A Cognitive Construal Approach To Subjective Motion Sentences In Mandarin Chinese

Subjective motion,a linguistic phenomenon where static situations are described in terms of motion,has attracted a great deal of attention from researchers over the past few decades.While plenty of theoretical,experimental and comparative studies have been conducted abroad,the research on subjective motion in Mandarin Chinese is still in its infancy.In theory,many researchers have only advanced as far as introducing western theories to Chinese subjective motion,and a systematic work has not been undertaken regarding the definition,range or categorization of subjective motion sentences.In research methods,most of the studies concerning Chinese subjective motion have adopted the introspective method.Although authentic language material has been provided in some of the studies,few quantitative analyses have been presented.Moreover,the production of subjective motion sentences in Mandarin Chinese has received little attention in terms of experimental studies.There remain large gaps in the research on subjective motion in Mandarin Chinese.Based on these observations,the present dissertation systematically examines subjective motion sentences in Mandarin Chinese from the perspective of cognitive construal.The construal dimensions – selection,perspective,prominence and imagination – that vary in different aspects are analyzed,while certain points that are relevant to subjective motion are emphasized.The following research questions will be the primary concerns:(i)How are the components of figure,ground,path and manner encoded in subjective motion in Mandarin Chinese?(ii)Under what conditions do Chinese speakers preferably produce subjective motion sentences?(iii)What is the habitual use of subjective motion sentences in Mandarin Chinese?On the basis of the aspectual properties and the traversability of the subject noun phrase referent,subjective motion sentences are categorized into four types.Three experiential motivations for subjective motion sentences are suggested: perceiving,scanning,and imagination.Each is in relation to a particular type or certain types of subjective motion sentences: sentences that convey literal motion in real time,sentences that involve moving focus of attention,or sentences that express hypothetical motion.The construal is considered as the guiding principle for the multiple expressions of subjective motion and a research route for the study is presented.An elicitation tool is thus designed to explore the production of subjective motion sentences in Mandarin Chinese.The examination of these sentences has been arrived at by exploring a corpus generated using elicitation from pictures,and the major findings in this dissertation are presented as follows:1)It is found that the figures in pictures that acquire the features of [+ stationary] and [+ spatially extended] can elicit subjective motion sentences.Additionally,Chinese subjective motion sentences without overtly marked ground elements are proven to be rare(but not impossible).Three components of the path are discussed and the path verbs in subjective motion are classified into three groups – non-deictic path verbs(e.g.,ch? “exit”),deictic path verbs(lái “come” and qù “go”),and general path verbs(e.g.,chu?n “pass through”).It is suggested that the path is not obligatory in subjective motion in Mandarin Chinese;certain manner verbs can appear alone in sentences and the path of motion is left unexpressed.Also,the manner verbs in subjective motion are categorized into three groups – the manner verbs that denote the meaning of extend(e.g.,yánsh?n),the manner verbs that specify the meaning of wind(e.g.,w?nyán),and general manner verbs that generally appear in literal motion sentences(e.g.,p?n “climb”).It is found that the manner condition – a manner verb that can be adopted to represent subjective motion only when it is used to describe related path features – is only applied to general manner verbs;the restriction does not hold for the other two categories of subjective manner verbs since they per se express the correlated path properties.2)The results demonstrate that under the experimental condition of Afford motion / Third-person perspective(i.e.,when the figures afford human translocation and are observed from a third-perspective),Chinese speakers are more likely to produce subjective motion sentences than under the other conditions.Also,figures that afford motion(e.g.,lù “road”)elicit more subjective motion sentences than those do not(e.g.,zhàlán “fence”),irrespective of first-person or third-person perspective.3)It is revealed that Mandarin Chinese encourages its speakers to use a small number of core verbs in expressing subjective motion.Also,the results show that Chinese speakers make frequent use of serial verb constructions to describe subjective motion,and the manner verbs occupy a significant proportion in these constructions.Additionally,Chinese subjective motion has been studied in the motion event typology.Talmy's classification of the serial construction in Mandarin Chinese(Talmy 2016)is revised and three subtypes of the “manner + verb serial constructions” are suggested.The results obtained in the subjective motion elicitation experiments are in turn applied to a set of properties proposed by Talmy(2016)as identifying main verb status in a construction,providing new evidence to the claim that Equipollent framing holds a dominant position in Mandarin Chinese.The findings of the study are expected to contribute much to the teaching and learning of Mandarin Chinese as a second language.The fundamental discussions in this dissertation should also be pertinent to researchers engaged in translation studies between Mandarin Chinese and other languages.The results can additionally be applied to linguistic typology,comparative works,as well as intercultural communication.