22.1625, Qs: Denominalization: Event- vs. Entity-Denoting Verbs

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LINGUIST List: Vol-22-1625. Mon Apr 11 2011. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 22.1625, Qs: Denominalization: Event- vs. Entity-Denoting Verbs

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1)
Date: 07-Apr-2011
From: Jing Yang [emmay at yahoo.cn]
Subject: Denominalization: Event- vs. Entity-Denoting Verbs
 

	
-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2011 15:30:34
From: Jing Yang [emmay at yahoo.cn]
Subject: Denominalization: Event- vs. Entity-Denoting Verbs

E-mail this message to a friend:
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I argue that Mandarin disyllabic nouns incorporate (or conflate) with 
null light verbs to derive disyllabic verbs (cf. the English noun "laugh" 
deriving a verb "to laugh"). Unlike English, however, Mandarin entity-
denoting nouns do not become denominal verbs, e.g. there are no 
Mandarin counterparts for "The mud caked" from the noun "cake." 

Mandarin differentiates between event(uality)-denoting and entity-
denoting nouns. Mandarin has two nouns: "dongxi" (for entities) and 
"shiqing" (for non-entities), both corresponding to the English "things". 
For example, Mandarin uses "shiqing" in (1) and (2), but "dongxi" in 
(3). 

1. Something happened.   (event) 
2. He told me something. (fact)
3. He bought something.  (entity)

Probably, the distinction between entities and non-entities in the 
nominal domain reflects a similar conceptual distinction. Of course, 
English has words like "entity" and "event", but they are not commonly 
used compared with "things". Mandarin has a cover term "shiwu" 
('entities and events'); but it is too formal for everyday communications.

My hypothesis:
If a language has different cover terms for entities and non-entities, 
and both nouns are commonly used in everyday communications, then 
this language does not have denominal verbs from entity-denoting 
nouns. 

By far, I've tried Google translation, logos dictionaries, WordNet, etc. 
But the results are not satisfactory. They only provide general 
information and different dictionaries may give me different translations. 
I need fine linguistic details to test my hypothesis.

For those who would like to share some data with me, they may 
consider translating the three sentences above (and maybe tell me 
something about the denominal verbs in their languages as well). For 
instance, Prof. Yap (personal communication) showed me that in 
Malay, "benda" suits all the three cases, but "perkara" is only for (1). 
This is one of the subtopics for my MPhil thesis. Many thanks for your 
support. 

Linguistic Field(s): General Linguistics
                     Semantics
                     Syntax
                     Typology


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