A Study Of Linguistic Typology Of Motion Events In Chinese

This thesis is a study of the conceptualization and linguistic expression of motion events in Chinese. The focus is on the correlation between the ways in which Chinese speakers conceptualize motion events in everyday experience and the ways in which they render them in this language. In this case study, I hope to demonstrate some of the ways in which language reflects our conceptualizations of the world.In Toward a Cognitive Semantics (2000 vol. I and II), Talmy proposed a'Figure-Ground-Motion-Path'formulation of motion events. The study observes within this formulation a number of typologically significant properties of conceptualization and grammatical realization of motion events in Chinese.First, when assigning the conceptual elements Figure and Ground of motion, Chinese exhibits a'movability effect': The Figure role is regularly assigned to the entity standing higher in the experience-based'movability hierarchy', while the Ground is assigned to the entity with the lower movability rating. The syntactic result of the conceptual contrasts between Figure and Ground is a'Figure-over-Ground'precedence order mapping relationship between these two conceptual elements. We found that although'Figure-over-Ground'is the default syntactic configuration, there is in Chinese a Figure/Ground reverse situation provided that the Ground element ranks lower than the Figure in the Movability hierarchy.Second, depending on how languages packages Path and Manner in motion event, Talmy proposed two types of lexicalization patterns, namely'satellite-framed pattern'and'verb-framed pattern', and he categorizes both English and Chinese as satellite-framed languages. We show that both the satellite-framed pattern and the verb-framed pattern are available in Chinese for expressing the motion elements of Motion, Path, Manner and Cause. Therefore, Chinese employs a parallel system of lexicalization patterns and is not a'perfect example'of a satellite-framed language, as claimed by Talmy. Typologically, this parallel system of conflation sets Chinese apart from languages such as English or Spanish which use only one type of conflation in its most characteristic expression of motion. On the other hand, the two lexicalization patterns exhibit differences with regard to their construal, their communicative functions, and their applicability for expressing different types of motion events.Third, we argue, to the contrary of traditional sense, that Path, rather than Motion element, is the defining property for motion conceptualization and representation. Whether or not the main verb of a sentence is a'motion verb', the sentence may not express a motion event if the Path of the motion is unspecified. In Chinese, the motion meaning of a sentence need not necessarily be expressed by motion verbs.According to Talmy's formulation, the conceptual structure for Path consists of three components: Vector, Conformation, and Deictic. We describes Path-related properties within this three components and observed that Chinese manifest certain typological characteristics: Chinese differentiates from English in specifying the details of Vector components; the expressions for encoding Traversal+Conformation are limited in Chinese; Deictic perspective is normally utilized in Path conceptualization and representation; and'Non-Deictic + non-Deictic'Path complement accumulation is not licensed in this language.Fourth, although Chinese exhibits the property of a satellite-framed language in licensing Manner+Motion conflation for a verb, this kind of typological identification was shown to be insufficiently precise. Our analysis indicates that to realize the Manner+Motion conflation in a language, inseparability between the relevant Manner and Motion is a necessary condition. Comparing Chinese with English, we found that Chinese exerts stronger constraint than English on Manner+Motion conflationOur investigation concerning motion event conceptualization and representation in Chinese clearly point to the basic tenets of cognitive linguistics. The observations and findings afford significant insights into motion expressions for L2 teachers and learners of both languages, thereby facilitating both teaching and learning.