A Corpus-based Lexical Semantic Study of Mandarin Verbs of “Tui” and “La”

This paper investigates the differences between Tui and La under the framework of MARVS. Using Gigaword2 Corpus and Sinica Corpus as corpora and Sketch Engine as the query tool, the study is conducted following three procedures. First, a preliminary observation on morphosyntactic differences in these two verbs is obtained by searching the explanation of the two terms Tui and La in the online Chinese English Dictionary of Modern Usage. Then, two data corpora are used in searching for statistical evidence, after which the results will be represented in the framework of MARVS. In conclusion, Tui is inherently a single occurrence that cannot be measured by time duration and can be identified with a temporal point, whereas La is an activity that has a time course that can be measured based on duration and has a clear boundary
as the starting point. Also, distinctions in role module lie in that La indicates abstract process without clear direction or an endpoint while Tui is more concrete with one direction and an endpoint.