Modern Chinese Motion Verbs

One of the hot topics in Chinese studying is the study of its verbs, especially in the past thirty years, when lots of achievements were accomplished. [±motion] is an important semantic feature, but there exist some problems in the definition of verbs of motion as well as in the studying of related questions. On the basis of the definition, the thesis discusses sentence patterns of verbs of motion. Adopting Cognitive Grammar as the framework, the thesis builds a cognitive model of the existential-presentational construction to explore its connection with verbs of motion.Scholars hold different opinions on some of the problems in their researches on the existential-presentational construction. For example, their views diverge on the relation between existential sentences, disappearing-appearing sentences and the existential-presentational construction. In the cognitive model built in the thesis, existential-presentational construction is examined with theory of profile and base. Thus, in this frame, a comprehensive analysis of the distinctive constructions is presented.The paper contains six chapters. Chapter one introduces the object, methods, purpose, and significance of the study. Source of the language material used in the chapter is also explained in this part. Chapter two is a review of past research. It sorts out research on the sub-categories of Chinese verbs, verbs of motion and questions related to them. Chapter three defines and classifies verbs of motion. Besides, some of features of them are analyzed in this part. Chapter four analyzes sentence patterns of verbs of motion. Chapter five builds a cognitive model to settle differences upon the existential-presentational construction. Chapter six discusses expanding of motion from real space to abstract world with a reference to metaphor. Chapter seven reviews the whole paper, analyzing its achievements and its limitation.