A Cross-linguistic Approach To Caused-motion Expressions In English And Chinese

Caused-motion event is an event that an agent causes a patient to have a change of motion.The caused-motion includes five parts,the causer,the causee,the driving force,the motion and the path.Caused-motion event includes causative event and motion event at the same time and it is a very universal linguistic phenomenon in many languages including English and Chinese.Many linguists have researches on English and Chinese caused-motion events,but most of them focus on caused-motion constructions of English and Chinese themselves and little attention has been paid to the caused-motion expressions from the cross-linguistic aspect.In a word,the previous researches have gained many achievements while there are still some limitations:1)As for the research method,the previous caused-motion researches just make the synchronic researches while the diachronic researches are insufficient.And how English and Chinese have causative meanings with the development of time is unknown.So this is not comprehensive.2)In terms of the research contents,most caused-motion researches focus on the researches of caused-motion construction.Actually,this is a syntactic research which lacks the lexical research.And because the words that are used in English and Chinese caused-motion events are different,it also can help us find out the similarities and differences of these two languages.3)The preceding researches mainly pay attention to English and Chinese themselves.However,they don’t analyze English and Chinese caused-motion events from the perspective of cross-linguistic.The generality and individuality of English and Chinese caused-motion expressions under the cross-linguistic approach don’t be analyzed.And the research of English and Chinese will be wider from the perspective of language generality.This thesis analyzes the grammaticalization of English and Chinese causatives from the perspective of diachronic research first,and then makes a comparative analysis of the lexicalization pattern expressions and the caused-motion construction expressions of English and Chinese caused-motion events at last.These three parts are thorough by the level from diachronic to synchronic as well as word to sentence.At the same time,some other languages are mentioned before the researches on English and Chinese which aim to find out the similarities and differences of English and Chinese caused-motion expressions under the cross-linguistic approach.And this enriches the researches on English and Chinese.The main findings are as follows:1)The uses and meanings of causative auxiliaries and affixes change a lot with the development of history.However,their causative meanings come from their original lexicalmeanings or concrete meanings.This is true of the world languages and it shows the diachronic similarities of English and Chinese under the cross-linguistic approach.2)Both English and Chinese mainly have the characteristics of satellite-framed languages which show the similarities between English and Chinese.However,the specific words that express the paths are different.Most paths in English are expressed by prepositions and adverbs,but they are expressed by tendency verbs in Chinese.So the lexicalization pattern expressions of English and Chinese caused-motion events are different.The main English lexicalization pattern is [manner verbs/path verbs+ preposition/adverb].But the main Chinese lexicalization patterns are [manner verbs/path verbs+ tendency verbs] and [manner verbs/path verbs+ complicated path verbs].The differences in the lexicalization pattern show the differences of these two languages.The research in this part shows the synchronic similarities and differences of English and Chinese.3)The world languages have generalities and individualities,which are displayed in some caused-motion construction expressions of one language not only can be founded in other languages’ caused-motion expressions but also has its own characteristic.The most common English caused-motion construction is “NP1+VP+NP2+PP” and different caused-motion events rely on this kind of construction.However,the most common Chinese caused-motion constructions are “ba” sentence,“shi” sentence,“de” sentence,“shi-ling” sentence and resultative causative sentences.Different caused-motion events have different caused-motion construction expressions in Chinese.We think the main reason of the difference is the difference in thought.However,there is no difference between the semantic elements of English and Chinese caused-motion constructions.The research in this part also shows the synchronic similarities and differences between English and ChineseThe research in this paper is useful to the researches on cognitive linguistic and cross-linguistic.On the one hand,it enriches the English and Chinese caused-motion expression researches.This thesis not only has diachronic research but also has synchronic research,and it also has the research from word to sentence.On the other hand,it enriches the caused-motion expression researches on other languages.And this is also useful to find out the similarities and differences of English and Chinese under the cross-linguistic approach.At the same time,the research on English and Chinese caused-motion expressions in this thesis can make the comparative analysis between English and Chinese more detailed and specific which is useful to the communication between these two languages.At last,this thesis can provide the theoretical guidance for language translation,language research and so on.