A comparative study of categorical structures of the polysemous verb kiru "cut" between Chinese learners and native speakers of Japanese : A psychological experiment to verify the semantic analysis

チュウゴクジン　ニホンゴ　ガクシュウシャ　ト　ニホンゴ　ボゴ　ワシャ　ニ　オケル　タギ　ドウシ　キル　ノ　カテゴリー　コウゾウ　ヒカク　シンリ　ジッケン　ニ　ヨリ　イミ　ブンセキ　ノ　ケッカ　ヲ　ケンショウ　スル

Wang, Yu

Graduate School of Language and Culture, Osaka University

オオサカダイガク　ダイガクイン　ゲンゴブンカ　ケンキュウカ

力動性

分断動詞

カテゴリー化

polysemy

force dynamics

verb of cutting/severing

categorization

The purpose of this study is to investigate how meanings of the typical Japanese polysemous verb kiru "cut" are categorized. The study also aims to claim how differently the semantics of kiru is perceived between learners and native speakers of the Japanese language. In addition to semantic analysis based on the cognitive theory of force dynamics, Ic onducted a psychological experiment with native speakers and Chinese learners of Japanese in order to verify the findings from the q叫itativeanalysis through a statistical approach. As a result of semantic analysis, the super-schema of kiru was extracted with each meaning reclassified into four semantic patterns. In the psychological experiment, the validity of the four patterns was verified, suggesting a need for further investigation. The experiment revealed that native speakers and learners have different semantics perception of the verb kiru. While native speakers tended to show a relatively more coherent set of semantic categories based on the features of the object argument, learners did not seem to fully recognize the relationship between the verb and the object argument. Learners had difficulty capturing the relationship between the meanings of the main verb and the compound verb with learners'categorization less likely to be structured.