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What are some examples of stative -le and iterative aspect in Mandarin?


seadads

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Hi everyone!

 

I'm a graduate student studying how bilinguals interpret certain aspectual expressions in Mandarin. I'm currently preparing all of my stimuli, but I'm hoping for some help from native speakers since I'm sadly a monolingual English speaker.

Basically, I'm looking for constructions that use bounded and unbounded states with verbal suffix -le, and also semelfactives (punctual verbs, like cough or knock) with -le and temporal adverbials like for two minutes. I've accumulated some from studies I've read, but that's my only reference. Here are a couple of examples:

 

Bounded state + -le: Wo xihuan danxin-le ni liang nian (intended meaning: I liked you for two years (and no longer do))

Unbounded state + -le: Tianqi leng-le (nimen duo chuan dian yifu) (intended: The weather is becoming cold (is the following context necessary?))

Semelfactive + -le + adverbial: Ta kesou-le liang fenzhong (intended: He coughed for two minutes)

 

I would deeply appreciate examples and thoughts. Typically, I would be able to pay a native consultant, but because of COVID I'm not actually doing the experiment and so, have no money. Mandarin is fantastically complex and even just in the realm of aspect and its interactions, I could spend 15 years writing this thesis. I've been working on this for about a year now and the only aspectual marker I'm even writing about is -le.

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