1. Introduction

Verb category “drink” appears in everyday life with high frequency, which includes many hyponyms such as “sip, chug, slurp, suck...” in English and “饮，酌，抿，吮...” in Chinese. This essay employs semantic component analysis and theory of lexicalization to discuss the semantic component and lexicalization pattern of English and Chinese “drink” verbs.

The OED (1989) defines lexicalize as “to accept into the lexicon, or vocabulary, of a language,” and lexicalization as “ the action or process of lexicalizing.” In this sense simple and complex words, native as well as loanwords can be lexicalized.

Linguistic typologists divide languages into three types according to lexicalization patterns: figure-framed language, satelite-framed language and verb-framed language. Chinese and English belong to the second type, whose pattern is conflation of motion and manner (or cause) (Luo2007:13).

“Drink” is a category of the whole verbs. The author wants to know whether this category is in accord with “ motion + manner (or cause)” pattern.

2. The semantic component and lexicalization pattern of English “drink” verbs

2.1 The semantic component analysis of English “drink” verbs

By means of synonym research, ten “drink” verbs that rank high use frequency are winnowed out. They are “sip, swallow, suck, chug, slurp, swig, gulp, guzzle, taste and nurse”. The author consults Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English to analyze their semantic component. For example, “sip” means “ to drink something slowly, taking very small mouthfuls”. This definition contains not only the core semantic component “drink”, but also reveals a drinking manner “slowly” and quantity “very small mouthfuls”. The above verbs are listed as follows:

Verb	Definition	Semantic component
sip	to drink something slowly, taking very small mouthfuls	喝+缓慢+极少量
swallow	to make food or drink go down your throat and towards your stomach	喝+快速
suck	to take air, liquid etc into your mouth by making yours lips from a small hole and using the muscles of your mouth to pull it up	喝+口型圆+费力+从小孔
chug	to drink all of something in a glass or bottle without stopping	喝+快速+杯装/瓶装
slurp	to drink a liquid while making a noisy sucking sound	喝+发出声音
swig	to drink something in large mouthfuls especially from a bottle	喝+大量+瓶装
gulp	to swallow large quantities of food or drink quickly	喝+快速+大量
guzzle	to drink a lot of something, eagerly and quickly- usually showing disapproval	喝+快速+急切+大量
taste	to eat or drink a small amount of something to see what it is like	喝+少量+为了品味
nurse	if you nurse a drink, especially an alcoholic one, you drink it very slowly	喝+极慢+含酒精的饮料

2.2 Lexicalization pattern of English “drink” verbs

Based on the above table, lexicalization pattern can be clearly seen:

Verb	Lexicaliztion pattern	Chinese translation
sip	motion + manner + quantity	小口地喝，抿，呷
swallow	motion + manner	吞下，咽下（食物或饮料）
suck	motion + manner	吸，吮，啜
chug	motion + manner + container	一口喝下
slurp	motion + sound	咕嘟咕嘟地喝
swig	motion + manner + container	（尤指对着瓶口）大口喝
gulp	motion + manner + quantity	大口吞咽，快速吞下
guzzle	motion + manner + quantity	狂饮，猛喝，暴饮
taste	motion + cause + quantity	尝，品尝
nurse	motion + manner + object	慢慢地喝（尤指含酒精的饮料）

From the two tables, it can be seen that those verbs share the core semantic component “drink”, they each have peripheral semantic components like manner, quantity, container, cause, sound and object. Therefore, the main lexicalization pattern of English “drink” verbs is “motion + manner + X” and X is more likely to be “quantity”. Moreover, the core semantic component determines the universals of those verbs while the peripheral semantic components result in the particulars (Wang & Zhou2004:417). Take “sip” and “gulp” as an example, both of them are “to drink”. However, in “sip” the manner is “slowly” and quantity is “small” whereas “gulp” indicates a “quickly” manner and “big” quantity. It is the peripheral semantic components that distinguish “sip” and “gulp”. Though “gulp” and “guzzle” have common in the motion and quantity, they are different in the manner “eagerly”.

On top of that, among those English verbs, “sip, suck, guzzle, taste” have equivalent Chinese synthetic expression (Cai2005:35), that is “抿，呷；吸，吮，啜；狂饮，猛喝，暴饮；尝”. But more than half should be translated into Chinese in an analytic way like “一口喝下，咕噜咕噜地喝，大口吞咽...”.

3. The semantic component and lexicalization pattern of Chinese “drink” verbs

3.1 The semantic component analysis of Chinese “drink” verbs

With the help of synonym research, thirteen frequently used “drink” verbs are picked out, including “饮，呷，吮，服，吃，酌，抿，尝，灌，啜，畅饮，豪饮，痛饮” (Lu2005:96). The author refers to Modern Chinese Dictionary. For example, “饮” means “喝” which only has core semantic component “drink”; “呷” means “小口地喝” which is composed of core semantic component “drink”, manner and quantity “small mouthful”.

Verb	Definition	Semantic component
饮	喝	喝
呷	小口地喝	喝+口型小+少量
吮	用嘴吸	喝+口型圆+费力
服	饮用或食用药物	喝+药物
吃	喝	喝
酌	喝酒	喝+酒
抿	嘴唇轻沾一下杯碗，略饮少许	喝+缓慢+口型扁+极少量+杯装/碗装
尝	辨别滋味	喝+少量+为了品味
灌	放开量喝	喝+大量
啜	饮	喝
畅饮	痛快地喝	喝+为了痛快
豪饮	放量饮酒	喝+大量+酒
痛饮	尽情地喝酒	喝+酒+为了尽情

3.2 Lexicalization pattern of Chinese “drink” verbs

From the above table, lexicalization pattern of those verbs is that:

Verb	Lexicaliztion pattern	English translation
饮	motion	drink
呷	motion + manner + quantity	sip
吮	motion + manner	sunk
服	motion + object	take
吃	motion	absorb, soak up
酌	motion + object	drink (alcohol)
抿	motion + manner + quantity + container	sip
尝	motion + cause + quantity	taste
灌	motion + quantity	gulp
啜	motion	sip, suck
畅饮	motion + cause	drink to one’s heart content
豪饮	motion + quantity + object	drink to the limit of one’s capacity
痛饮	motion + cause + object	drink to one’s fill; drink to one’s heart content

The table tells that Chinese “drink” verbs contain the core as well as the peripheral semantic components such as manner, quantity, object, container and cause. The main lexicalization pattern is “motion + manner/cause + X”. There are two causes: drink to see what it is like and drink for fun. X tends to be “quantity”. The subtle differences of those hyponyms can be seen from the peripheral semantic components. For instance, “服” and “酌” differ in the object, the former is drug, the latter is alcohol.

In addition, though there may be some minor distinctions almost all the Chinese monosyllables can find English synthetic expression to explain them. But the last three verbs can just find analytic expression because they contain the information of cause and object that English “drink” verbs seldom have.

4. Concluding remarks

After analyzing the semantic component and lexicalization pattern of English and Chinese “drink” verbs respectively, the author finds that there are semantic universals and particulars in both English and Chinese verb category “drink”. That is, “drink” verbs share the core semantic component “drink” which determines the universals, and they each have peripheral semantic components that result in the particulars. The main lexicalization pattern of English “drink” verbs is “motion + manner + X” and X is more likely to be “quantity” while in Chinese it is “motion + manner/cause + X” and X also tends to be “quantity”. Hence, the overall pattern of this category verb is “motion + manner (cause) + X”. Since synthetic expressions are often used in English “drink” verbs and analytic expressions are often used in Chinese, the lexicalization degree of verb category “drink” in English is higher than that in Chinese.

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