A Contrastive Study Of Path Lexicalization In English And Chinese Visual Fictive Motion Events

This thesis is a contrastive study on Path lexicalization,including Path representation and Path components,in English and Chinese visual fictive motion events(VFMEs)on the basis of a narrative corpus of English and Chinese original works.Based on a quantitative study on constructions containing visual Paths,we carry out a contrastive study on visual Paths from the following two aspects:Path representation(including Path represented by Sats,Path represented by verbs,zero Paths)and Path components(including visual Path components in Ground-minus clauses,simple visual Paths(SVPs)and complex visual Paths(CVPs)).Finally,factors behind similarities and dissimilarities in visual Path representation and Path components are analyzed.Our analysis finds both similarities and differences between English and Chinese visual Path lexicalization.The similarities include:1)Both English and Chinese visual Paths can be represented by Sats and verbs.Besides,zero Paths also play important role in both English and Chinese visual Path expressions;2)Both GPVs and VP Vs can be employed to encode visual Paths,among which,GPVs are more preferred in both English and Chinese;3)Both English and Chinese favor the pattern of zero Paths,especially Chinese;4)In Ground-minus clauses,both English and Chinese favor Path components of Earth-Grid Displacement and Deixis;5)In SVPs,both English and Chinese tend to window final visual Paths.Vector,especially arrival Vector is the most favored one involved in both English and Chinese final visual Paths;6)In CVPs,medial-final windowing and initial-final windowing are more frequently employed in English and Chinese.The differences are:1)English tends to employ Preps and Advs as Sats to represent visual Paths,while Chinese prefers Preps and DVs.Besides,Sats in the structure of MVs/GMVs+Sats are more diversified in Chinese and visual Paths can be realized by Preps,Advs,DVs and Locatives;2)There are VP Vs like huangu/?? and xunshi/?? in Chinese;3)Chinese zero Paths exhibit much more diversified ways including VVs alone,"VVs+zhe/?,la/?,de/?”,"VVs+jian/?","VVs+a period of time",reduplicating VVs and MVs/GMVs.However,English zero Paths can only be found in the patterns of VVs,MVs/GMVs and the structure of "VVs+a period of time";4)In SVPs,final visual Paths tend to contain components of Vector and Conformation in English but Vector and Earth-Grid Displacement in Chinese.5)In CVPs,English and Chinese are different in the number of complex visual Path expressions and combinatorial possibilities of visual Path components.The number of Chinese CVPs is much less than that in English.While English not only possesses a large number of complex visual Path expressions but also shows multiple possibilities in combination of visual Path components,among which,constructions of“1 Earth-Grid+1 Vector+1 Ground" and "1 Conformation+1 Vector+I Ground" are the most favored patterns.Factors behind similarities and differences in visual Path lexicalization are analyzed from cognitive mechanism and language system.On the one hand,universal conceptual blending make it possible to show similar tendency in English and Chinese visual Path representation.However,English and Chinese are diverse under the control of different conceptual blending ability and visual Path windowing.On the other hand,differences on Path representation and Path components are also influenced by different lexicalization patterns and the dynamic feature of Chinese and stative feature of English.