Modeling a network of the ba -constructions in Contemporary Mandarin

Abstract Couched within Construction Grammar and through corpus-informed qualitative analysis, this study investigates various types of ba -constructions and their relations in Contemporary Mandarin Chinese to model a network of them. The results show that the ba -constructions have developed into a network of heterogeneous structures linked vertically by inheritance relations and horizontally by paradigmatic associations. At the top level, the general schema [S1 ba O/S2 VP] subsumes three sub-schemas: the broad disposal ba -construction [S ba O1 (X) V O2], the narrow disposal ba -construction [S ba O [(X1) V X2]/[X V]], and the causative disposal ba -construction [S1 ba S2 (X1) V X2], which form paradigmatic sets and are horizontally linked. Each sub-schema further branches into lower-level types of various schematicity, vertically connected within and beyond the ba -network via instance links and subpart links. Lower-level subschemas at the same level of schematicity constitute paradigmatic relations, and are horizontally connected. This study showcases the value of the constructional network modelling for representing complex syntactic relations and extends existing typologies of horizontal links by identifying associative relations among the sub-types of a single schema/construction.