He killed a chicken, but it didn't die An empirical study of the lexicalization of state change in Mandarin monomorphemic verbs

Mandarin contrasts typologically with English in its lexicalization of state change (Talmy 2000). The majority of Mandarin monomorphemic verbs is moot about or implies a state change, whereas English has many monomorphemic verbs (e.g. kill) that entail a state change. This study investigates empirically the nuanced lexicalization of state-change implicature in Mandarin monomorphemic verbs and its implications for the linguistic typology of encoding state change. Two experiments were conducted with adult native Mandarin speakers: a rating task about the acceptability of sentences that expressed a failure of fulfilment of a state-change (e.g. Zhangsan sha le ji, ke shi ji mei si 'Zhangsan killed a chicken, but it didn't die') and a multiple-choice task that probed the preferred interpretation of monomorphemic state-change verbs. The results of both studies reveal a significant effect of verb types and post hoc comparisons show a cline of state-change implicature in the target verbs.