Perspectives on the Polysemy of the Vietnamese Word ‘QUA’
Abstract
This research investigates the semantic shifts of the Vietnamese word QUA by applying a semantics approach, to determine the structure of meanings and the mechanisms responsible for the semantic expansion of the word. Attentive to the conceptual metaphor and grammar, the study explores how QUA evolves from a spatial term to include concepts of time, experience, and manner. The research utilizes qualitative and quantitative methods to analyze 200 QUA utterances selected from eight Vietnamese narratives by using the WordSmith Tool. Findings indicate that QUA has four general semantic categories: spatial, temporal, experiential, and manner, whereas the spatial sense is the prototypical sense from which other meanings emerge via metaphorical and metonymic extension. I analyzed three ideological mechanisms: metaphorical shifts, metonymic shifts, and image schemas, all of which govern abstract concepts due to their spatial relation. In addition, the findings explain how Vietnamese speakers extend their actual spatial concepts systematically to express abstract ideas and hence to enhance the understanding of diverse semantic networks of words in the Vietnamese standard language.
Keywords: Shifts, semantics, spatial preposition, semantic extension, linguistic anthropology