Analects of Confucius, Psych Verbs, Emotional Psych Verbs, Semantics, Experiencer, Locative

Abstract

Psych verbs are verbs with special characteristics with relatively prominent linguistic features. Out of the psych verbs, emotive psych verbs are large in number, and assist in understanding the various semantic structures as they convey psychological reactions according to external stimuli.BR The purpose of this study is to identify the semantic characteristics of emotional psych verbs within The Analects of Confucius, the representative literature which portrays the language of the Pre-Qin Dynasty.BR This study first categorized the emotional psych verbs into positive psych verbs and negative psych verbs, then analyzed the experiencers, which are external arguments and the locatives, which are internal arguments. Furthermore, each word was categorized as either a subject-centered psych verb or a result-centered psych verb, and it was found that there are 13 subject-centered psych verbs and 6 result-centered psych verbs, resulting in a higher number of subject-centered psych verbs.