What can near synonym tell us?

Lian-Cheng Chief, CHu-Ren Huang, Keh-Jiann Chen,Mei-Chih Tsai, Li-Li Chang

導讀：鄧麗君

• The aim of this paper is to find the semantic features that determine the relevant syntactic behaviors of near synonym pair fangbian and bianli.

• Tsai et al. (1998 & 1999) claimed that basic semantic components or features can predict the different syntactic behaviors of near synonyms.

✴For example: Features of “happy vs. glad” - [±effect] and [±control] to accounts for the different syntactic behaviors of these synonyms. (Tsai et al ,1998)

introduction

gaoxing [+effect] 所指的狀態含有變化的特性 [+change-of-state]kuaile [-effect] 所指的狀態則含有穩定、均質的特性 [-change-of state]

2 Methodologycorpus

Implicit or opaque distributional differences in terms of syntactic functions that cannot be discerned simply by mean of intuition were extracted from the Sinica Corpus.

Distributional information is important in contrastive studies on near synonyms.

The aim is to try to determine the syntactic and semantic differences between members of near synonyms pairs.

Tsai et al (1999)

1) to determine distributional differences in syntactic patterns. 決定句法功能分佈

2) to deduce the semantic features from the syntactic phenomena. 推論語意特徵

3) to test the semantic features in new syntactic frames. 以語意特徵測試新的句法框架

3 The data• Sinica Corpus (Version 2.0) - 3.5 million Chinese words

• 445 entries of fangbian

• 125 entries of bianli

notes: In 2012, Sinica Corpus (Version 4.0)

618 entries of fangbian178 entries of bianli

3 The data3.1 the near synonym pair: Fangbian and bianli

• Similarity in meaning, parallel syntactically.

• transitive and intransitive usage

• can serve as nominal modifiers

• undergo nominalization 名詞化

• 重編國語辭典修訂本

• 方便： 1 、便利； 2 、便利於人的事； 3 、上廁所

• 便利： 1 、敏捷、順適； 2 、便宜且美好的

3.1.1 The transitive/intransitive alternation (P. 49)

intransitive usage:proposition as a subject.

transitive usage:proposition as a object

the proposition describes what is convenient.

The positional object of fangbian can undergo inversion while bianli doesn’t allow such alternation.

3.1.2 other syntactic functions of fangbian and bianli (P. 50)fangbian and bianli can also appear as nominal modifiers and undergo nominalization. (7) and (8) illustrate the use of fangbian and bianli as nominal modifiers.(9) and (10) show that this pair of near synonyms can function as nominal heads.

As shown above, it appears that fangbian and bianli can be used interchangeably.

However, the statistics obtained from the corpus demonstrate that these syntactic patterns have different statistical distributions.

3.2 Distributional Differences

(1) classified each occurrence according to its syntactic function, such as nominal verbal predicate, nominal modifier, and verbal modifier. (2) calculated the number of occurrences of transitive and intransitive alternations of these synonyms as verbal predicates.

(3) classified the two near synonyms pair in terms of the object types they take.

3.2.1 Distributional Differences in terms of syntactic functions (P. 51)

這使市民可從市內的八個區域非常便利的到達市中心。（？） 使用者可以更便利的處理事情。（？）

•The following is an example of a verbal modifier in which de is preceded by fangbian and follow by a head verb. •The authors cannot find any example in which bianli is used in this way in their corpus, which also confirms their intuition.

Verbal Predicates:(1) 停車 方便(2) 交通 便利(3) 設置 辦事處 方便 民眾 出國 觀光(4) 修改 許多 法規 便利 山民 墾殖(5a) 理想 的 場地 是 鄰近 工作 地點，方便 員工 參加(5b) 理想 的 場地 是 鄰近 工作 地點，員工 參加 方便(6a) 有 各種 產品，便利 消費者 選購(6b) ＊有 各種 產品，消費者 選購 便利

Nominal Modifier:(7) 方便 的 資訊(8) 便利 的 方式

Nominalization:(9) 聯繫 上 的 方便(10) 生活 的 便利

Verbal Modifiers:(11) 使用者 可以 更 方便 的 處理 事情

Questions:Why can’t bianli be used as a verbal

modifier?Why is bianli often selected when people

try to express the idea that some event is convenient?

3.2.2 Distributional differences in terms of the transitive/intransitive alternation (P. 52)

• fangbian more often appears in intransitive form - 69% (eg (1)) while bianli shows no such preference. (1) 停車 方便•when used as a transitive verb, fangbian usually takes a sentential object - 90%(eg (3)). (3) 設置 辦事處 方便 民眾 出國 觀光

3.2.3 Negation (P. 52)

• From the corpus , bianli cannot be modified by the negative marker bu ‘not’ .

Question:Why bianli cannot be negated syntactically?

3.3 Summary

The distributional differences extracted from the corpus not only give us a clear picture of their differences in usage, but also show the inadequacy of their present definitions in dictionaries. Though they are used to define each other in many dictionaries, their differences in terms of function and distribution are neither described nor explained.

4 Explanation (p. 53)

To account for the observed differences in syntactic distribution, the authors propose two semantic factors:(1) beneficial role - there is a beneficial role in the argument structure of bianli(2) lexical conceptual profile - profiling different perspectives of an event nicely captures the differences between the two verbs.

Profile:•refers to the most prominent or salient sub-part of the whole event. •in a group of verbs that are similar in meaning, there are different focal points in different participants or different levels of verb frames.

a similar but not identical idea can be found in Goldberg (1995) and Croft (1998), in which profiling is also used to describe semantic differences among verbs.

4.1Beneficial RoleFour majors differences between fangbian and bianli:(1) bianli never appears as a verbal modifier.(2) bianli occurs as transitive verb in most cases.(3) 90% of the instances in which fangbian is used as a transitive verb(4) bianli cannot be negated.

To account for these variation, the authors propose that:• fangbian profiles the whole event (12a)• bianli profiles the beneficial role of the event (12b)

• (12a) , the main verb is fangbian, the verbal meaning profiles the whole embedded event “people go-abroad visit’ .• the syntactic evidence as shown by the constructed sentences (13a) and (13b) support this argument because in (13a), the post-verbal element, the propositional event, can be inverted to the pre-verbal position, whereas in sentence (13b), such an inversion is not allowed.

• (12b) the main verb is bianli, and the verbal meaning profiles the beneficial role(the aborigines) of the embedded event (to cultivate).

semantic feature:

beneficial

fangbian

- it means that the way to perform the action is convenient

bianli +it means that for the profiled entity, the action is convenient or beneficial to perform

4.2 Profile on Event vs. Profile on Beneficial Role (P. 54)

The authors have observed that bianli cannot function as a verbal modifier (eg (11)). When people want to describe that a certain event is easily conducted, they will choose fangbian to express the concept. why?

negation

fangbian

the lexical conceptual profile of fangbian focuses on the propositional event, when fangbian modifiers a verb, the eventive profile is projected to the sentential level, and semantic composition is preserved.a profile of the whole propositional event is the inherent meaning of fangbian.

since the profile of fangbian focuses on the whole positional event, it can be negated like any proposition.

bianli

the lexical conceptual profile of bianli focuses on the beneficial role of the propositional event, therefore, semantic compositionally cannot be maintained.

the profile of bianli focuses on the beneficial role rather than the whole sub-event. In order for the profile to focus on the beneficial/causee role, the whole proposition must be presupposed.Presupposition cannot be negated/cancelled.

（ 11 ）使用者 可以 更 方便 的 處理 事情

4.3 Syntactic Patterns (P.55)

• based on the two semantic features, the beneficial role and the lexical conceptual profile. The authors propose that fangbian and bianli have different event structures and argument structure frames•fangbian (agent and goal)•bianli (agent, beneficial and goal)

4.4 An Additional Perspective (P.57)

• fangbian tends to be used to describe a generic event - the status of the individual is trivial. It is important that the manner/way to perform the action/event is convenient. •refers to a group of events, i.e. the type of event

•bianli tends to be used to describe a specific event - how the event affects the individual who performs action.•refers to a single event, i.e. the token of the event

4.5 Summary

• fangbian and bianli are not easily determined solely by means of intuition. • two semantic factors determine the relevant syntactic behaviors of these near synonyms. - whole proposition event (fangbian) and beneficial roles of the event (bianli)•the distinction between event type and event token also contributes to the distributions of these synonyms.

5 what can near synonyms tell us?

corpus data

• to find the differences•look for semantic explanations for the relevant syntactic behaviors

fangbian VS bianli

new way to understand the interaction between syntax and semantic in Mandarin

Chinese

Predicate 謂語 : that part of a sentence which states or asserts something about the subject and usually consists of a verb either with or without an object, complement, or adverb. For example: Joan is tired.

Nominal 名詞性詞語 : 1. a term used instead of noun; 2. a term of linguistic unit which has some but not all characteristics of a noun.

Modifier 修飾語 : a word or group of words which gives further information about (modifies) another word or group of words (the head 中心詞）

Proposition 命題 : the basic meaning which a sentence expresses. Propositions consist of (a) something which is named or talked about (known as the argument, or entity), (b) an assertion or predication which is made about the argument.

Nominalization 名詞化 : the grammatically process of forming nouns from other parts of speech, usually verbs or adjectives. For example: to write -> writing, writer.

Head 中心詞 : the central part of a phrase. Other elements in the phrase are in some grammatical or semantic relationship to the head. For example: the fat lady in the floral dress.

Verbal 動詞性單詞 : (in generative grammar) a word class including verbs and adjectives. The reason for considering verbs and adjectives as belonging to one class is that they have many properties in common. For example: some verbs and adjectives in English can occur in imperative sentences ( 祈使句 ): Throw the ball! Be quiet! while other verbs and adjectives normally cannot: *Resemble me! *Be tall!

Presupposition 假設 : what a speaker or writer assumes that the receiver of the message already knows.

Agent 施事 : (in some general grammars) the noun or noun phrase which refers to the person or animal which performs the action of the verb. For example: Anthea cut the grass/the grass was cut by Anthea. Anthea is the agent.

Goal 目標 : (in traditional grammar) a term used by some linguistic to refer to the person or thing which is affected by the action expressed by the verb. For example: Elizabeth smashed the vase. Vase is the goal.

Complement 補語 : (in grammar) that part of the sentence which follows the verb and which thus completes the sentence. The commonest complements are: (a) subject complement: the complement linked to a subject by be or a linking verb. For example: She is a doctor. (b) object complement: the complement linked to an object. For example: We made her the chairperson. (c)adjective complement: the complement linked to an adjective. For example: I am glad that you can come. (d) prepositional complement: the complement linked to a preposition. For example: They argued about what to do.