Spatial-temporal attributes in verbal semantics: A corpus-based lexical semantic study of discriminating Mandarin near synonyms of “tui1” and “la1”

This paper proposes a new perspective to study verbal semantics based on the corpus-based study of near-synonyms. In particular, the author tries to discriminate the near-synonym “tui1 (push)” and “la1 (pull)” by investigating the literal collocations and metaphoric usages through the data extracted from the Chinese Word Sketch (CWS). The author applies both verbal semantic representation of MARVS theory and the spatiality-temporality attribute of metaphor concept as one of the newly added predictors to detect explicit and implicit attributes of verbal semantics. Specifically, the study integrates the MARVS theory with conceptual metaphor theory, and provides another perspective to discriminate near-synonyms. The results suggest that the spatial-temporal properties could be an additional predictor in MARVS theory, which could effectively study lexical semantics.