%.It is clear that,regardless of its associative meaning of“X”itself,all concordances with“guoyu+ X”and most of concordances containing“tai+X”are negative.

It can also be seen from the above table that when two excessive degree adverbs,“guoyu”and“tai”,modify the head word“X”,the affective meaning of“X”and“XP”are not identical.No matter which word is modified by“guoyu”,“guoyu+X”is negative.However,“tai+X”is a little different from“guoyu+X”in this respect,which can be seen in the following table:

Table3:The Affective Meaning of“Tai+X”in ToRCH2014 Corpus

It is shown in table 3 that 200 selected concordances with“tai”can be classified as 3 categories according to the associative meaning of“X”.When context is taken into consideration,the positive,neutral and negative ratio of“tai+ X(positive)”are 70.69%,5.17% and 24.14% respectively,and that of“tai+X(neutral)”are 11.84%,13.16%and 75.00%while all“tai+X(negative)”are negative.

From above statistics,a conclusion can be drawn that excessive degree adverbs have coercion function in“adverb + X”construction.According to statistics,“guoyu”has a negative prosody,whereas,all“guoyu+ X”phrases are negative.Similarly,the prosody of“tai”is neutral but“tai+X”phrases are negative.

Explanation of the Semantic Coercion of Excessive Degree Adverbs

There are several reasons for semantic coercion of“guoyu”and“tai”.First,as for a language unit,conceptual meaning is the cognitive basis of the associative meaning.Excessive degree adverb usually indicates that a property,action or behavior“exceeds a certain degree or limit”,which often means inappropriate or unreasonable.Therefore,“guoyu+X”and“tai+X”inevitably associated with derogatory or negative attitudes.

Second,“guoyu”and“tai”are common excessive degree adverbs and both of them have the function of semantic coercion.The difference lies in that“guoyu”is a typical excessive degree adverb while“tai”is an atypical one.Therefore,when“X”,whether it is positive,neutral or negative,is modified by“guoyu”,all“guoyu+ X”is negative.On the other hand,besides the meaning of“excessive degree”,“tai”also indicates“extremely high levels”,which is not the typical connotation of excessive degree adverbs.Under these circumstances,the phrase“tai+ X”expresses admiration in most cases.It is shown in Table 3 that all“tai+X”phrases with negative“X”are negative,of 76“tai+ X”phrases with neutral“X”,75.00% is negative and 13.16% is neutral while only 11.84% is positive.From these statistics,a conclusion can be reached that excessive degree adverbs indeed have the function of semantic coercion when they modify adjectives or verbs.

Third,when semantic coercion cannot be identified at the lexical and construction level,context emerges as an indispensable factor for semantic interpretation(Liu,2019).The“tai+ X”phrase is a typical example.Of all 58“tai+X”phrases with commentary“X”,41 of which are positive,3 are neutral while 14 are negative,accounting for 70.69%,5.17%and 24.14%respectively.As a general rule,when judging the affective meaning of these phrases,the head word“X”is the decisive factor.For example:

Eg.6 这个 帅哥太专业了...

Zhege shuaigetaizhuanyele...

This handsome guy istooprofessional...

In example 6,“zhuanye”(专业‘professional’)is a commendatory word.Thus,the phrase“taizhuanye”(太专业‘too professional’)is positive.However,the example below is a bit difficult to judge,and context should be taken into consideration:

Eg.7 动作 有点 夸张， 确实 是太激动了。

Dongzuo youdian kuazhang,queshi shitaijidongle.

The action is a bit exaggerated and it is really too exciting.

In example 7,“tai jidong”(太激动‘too exciting’)is positive.However,from the context,we know that the speaker think“his action is a bit exaggerated”and he“apologized”for his“action”.Hence,“tai jidong”is negative according to the context.

Sometimes,even the same“tai+X”phrase has different affective meaning when context is taken into account,as shown in the sentence bellow:

Eg.8 时光 给 她太多，又 索求太多......

Shiguang gei tataiduo,you suoqiutaiduo,......

Time gives hertoomuchwhile askstoo much......

When node word co-occur with neutral one,it is not easy to identify the affective meaning of the collocation.Therefore,researchers need to investigate the context and extended it to a larger language units(Wu,2019).In the above example,it is difficult to determine the affective meaning of“tai duo”(太多‘too much’)without context,as“duo”(多‘much’)is a neutral word.When the linguistic unit extends from the phrase“tai duo”to the whole sentence in Eg.8,it is clear that“gives her too much while asks too much”is an antithesis,indicating that“gives her too much”is positive,and“asks too much”is negative.This example shows that context is a indispensible factor when deciding the affective meaning of language units.

CONCLUSION

Based on the Torch2014 Corpus,this research explores the semantic prosodies and semantic coercion of the excessive degree adverbs“guoyu”and“tai”.It is found that“guoyu”has negative semantic prosody and“tai”has a neutral one.As excessive degree adverbs signify“too much is as bad as too little”,“guoyu”and“tai”obviously have the function of semantic coercion when they modify adjectives or verbs.It is also found that all“guoyu+ X”phrases are negative,while the affective meaning of“tai+X”partly depends on context as“tai”is not a typical excessive degree adverb.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This research was financially supported by Hubei Provincial Department of Education(2017300,A Research on Interactive Translation Teaching Model-TakeChangjiang WeeklyParallel Corpus as an Example).