Verbs of falling in Chinese: diachronic approach

The paper demonstrates the possibilities of the diachronic approach in the study of lexical systems on the material of verbs of falling. The diachronic analysis of one particular zone (loss of vertical orientation), which in modern Chinese is covered by a single lexeme 倒 dǎo ‘to fall (of a vertically oriented object)’, highlights an additional semantic parameter “direction of falling”: cf. 仆 pū ‘to fall forward’ and 偃 yǎn ‘to fall backward’. The analysis of historical changes in the combinability of the verb 落 luò ‘to fall’ explains the frequency of this component in complex words, and demonstrates that in written language it shows amazing stability: 落 luò in its original meaning (‘to fall (of leaves / ​flowers)’) has been used in literary monuments for almost three thousand years. At the same time, its peripheral frames undergo significant changes. This makes diachronic research a source of valuable information about the significance and relative proximity of frames, which can be used while building semantic maps, and in the long term, contribute to the identification of new patterns in the historical development of vocabulary. In addition, diachronic studies in vocabulary may also indicate a connection between two different semantic fields, when lexemes in the process of historical development move from one field to another (‘turn over’ and ‘fall’ in our case). Thus, diachronic approach in lexical typology proves its effectiveness both in tracing back the historical changes in one particular zone, and in the study of compatibility of one particular lexeme in different historical periods.