Abstract
While much attention has been paid to the complement coercion operation in English (e.g., began a book), the same phenomenon in Chinese is still under-researched. Our study examines twenty coercing verbs in Chinese, creating a coercion profile for each verb and conducting a cluster analysis based on the coercion profiles. The results suggest that semantically related verbs in Chinese tend to have similar coercion profiles. We also identify a diverse range of nouns that can be coerced in Chinese. Finally, it is demonstrated that generative approaches to the complement coercion operation in Chinese can be complemented by cognitive-functional approaches.
Acknowledgements
An earlier draft was presented the sixth International Conference on Generative Approaches to the Lexicon. All the comments from the participants are greatly appreciated. However, any inadequacies that remain in this paper are our own.
Appendix
Results of the hierarchical configural frequency analysis of the categories of nouns coerced by the verbs in the two clusters.
| Cluster | Noun Category | Freq | Exp | Obs vs. Exp | Cont.chisq | P.adj.Holm | Dec | Q |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cluster 1 | non-physical entity | 77 | 87.0833 | < | 1.1675 | 0.935823 | ns | 0.057 |
| Cluster 2 | non-physical entity | 44 | 33.9167 | > | 2.9977 | 0.511429 | ns | 0.044 |
| Cluster 1 | human being | 36 | 28.7879 | > | 1.8068 | 1.048226 | ns | 0.031 |
| Cluster 1 | pronoun | 28 | 21.5909 | > | 1.9025 | 0.955203 | ns | 0.026 |
| Cluster 1 | physical object | 23 | 21.5909 | > | 0.0920 | 0.814897 | ns | 0.006 |
| Cluster 1 | place | 15 | 17.2727 | < | 0.2990 | 1.701827 | ns | 0.009 |
| Cluster 2 | place | 9 | 6.7273 | > | 0.7678 | 1.638281 | ns | 0.009 |
| Cluster 1 | information | 7 | 7.9167 | < | 0.1061 | 0.462682 | ns | 0.004 |
| Cluster 2 | physical object | 7 | 8.4091 | < | 0.2361 | 1.183350 | ns | 0.006 |
| Cluster 2 | human being | 4 | 11.2121 | < | 4.6391 | 0.152735 | ns | 0.029 |
| Cluster 2 | information | 4 | 3.0833 | > | 0.2725 | 1.486154 | ns | 0.004 |
| Cluster 1 | others | 4 | 5.7576 | < | 0.5365 | 1.896062 | ns | 0.007 |
| Cluster 2 | others | 4 | 2.2424 | > | 1.3776 | 1.507242 | ns | 0.007 |
| Cluster 2 | pronoun | 2 | 8.4091 | < | 4.8848 | 0.128590 | ns | 0.025 |
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