The Semantic Aspect of the Result Compliment (????) in Chinese

Abstract

From the point of view of language learning, the most important issue is the study of?? (complements) in Chinese. For many foreign students who are studying the Chinese Language, ?? (complement) is an unfamiliar part of the sentence. Usually students easily learn parts of sentence such as \"subject\", \"predicate\", \"determiner\", \"adverbial modifier\" because of their existence in almost every language.However, ?? (complement)is socomplicated for students to learnsince it is almost impossible to find complements in any other languages except Chinese. ?? (complement) is used after an adjective or verb to make the predicate more meaningful. In Chinese object is also used after verb, but there is a difference between object and ?? (complement): the object usually represents something or someone that is involved in or related to the action, therefore, in most cases they are used as a noun predicative; meanwhile ?? (complement) is used as a verb predicative which completes the person or thing involved in the action, and gives additional meaning to the predicate.

Introduction

I. INTRODUCTION

As the name suggests, resultative complements describe the result of an action. Resultative complements commonly appear as part of the verb itself and so are placed between the verb and its object, as in ??? “to finish eating the meal”. See ?? grammar – ?????? sentence parsing– ?? complements – ???? resultative complements. Chinese is one of the most complex languages in terms of its morphological features and it has 6 parts of speech. Main parts: ?? (zhuyu) subject and?? (weiyu) predicate, secondary parts of the sentence: ?? (dingyu) determiner, ?? (binyu) object, ?? (zhuangyu) adverbial modifier and ?? (buyu) compliment.

II. MAIN PART

??compliment is used after adjectives and verbs and makes the sentence more meaningful. There is a peculiarity in the use of complements, which are studied in 7 groups [2, p39]. The structure of complements has some similarities, that is, most of them contain two different expressionsin common.

For instance, they include two types of expressions like: “????” - “?? (?)”, “???”; “????????” - “?? (???)”?“????”; “??????” - “???” , “?????”; “?????”- “????”, “???”; “????????”- “???”, “?????”; “???????”- “????”, “????”. In terms of semantic relations, when the predicate contains two different expressions, verb or adjective coming first usually means cause, and the following complement means result. For example: :“??(?) - cause; “??”– result; “???”- cause?“???”- result?“???”- cause?“????”– result.

In other languages it is very rare to see the phenomenon of acomplementssimilar to Chinese. Instead, different ways are used to express the meaning of ?? (complement), it may be expressed by two sentences, for example. Therefore, it is considered by many language learners that ?? (complement) is the most difficult part of Chinese grammar.

In Chinese object is also used after verb, but there is a difference between object and ?? (complement): the object usually represents something or someone that is involved in or related to the action, therefore, in most cases they are used as a noun predicative; meanwhile ?? (complement) is used as a verb predicative which completes the person or thing involved in the action, and gives additional meaning to the predicate. Thus, myriad of the compliments are not noun predicative apart from complement of quantity [3, p484]. ?? (complement) is divided into seven groups according to its structure and meaning: 1. Compliment of result (????); 2. Compliment of direction (????); 3. Complement of potentiality (????); 4. Modal complement (????); 5. Compliment of degree (????); 6. Compliment of quantity (????); 7. Complement of the prepositional phrase (??????).

In general, compliments are more common in oral and narrative forms, and less common in articles and written texts.

III. COMPLIMENT OF RESULT (????).

Compliment of result (????) represents the result of an action and manner. It makes a change in the state of subject or object of the action [3, p485]. For instance, “???????”, here, under the influence of “?” (action) “??” (receiver of the action) is changed, that is, broken. Some compliments of result evaluate and identify the action: “?????”. In this sentence the function of     “?” (compliment of result) is to evaluate and identify the sentence. In Chinese, a complement is used to describe a sentence in which a certain result is due to an action or situation. Let's take a look at the mistakes made by students:

*????????, ??????????

Here the speaker expresses his confidence that the doctor will "save his life". So, the example needs to be changed as following:

????????, ??????????

Another example:

*?????????????????????

What is meant by this statement “?????” is not action, but there is already a result in action “?????”. Therefore, in this sentence “?” (compliment of result) should be used after verb:

??????????????????????

Note that the compliment of result is not used in the same function with the dynamic auxiliary word “?” which indicates complementary action that already taken place or the state of the situation.  A dynamic auxiliary word “?” indicates a complementary action that already occurred; meanwhile the compliment of result represents a particular result influenced by a complementary action. As a result, if we confuse the compliment of result with “?”, an expressed meaning becomes unclear [1, p225].

For instance:  * ??????????????????

The speaker is not referring to the fact that the action of “?” (to buy) has already taken place, but to the fact that the action of “?” (to buy) has achieved the goal and result.Therefore, we need to change this sentence as the following:

???????????????????

Semantic aspects of the result compliment and problems of its usage with objects

The semantic aspects refer to which component is semantically related to the complement in the sentence.

The result compliment is semantically more related to object and subject, and partly related to verb predicative.The complement refers to the recipient of the action, and most importantly to the object of the verb or the object of the sentence "?", and the subject of the sentence “?” [4, p153].

For example: ??????, ????????????? (?—????—??)

???…???????????????????(???, ????)

???????, ?????????????? (???,????)

??????????, ???????(????????)

Also, “?????”, “???????”, “?????”, “??????”, “???????”, “?????”, “?????”, “??????”, “?????” can be examples too.

If the verb predicative is transitive, in this type of complementas in the examples above, in this case the object may follow the verb. Some verbs are intransitive and do not actually have an object, but with the help of complement they can also have anobject.

For instance:

????????????????????

???????????????????????

Also, “??????”, “?????”, “??????”, “???”, “????”, “?????”, “?????”, “???????” can be examples too.

This type of complement is often used in “?” sentences:

???????????????.  (????????—?, ?—?)

???????????? .??—???—??

?……??“????”????? “???????”

Structural features of sentences with complement of result

Negative form of result compliment

Usually “?” is used as the negative form of result compliment, because it indicates whether an action or change has an effect or not. “?” comes before verb predicative or adjective when compliment of result is negative. “? + verb + result compliment” represents that the action of the work did not achieve any result. For instance,

1. ????????2. ?????????????????

The meaning of these two sentences is "heard" but "did not understand"; "seen", but "not clear, indefinite."

Only in the intended casesthe result complement takes “?” and gives negative meaning:

1. ??????????? 2. ???????????????

It is not possible to use any components between verbs and adjectives. After compliments “?”, “?” (dynamic auxiliary verbs) can be used, but not “?”. Object can follow the result compliment and “?”, “?”:

?????????????

Problems relating to objects

In some cases object comes before the result compliment. This object is not of verb, but is of compliment:

????????

Some intransitive verbs do not take an object, but when they are used with result compliment they can take the object:

1. ???????? 2. ????????????? 3. ?????????

Adjective and verb – acting the function of result compliment

Only adjectives and adverbs can take turns the function of compliment of result. Since complement is a common grammatical phenomenon in spoken language, single-syllable adjectives, which are widely used in oral speech, are usually considered as complements, and double-syllable adjectives can also be used as complements of result [5, p275]. The verb can also be used as complement. The most common of them are followings: ?????????????????????????????????????????

These verbs do not represent definiteactions (“?” and “?” means “??” when they are used as result compliments). When the verb comes in a complementary function, the action represented by the predicative verb indicates passive action of the subject or the object of the action:

1. ??????.  2. ???????????.  3. ????????.

“?”?“?”?“?”,  the compliments in this sentence refers to passive action. It there is an active action like “????????????????”, in this case the compliment of result is not utilized:

* ???????* ????????

The lexical meaning of some verbs changes when they represent result compliments. Here are most commonly used verbs:

“?”actually means “to have a result – ??”. When “?” takes the function of compliment, it is used after verbs of sense and perception (“?”, “?”, “?”, “?”, “?”) to express the result of an action [6, p151].

Examples:

1. ???????????????2. ??????????????????????3. ????????????

“?” and “?”, “?”,“?” are used as compliment:

1. ???????????????????2. ??????????????

“?”represents the stabilization of someone or something through a certain action [7, p53].

Examples:

1. ????????????2. ??????????3. ?????????4. ???????????5. ?????????

“?” (zháo)

a. Indicates that the action has achieved a specific goal. Often used in spoken language: 1. ???????????2. ?????????

The negative form "?”used in this sentence is pronounced strongly when "?”precedes it, and the positive form is usually pronounced slightly.

b. Means an action or circumstance has bad consequences for a person or things when it is used with certain verbs or adjectives:

1. ??????????????(because “?”, ? may cause bad consequences) 2. ??????????????(because “?”, it may adversely affect health)

These types of verbs “?” are usually slightly pronounced and they are followings:

“??, ??, ??, ??, ??, ??, ??”

c. “??” (go to bed): ???????????

d. “??” (to burn): ????????????

e. “??????????” means responsibility: ????????????????????????????

“?” in c, d, e is strongly pronounced.

Conclusion

Resultative complements ? is indicating the completion of an action or the depletion or exhaustion of something (something is eaten up, drunk up, or used up), e.g., ???? “(It has) all been eaten up” or ???????? “When can (you) finish (writing) it?” ? is used with sensing verbs ? “to look”, ? “to listen”, ? “to smell” to differentiate between the wilful act of trying to perceive with the senses (i.e. looking at or trying to look) and the resulting perception of an object (i.e. see or saw). ? Indicating that something has been fixed in place as the result of an action.

References

[1] ???. “??????????”. ???????, ??-2006 ?. 501?. [2] ???. “??????????”. ???????, ??-2012?. 246 ?. [3] ???. “????????”. ?????, ??-2004?. 915?. [4] ???. “?????”. ????????, ???-1985?. 196?. [5] ???. “?????????”. ?????????, ??-2008?. 668? [6] ???. “??????”. ?????????, ??-2002?. 298 ?. [7] ???. “????????” (???). ?????????, ??-2011?. 100?. [8] ???. “????????”, ?? ?????, ??-2011?. 276?.

Copyright

Copyright © 2022 Tilovov Ozod Zairjonovich . This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.