The Semantic Map of Generalized Action Verbs

Abstract:

In English, ‘do’ serves as a multifunctional verb, acting not only as a main verb but also as an auxiliary for emphasis and as a light verb in constructions such as ‘do cleaning’ or ‘do research’. However, such a multifunctional ‘do’ verb is not unique to English; the ‘do-verb’ is also attested in numerous languages worldwide. For instance, Mandarin and other Chinese dialects exhibit various forms of ‘do’ verbs that serve a broad range of uses, such as zuò 做 in Mandarin which expresses meanings of ‘make’ 做蛋糕 (make a cake), ‘doing something’ 做作業 (do homework), and ‘be’ 做老師 (be a teacher). In this study, we adopt the semantic map model to examine this class of verbs, which we term generalized action verbs (GAVs), from a cross-linguistic perspective. We identify both similarities and differences in their usage and their evolutionary pathways. Drawing on data starting from Min dialects and expanding to other languages, we aim to construct a unified semantic map that captures the relationships and evolutionary pathways of these verbs. While much of the previous scholarship has characterized GAVs as semantically vague and internally homogeneous, this study reveals that they encompass multiple distinct lexical meanings. Specifically, the majority of GAVs in Chinese dialects can be categorized into two types: the DO-type and the MAKE-type. This study further demonstrates that these two types follow divergent grammaticalization pathways; for instance, only MAKE-type GAVs develop causative functions. However, such a bipartite classification is rarely observed in non-Sinitic languages or languages outside the Sino-Tibetan family. Furthermore, certain GAV usages that are absent in Chinese dialects are found to be pervasive cross-linguistically, such as co-occurrence with ideophones. This research argues that the diverse grammatical functions of GAVs are inherently associated with their underlying lexical polysemy, suggesting that the  multifunctionality of GAVs must be understood in the context of their lexical diversity.