A Study on the Syntactic and Semantic Functions of the Preposition “zài”

Abstract

This study investigates the syntactic and semantic functions of the preposition zài (在) in Mandarin Chinese. Drawing on a large-scale web corpus from the Leipzig Corpora Collection (2019), consisting of 2,547,177 sentences, this research examines the co-occurrence patterns of lexical items appearing to the left and right of zài. The analysis reveals that elements preceding zài are predominantly verbs (57%), indicating that zài frequently follows verbal predicates. In contrast, elements following zài are largely nouns or nominal phrases (65.9%), suggesting that zài typically introduces locative expressions.

From a syntactic perspective, zài commonly forms prepositional phrases that function as complements or adverbials within a clause, often appearing in structures such as “verb + zài + noun phrase.” Semantically, zài primarily serves as a locative marker, indicating the place where an action occurs. In many cases, it functions as a resultative complement specifying location, while in others it acts as an adverbial marker of place.

The findings demonstrate that zài plays a crucial role in linking predicates with locative arguments, reflecting both its syntactic flexibility and semantic consistency. This study contributes to a deeper understanding of the functional properties of prepositions in Mandarin Chinese, particularly in relation to clause structure and meaning construction.

Keywords: Mandarin Chinese, preposition zài, syntactic function, semantic function, corpus linguistics, locative expressions