Semantic map approach to universals of conceptual correlations: a study on multifunctional repetitive grams

There are some frequently used Chinese adverbs that display such a high degree of multifunctionality that the usage categorizing and the semantic connective pattern have long been a disputed issue, such as the repetitive adverbs 還 hai ‘still’, 再 zai ‘again’ and 又 you ‘again, also’. However, if attention could be turned from the nuances of usages within a single language to the notions these adverbs share cross-linguistically, it would be noticed that the notions expressed by these three adverbs like Repetition, Supplement and Increment could also be found in the repertoire of the counterparts in languages from completely different language families. The recurrence of these notions is by no means an accident; instead, the notions are to be related to each other in a certain fashion that could be specified. The Semantic Map Model (SMM) is just a tool that can best unravel the universal connective pattern. Based on first-hand data collected from 40 languages and second-hand data from reference grammar of 38 languages, a conceptual space centering on the concept of Repetition is established in this research. With the insight obtained from constructing this conceptual space, we also exemplified how this SMM approach benefits us in dealing with some long-standing puzzles with respect to Chinese repetitive adverbs.