Gestaltist Semantic Compositionality in Chinese V-V Compounds

In traditional analysis, the constructions of Chinese V-V compounds are generally categorized, according to the grammatical relation between the component V’s, into three major types: coordination (並列式), modifier-head (偏正式) and verb-complement (述補式). Though the widely accepted categorization criteria seem to be simple and straightforward, linguists could often come to completely different judgments about construction type for an ordinary V-V compound, as the case of yao-dong 搖動, which is shown in this paper. According to our analysis, such variation on the V-V construction interpretation is by no means occasional, but rather a natural consequence of some potential Gestalt effect in determining the construction type, whenever it is allowed. As a matter of fact, the construction V-V and its component V’s simultaneously influence the meaning interpretation of each other, just as what the whole and the parts do in the visual perception of a Gestalt form. We adopt thus a cognitive approach based on Construction Grammar to treat the semantic composition of a V-V compound and propose thus a mechanism of Gestaltist semantic compositionality in constructing the meaning of the compound verb.