A Corpus-based Comparative Study On Co-extension Path And Emanation Path In English And Chinese

The main argument presented in this essay centers around the notion of Fictive Motionwhich is pervasive among languages. Despite conveying a constant meaning in nature(fictivity of motion), languages differ in motion event typologies (Verb-framed andSatellite-framed) and ways of mental scanning (Summary Scanning and Sequential Scanning).As the previous researches proved, fictive motion is analogous to factive motion in manyrespects (the relationship between figure and ground, manner, path, duration, direction, etc).This study attempts to analyze the collected data in the light of Talmy’s Motion Eventcategorization. Two subtypes of FM will be discussed in English and Chinese, Co-extensionPath and Emanation Path. The subject of inquiry is to flesh out the following four questions:a. What are the configurational and traversable features of actant in English and Chinesefictive motion representation?b. How do motion verbs conflate with other semantic elements (Path or Manner) inChinese FM representation?c. To what extent can the motion duration in Chinese FM be specified?d. Which type of mental scanning is used (Summary Scanning or Sequential Scanning)in processing these expressions.Aiming at settling these four questions, comparisons of motion event elements (actant,manner, path, duration, direction) are made between English and Chinese FM representationson a corpus basis. Data are mainly collected from COCA(AmE) and CCL (Chinese).The study listed out four comparabilities in FM representation between English andChinese. To begin with, both English and Chinese speakers exhibit a strong preference toemploy linear and traversable entities to be the actant in FM representation. Moreover, thesimilarities between these two languages are also revealed from the indispensability of thepath and the relative constraint on the manner. Last but not the least, both English andChinese utilize two ways of mental scanning to process fictive motion.Apart from these striking similarities, English and Chinese also contrast on two accounts.Lexically, high frequency English verbs are seldom employed or even absent in Chinesefictive motion expression. Syntactically, owning to the null-subject grammar, Chinese disallows the specific temporal constituents to be added. Typologically,Theoretically, the present study suggests Satellite-framed and Verb-framed structures areused in a parallel way in Chinese fictive motion sentences, which is suggestive for revisingthe typology of Chinese and softening this longstanding conflict. Empirically, this researchnot only lends a hand to language learners to have a better understanding about theuniversality and individuality between English and Chinese as well as the motivation for thesedifferences, but also offers a new perspective for the development of the translation, languageteaching and the corpus linguistics.