A Study On Lexicalization Typology Of English And Chinese Motion Events Based On Talmy’s Macro-Event Theory

Motion is one of the most basic and important experience activities of human beings.How to encode such experience into language structure is a hot topic in semantics.In Talmy’s macro-event theory,the motion event,as a type of macro-event,is the lexicalization form of this common human activity.By studying motion event and its superordinate,the macro-event,Talmy found the typological features in the semantic level of world languages.He divided languages into the verb-framed language and the satellite-framed language and reckons that Chinese is among the satellite-framed languages,same as English.This categorization evoked the interest of many scholars.Some agree with Talmy and some oppose immensely.The present thesis collects 8648 nonagentive motion events in Chinese and7046 nonagentive motion events in English to give insights of the categorization of Chinese based on Talmy’s typology.The motion events come from three Chinese novels and two English novels.The author finds that 71.4%of the core schema in the novel All the Light We Cannot See and is expressed by the Satellite,and 72.8%of the core schema in the novel Pay it Forward and is expressed by the Satellite,which indicates that English is a satellite-framed language;As for Chinese motion events,55%of the core schema falls in Verb in the novel Life and Death are Wearing Me Out.55.7%of the core schema falls in Verb in the novel To Live.And 55.9%of the core schema falls in Verb in the novel The Cattle.Chinese and English are significantly different（ρ<0.05）in terms of the framing typology.By comparing Chinese and English motion events,the author finds the following features:First,the semantic element of Path is conflated in prepositions or adverbs in the surface structure in English,while in Chinese,Path can be express by prepositions,axial words and Path verbs.In English,the prepositions have the ability to create new motion events with verbs that are not considered previously as Motion verbs;they also take up most of the schematic cores in English motion events.Second,in Chinese motion events,a localizer is frequently found after the Ground.It usually appears with a two-character verb in Chinese and the verb could be simple directional construction（V+Path verb）or complex directional construction（V1+V2+V3）.In either cases,the localizer stresses the Ground and enhances the verb-framed attribute of Chinese motion event.Last but not least,the author finds that the forms of serial motion events expressions in Chinese and English are different.In Chinese,a Figure can be followed by different Motions and Paths.A series of[Motion+Path]phrases would go after the verb and the serial motion events display a pattern like“[Motion+Path]₁+[Motion+Path]₂+[Motion+Path]₃+...+[Motion+Path]_n”or like“VP₁+VP₂+VP₃+......+VP_n”in the surface level.While in English,a construction like“[Motion]+[Path]₁+[Path]₂+[Path]₃......+[Path]_n”is more salient.In the surface structure of English motion events,this feature would be displayed like“V+Satellite₁+Satellite₂+Satellite₃......+Satellite_n”.The thesis expands the research of Tamly’s typology and motion event theory,and gives more insights into the study of Chinese directional complement constructions.The author also introduces the method to analyze complex directional complement constructions based on Talmy’s theory.For pedagogical significance,the research is beneficial to EFL（English as a Foreign Language）learners and CFL（Chinese as a Foreign Language）learners.