A Study Of Chinese Fictive Motion Expressions

Fictive Motion,also called“Virtual Motion”,is first conceptualized in Semantics and syntax of motion by Talmy?1975?.Fictive Motion is defined by Talmy?2000a?as a certain organization way in the use of language to equip a static entity with the features of motion.This study reveals that in modern Chinese,the motion events in visual and psychological perception are actually the perceptions of the non-real movements through human cognition,which fall into the category of fictive motions for there is no actual motion.In this thesis,the Chinese Fictive Motion is investigated by combining the relevant theories of spatial location study of modern Chinese with the theory of“Motion Event Frame”of Talmy?2000b?.The definition,classification,constituent elements and syntactic forms of Chinese Fictive Motion Expressions are analyzed comprehensively.Chapter One is the introduction of the thesis.It is a comprehensive review of the language theory development,empirical research,cognitive research and comparative research related to Fictive Motion at home and abroad,aiming to clarify research background and context,so as to determine the object,method,and significance of this research.Chapter Two defines Fictive Motion in modern Chinese and classify their types.The generation of Fictive Motion is the expression of the apparent movement phenomenon,which depends on the real motion that allows people to intuitively perceive through the visual,auditory,and other sensory systems,or feel through the mind.However,this kind of movement does not happen and it depends on the subjective construction of human cognition.The psychological activities and time-related“metaphor”of modern Chinese are also included in the study with the focus of the study being on the basic category—the six types of Fictive Motion proposed by Talmy?2000a?.It is found that among the six types,the emanation is the most frequent one,followed by the coextension path,and the pattern path is the least frequent.According to the characteristics of the Fictive Motion figure,four categories are classified:“imagination”,“reality”,“gestalt”and“metaphor”.Various figures are described and explained,and the semantic features,spatial dimension features and combination modes of the first two figures are emphatically investigated.Concerning the real motion,it is believed that in the basic class of Fictive Motion,the other five classes of Fictive Motion are both factual and fictional except the emanation.In Chapter Three,the Fictive Motion of modern Chinese according to the basic elements of motion in the theory of“Motion Event Frame”is investigated.It was found that the Fictive Motion shares some similarities with the real motion.The[path]element is the necessary condition of forming the Fictive Motion,the[manner]and[cause]are Co-Events,both of them can only appear in Fictive Motion when the path feature is reflected.The rank of the six components of the Chinese Fictive Motion is:motion/path>figure>manner>cause>ground.The[ground]element is related to the use of prepositions in the surface structure.In the expression of Fictive Motion,the language surface might refer to the figure or the“original object”of the figure through the subject.Chu's“movability hierarchy”was employed to define“original object”.When the entity in the Fictive Motion has a similar pragmatic function to the figure,and its mobility level is?4,it acts as the“original object”of the Fictive Motion.With further investigation,the“original object”of the figure of“imagination”only exists in the level 1,2 and 4.The Fictive Motions that must have the“original object”are all the small and subclasses of the emanation variety.Also,a comprehensive study on the characteristics and coding forms of verbs in[motion],[path]and[manner]elements are conducted.Chapter Four investigates the form of Chinese Fictive Motion and examines the characteristics and constraints of Chinese Fictive Motion expressions.Seven basic forms of Chinese Fictive Motion and investigated their characteristics and constraint conditions are determined respectively.The seven basic expressions are:?1?NP₁+V+directional verb+?NP₂?;?2?NP₁+VA+NP₂;?3?NP₁+?“?+NP₃”?+V+preposition+NP₂;?4?NP₁+stative verb+quantitative structure;?5?NP₁+preposition+NP₂+V+?directional verb?;?6?NP₁+VP₁+?NP₂?+?+VP₂;?7?NP₁+V+?+NP₂.In Chapter Five,the mechanism of Fictive Motion expression is explained.It is found that the generation of Fictive Motion expression is closely related to the neural basis,the basic cognitive model and the perspective of visual subjects,from which this thesis explains the formation of Fictive Motion expression.Among them,a neural basis is the physical basis of Fictive Motion expression,and metaphor is the cognitive basis.The visual subject's perspective is the decisive sector which reflects the role of subjectivity.The results have shown the dependence relationship between Fictive Motion and real motion.Chapter Six is the conclusion,which summarize the research findings and further elaborates on the research topic and its significance.In this thesis,the basic classification of Fictive Motion in modern Chinese is comprehensively investigated by combining the Spatial Location Theory of modern Chinese and Talmy?2000b?'s Motion Event Frame theory.It is also proposed that there exists an extended classification of Chinese Fictive Motion expression which is the“metaphor category”.On the micro-level,this thesis investigates the elements and surface forms of the Fictive Motion of modern Chinese.On the macro-level,the language types of modern Chinese are re-examined from the perspective of language typology,and it is found that modern Chinese conforms to the characteristics of Satellite-Framed Language.