A framed-based constructional study of the polysemic dài in Mandarin

The present paper probes into the polysemic nature of the verb Dài, ‘to bring/carry’ in Mandarin. The verb Dài bears at least seven meaning imports, pertaining to different verbal meanings in English. Integrating Frame Semantic (Fillmore and Atkins 1992) and Construction Grammar (Goldberg 1995, 2010), this study aims to explore the semantic-to-syntactic correlations between the different senses underlining the lexicalization patterns of Dài. It is argued that Dài may profile different semantic frames with distinct frame-specific roles and morphosyntactic realizations. The basic sense of Dài depicts a caused motion event in which an agent-Mover takes a Co-Mover/Moved Entity to undergo a locational change (e.g., tā mén dài tā/qián dào xué xiào "They took them/brought the money to school."). Nevertheless, due to conceptual transfer, Dài may profile the stative relation of co-existence without the causal movement (e.g., tā shēn shàng dài zhe hù zhào "He brought the passport with him.") or profile the dynamic agenthood as in leading and initiating an activity (e.g., wǒ dài tā huán yóu shì jiè "I took him to travel around the world."). In light of the semantic profiles of the various meanings, the polysemous nature of Dài is further analyzed as a multi-framed, cross-categorial entity that manifests the interrelationship and inheritance of a group of related sense domains. The multi-frame analysis is substantiated with a detailed corpus analysis of colloconstructional variations. It follows the usage-based lexical constructional approach (Boas 2003b) in delimiting semantically salient features pertaining to lexical frames with a constructional account that captures the form-meaning mapping correlations. The study provides a clear case study that demonstrates the close interaction between semantics and syntax, lexicon and construction and ultimately, cognition and language.