The Segmentation and Representation of Translocative Motion Events in English and Chinese Discourse: A Contrastive Study [1st ed.] 9789813340367, 9789813340374

Table of contents :
Front Matter ....Pages i-xviii
Introduction (Guofeng Zheng)....Pages 1-12
MEP Principles and the Segmentation and Representation of TMEs (Guofeng Zheng)....Pages 13-55
Research Design and Data Tagging (Guofeng Zheng)....Pages 57-78
General Statistical Description of English and Chinese TME Constructions (Guofeng Zheng)....Pages 79-104
Contrasting the Representation of TMEs in English and Chinese (Guofeng Zheng)....Pages 105-167
Conclusion (Guofeng Zheng)....Pages 169-174
Back Matter ....Pages 175-190

Citation preview

Guofeng Zheng

The Segmentation and Representation of Translocative Motion Events in English and Chinese Discourse A Contrastive Study

The Segmentation and Representation of Translocative Motion Events in English and Chinese Discourse

Guofeng Zheng

The Segmentation and Representation of Translocative Motion Events in English and Chinese Discourse A Contrastive Study

Guofeng Zheng East China University of Science and Technology Shanghai, China

ISBN 978-981-33-4036-7 ISBN 978-981-33-4037-4 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-33-4037-4 Jointly published with Shanghai Jiao Tong University Press The print edition is not for sale in the Mainland of China. Customers from the Mainland of China. Please order the print book from Shanghai Jiao Tong University Press. © Shanghai Jiao Tong University Press 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publishers, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publishers, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publishers nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publishers remain neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721, Singapore

About This Book

This research is a contrastive study of the segmentation and representation of the English and Chinese translocative Motion events (TME), which encode at least two location-changes and possess Macro-event Property (MEP). In accordance with MEP defined in Bohnemeyer et al. (2007), we construct a parallel corpus with a total of 201 English and 224 Chinese sentences expressing TMEs. Based on this we conduct a series of statistical analyses to explore the similarities and differences between English and Chinese TMEs with MEP. Adopting the model proposed in Bohnemeyer et al. (ibid.) and the conceptual structure theory put forth in Jackendoff (1983), and accepting that a TME conceptually consists of three subevents, namely, DE, PE, and AE, we first align the English and Chinese examples with their translations in the other language. The alignment reveals that, in about 70% of the cases, the TME structure of a sentence in the source language matches that in the target language. Moreover, in both English and Chinese, conceptualizations of TMEs are mapped mostly onto DE + AE pattern and PE + AE pattern. Patterns such as DE + PE + AE and DE + PE are also found, but only of very limited amount. After the comparison of the segmentation of English and Chinese TMEs with MEP, we then examine the conceptual structures of the subevents. We find that English and Chinese users conceptualize DEs and PEs alike, but differ in construing AEs. DEs in both languages cluster around the constituent combination of . Besides this, English DEs have another important conceptual representation, namely, . PEs in both languages are conceptualized as . AEs are conceptualized differently by users of the two languages. For English users, AEs are conceptually or in structure, whereas for Chinese users, AEs are or in conceptual structure. Thirdly, based on the lexicalization patterns proposed in Talmy (1985, 2000, Chap. 1), we explore the conceptual identities of the four TME constituents, namely, Actant, Motion, Path, and Ground. It is found that 70 % of the Actants are animate in English and Chinese TMEs, and the inanimate ones are mainly from the fictive TMEs. 40% of English DEs and AEs are found encoding Motion, and for English PEs it is 60%. Motion-encoding in Chinese TME subevents shows a tendency of DE v

vi

About This Book

< PE < AE, i.e., while Chinese DEs rarely encode Motion, nearly every English AE requires Motion-encoding. English and Chinese users conceptualize Paths similarly: both favor more over , and more over . The four types of Grounds, namely, SP, PaP, EP, and GO, are encoded by nominals in both languages. Finally, we examine the claim that conceptually English and Chinese TMEs have much in common and they are realized by more or less the same surface linguistic forms. Our findings in representation investigation partially corroborate this claim. For example, the nominal conceptualization of Actants and Grounds is realized by NP representation in the majority of the cases, and Paths are usually represented by PPs and Pvs in both languages. However, conceptualization and representation are by nature two distinct things. By ranking the overall representation types, our investigations reveal that English and Chinese TMEs are rarely represented by identical surface forms. PPNP (DE) + Pv (AE) is the only one we have found in our corpus. In terms of overall representation, of the three subevents, only PEs have similar core structure in the two languages. Our data analysis also shows that, although English and Chinese users generally segment TMEs with MEP similarly, there are still 30% of TMEs that are realized otherwise in the target language. A closer look at these cases reveals the following causes for the difference: (1) the reduction of the subevents, (2) the loss of MEP, and (3) the change from dynamic to static. Furthermore, Motion in English TMEs is typically represented by one single Motion verb, which may be a Pv, an Mv or any other kind, whereas in Chinese SVCs are frequently utilized to convey TMEs, and sometimes to convey even one subevent in a TME. Such a preference in Chinese has a chain effect upon subsequent representations of Paths and Grounds, particularly AE Paths and Grounds. As English only permits one Motion verb in the representation of TMEs, it usually has to resort to other devices to represent Chinese verbal Paths or Grounds when they are translated into English, especially to use PPs and ADVs to represent Chinese verbal Paths and to use ADVs in addition to NPs to represent Chinese verbal Grounds. The reverse is also true in English–Chinese translation. Such asymmetry in the representation of TMEs in English and Chinese can be attributed to the differences between the two languages in Motion-encoding, iconic motivation, and lexicalization. The major theoretical implications of this study are twofold: (1) typological classification of languages on the basis of one or two criteria is not error-proof and (2) by aligning English and Chinese TME representations, we find that, in both Chinese and English, the introduction of a conjunction in fictive constructions does not always lead to the loss of MEP, as claimed by Bohnemeyer et al. (2007, 2010). Key words: event segmentation, MEP, TMEs

References Bohnemeyer, Jürgen, Nicholas J. Enfield, James Essegbey, Iraide Ibarretxe-Antuñano, Sotaro Kita, Friederike Lüpke, and Felix K. Ameka. (2007). Principles of event segmentation in language: the case of motion events. Language, 83 (3), 495–532.

About This Book

vii

Bohnemeyer, Jürgen, Nicholas J. Enfield, James Essegbey and Sotaro Kita. (2010). The macroevent property - the segmentation of causal chains. In J. Bohnemeyer and E. Pederson (Eds.), Event representation in language and cognition. (pp. 43-67). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jackendoff, Ray. (1983). Semantics and cognition. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press. Talmy, Leonard. (1985). Lexicalization patterns. In Timothy Shopen (Ed.), Language typology and syntactic description (vol. 2): Grammatical categories and the lexicon (pp. 57–149). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Talmy, Leonard. (2000). Toward a cognitive semantics (vol. II): typology and process in concept structuring. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Contents

1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1 Translocative Motion Event (TME) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1.1 Defining Event . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1.2 TME . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2 Purpose and Significance of the Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2.1 Purpose of the Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2.2 Significance of the Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.3 Theoretical Framework and Research Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.3.1 Theoretical Framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.3.2 Research Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.4 Organization of the Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References in English . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 MEP Principles and the Segmentation and Representation of TMEs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Theoretical Review of Motion Event Typology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2.1 Talmyan Dichotomy Typology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2.2 Dichotomy or Trichotomy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 Event Segmentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3.1 Event Segmentation in Psychology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3.2 Event Segmentation in Linguistics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4 Principles of MEP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4.1 The Biuniqueness Constraint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4.2 The Macro-Event Linking Principle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4.3 The Referential Uniqueness Constraint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4.4 The Unique Vector Constraint . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4.5 The Loss of MEP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.5 The Segmentation of Complex Motion Events and TME Constructions with MEP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.5.1 The Conceptual Structure and Types of Motion Event Path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1 1 1 2 5 5 6 6 6 7 8 9 13 13 13 14 15 19 19 20 24 25 29 37 40 44 45 45 ix

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Contents

2.5.2 Segmentation of Complex Motion Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.5.3 TME Constructions with MEP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.6 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References in English . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

49 50 51 51

3 Research Design and Data Tagging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 Research Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 Constituents of TMEs and Their Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3.1 Actant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3.2 Motion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3.3 Path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3.4 Ground . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4 The Corpus Construction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4.1 The Parallel Translation Corpus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4.2 Sentence Selection and Tagging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4.3 Variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.5 Tertium Comparationis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.5.1 A Brief Review of the Past TC Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.5.2 TC for This Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References in English . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

57 57 57 59 59 60 62 64 66 67 68 71 72 72 74 75

4 General Statistical Description of English and Chinese TME Constructions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 4.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 4.2 Constituent Combinations in English and Chinese TME Constructions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 4.2.1 MEP Sentences in English and Chinese Texts . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 4.2.2 Subevent Constituent Combinations in English and Chinese . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82 4.3 Linguistic Expressions in English and Chinese TME Constructions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86 4.3.1 Who Is Moving . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 4.3.2 How to Move . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 4.3.3 Which Road to Follow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94 4.3.4 Where to Go . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99 4.4 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 References in English . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104 5 Contrasting the Representation of TMEs in English and Chinese . . . 5.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2 The Representation of English TMEs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2.1 English TMEs in the Original Texts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2.2 English TMEs in the Translated Texts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3 The Representation of Chinese TMEs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3.1 Chinese TMEs in the Original Texts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

105 105 105 106 110 114 114

Contents

5.3.2 Chinese TMEs in Translated Texts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3.3 English and Chinese TME Constructions: A Comparison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.4 Renditions of TMEs Between English and Chinese . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.4.1 From English Constructions to Chinese Constructions . . . . . 5.4.2 From Chinese Constructions to English Constructions . . . . . 5.5 The Representation of Motion Event Constituents in English and Chinese . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.5.1 The Representation of Actants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.5.2 The Representation of Motion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.5.3 The Representation of Path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.5.4 The Representation of Grounds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.5.5 English and Chinese TME Constituent Representation: A Comparison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.6 Beyond Surface Representation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.7 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References in English . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

xi

121 129 132 134 139 142 142 144 147 156 162 163 165 166

6 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169 References in English . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173 Appendices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175 References in English . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189

Abbreviations

ADJ ADV AE ASP CA CONJ CoV Cv DE DN Fv MEP Mv NP PE PP Pv SL SVC TC TL TME VP

Adjective Adverb Arrival Event Aspect Contrastive Analysis Conjunction Cognition Verb Cause Verb Departure Event Deverbal Noun Figure Verb Macro-Event Property Manner Verb Noun Phrase Passing Event Preposition Path Verb The Source Language Serial Verb Construction Tertium Comparationis The Target Language Translocative Motion Event Verb Phrase

xiii

List of Figures

Fig. 1.1 Fig. 2.1 Fig. 2.2 Fig. 2.3 Fig. 2.4 Fig. 2.5 Fig. 2.6 Fig. 3.1 Fig. 3.2 Fig. 3.3 Fig. 4.1

TME constituents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The vector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The vector of three locations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The rolling circle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bounded Paths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Directions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Routes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The model for English-Norwegian parallel corpus . . . . . . . . . . . . . English-Chinese parallel corpus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Types of TCs (Xu 1988, 1992a, 2002) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Motion-encoding tendency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

4 41 42 42 46 47 47 68 68 73 93

xv

List of Tables

Table 2.1 Table 3.1 Table 3.2 Table 3.3 Table 3.4 Table 3.5 Table 4.1 Table 4.2 Table 4.3 Table 4.4 Table 4.5 Table 4.6 Table 4.7 Table 4.8 Table 4.9 Table 4.10 Table 4.11 Table 4.12 Table 4.13 Table 4.14 Table 4.15 Table 4.16 Table 4.17 Table 4.18 Table 4.19 Table 4.20 Table 4.21 Table 4.22 Table 4.23 Table 4.24 Table 4.25

Subevents and Path types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . General attributes of Actant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . General attributes of Ground in simple clauses (Talmy 2000a: 315–316) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The corpus texts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The tagging system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . English and Chinese MEP constructions found . . . . . . . . . . . . . The relatively parallel scene between original texts . . . . . . . . . . The relatively parallel scene between translated texts . . . . . . . . DEs in English and Chinese TMEs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DEs in English and Chinese . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fewer PEs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PEs in English and Chinese . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Types and amount of DEs, PEs, and AEs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The role of the top two constructions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Animate and inanimate Actants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Representing types and amount for Motion in DEs . . . . . . . . . . Motion representing forms in DEs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Representing types and amount for Motion in PEs . . . . . . . . . . Motion representing forms in PEs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Representing types and amount for Motion in AEs . . . . . . . . . . The top two Motion representing forms in AEs . . . . . . . . . . . . . s overwhelming s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vs. in form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Forms of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . s overwhelming s in amount . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . and in form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pv- and PP- Paths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . NP-majority in realizing s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bigger NP-majority in realizing s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Forms of s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

48 60 65 67 71 72 80 81 81 83 83 84 85 85 86 87 90 91 92 92 93 94 96 96 97 98 98 99 101 101 101 xvii

xviii

Table 4.26 Table 5.1 Table 5.2 Table 5.3 Table 5.4 Table 5.5 Table 5.6 Table 5.7 Table 5.8 Table 5.9 Table 5.10 Table 5.11 Table 5.12

List of Tables

Forms of s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The representation of TMEs in original English texts . . . . . . . . The representation of TMEs in translated English texts . . . . . . Major representations of TMEs in English texts . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 major arrival types and amount of AEs in original Chinese texts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The representation of TMEs in original Chinese texts . . . . . . . . 9 major arrival types and the amount of AEs in translated Chinese texts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Major representations of TMEs in translated Chinese texts . . . Major representations of TMEs in Chinese texts . . . . . . . . . . . . Core structures of the subevents in English and Chinese . . . . . . TME constructions from English to Chinese . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . TME constructions from Chinese to English . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Human and non-human actants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

102 110 112 112 118 121 124 125 127 131 134 140 143

Chapter 1

Introduction

The present study is a contrastive analysis devoted to investigating translocative Motion events encoding at least two location-changes, as described by All of them fell from the cliff across the slope down to the river. Drawing on an English-Chinese parallel narrative corpus, this research probes into the conceptual structure of such events and their linguistic representations in both English and Chinese.

1.1 Translocative Motion Event (TME) 1.1.1 Defining Event Linguistic studies of event structures and semantic representations have often invoked universal conceptual structures underlying different cross-linguistic verbal patterns (Jackendoff 1986, 1990; Talmy 1983, 1985). The universal approach, represented in the works of Jackendoff (1986, 1990), and typological works on language universals such as those of Greenberg (1966) and Comrie (1989), argues that conceptual structures are universal, i.e., identical across languages. As a result, the universal approach claims that cross-linguistic differences in verbal categories or syntactic constructions do not reflect conceptual but merely linguistic differences. Linguistic representations may instantiate universal concepts in different ways because the relation between linguistic and conceptual structures is complex and mediated by mapping rules or principles. In contrast, the language-based approach, represented in works by Whorf (1956) and subsequent studies on linguistic relativity hypothesis (Brown and Lenneberg 1954; Levinson 1994, 1996a, b; Lucy 1993, 1996; Slobin 1996a, b, 1998), argues that conceptual representations are not all universal. Language-specific categories may shape and be part of speakers’ conceptualizations of experience.

© Shanghai Jiao Tong University Press 2021 G. Zheng, The Segmentation and Representation of Translocative Motion Events in English and Chinese Discourse, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-33-4037-4_1

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1 Introduction

Ours is a world thronging with events, some influential and far-reaching as world wars, some petty and short-lived as an utterance. Voluminous works (Vendler 1957, 1967; Shipley and Zacks 2008; Foley 2010; Higginbotham et al. 2000; Dowty 1979; among others) have probed in depth the issue of event, while still more stupendous researches (Ryle 1949; Kenny 1963; Jackendoff 1991; Smith 1991; Pustejovsky 1991; Verkuyl 1993; Levin 1999; Hovav and Levin 2001; among others) have approached indirectly this issue. Summarizing these discussions, though none of them offer a final conclusive definition of event, we discover two directions. What comes first is equating event study with verb study, like Vendler (1967), Dowty (1979), Ryle (1949). Of them Vendler (1957) is a very good illustration. In that seminal paper, Vendler famously classifies verbs into four event types, namely, achievement, accomplishment, activity, and state. This classification remains an instrumental tool in verb studies ever since its coming into being (Lin 2004: 19). But the information an event contains is unlikely to be solely expressed by the verb, other parts of the construction also contributing to the expression of event information. The second direction understands event in two ways, event in mind as mental conceptualization and event in language as physical representation. Babara Tversky, Jeff Zacks, and their colleagues have done serial studies in this regard, of which Tversky (1989) and Zacks and Tversky (2001) are two that have been most heavily drawn upon. The two studies hold that mental conceptualization is mapped onto the linguistic world through various operations. Like objects discrete in the real world, events are discrete in the linguistic world. It has its parts, boundaries, and occupies time. This study goes in this direction. We focus on TME, for according to Miller and Johnson-Laird (1976: 527), ‘verbs that describe how people and things change their places and their orientations in space’ are ‘the most characteristically verbal of all the verbs’, ‘their purest and most prototypical forms’, which provide a model for the expression of nonspatial events. Hence, among children, ‘verbs that describe movement are first learned, most frequently used, and conceptually dominant’. Moreover, ‘not only are verbs of motion ontogenetically primary, but their meanings have a strongly perceptual basis’. For this study, we side with Bohnemeyer et al. (2007, 2010) on the issue of the definition of event: ‘In a nutshell, we assume that events are represented in language and cognition as time-bound entities individuated by their temporal boundaries, the temporal and causal relations they maintain with other events, and the identity of their participants’.

1.1.2 TME Talmy (1985, 2000b: Chap. I) describes Motion event as ‘a situation containing movement of an entity or maintenance of an entity at a stationary location’. And ‘The basic motion event consists of one object (Figure) moving or located with respect

1.1 Translocative Motion Event (TME)

3

to another object (the reference object or Ground)’. A Motion event is analyzed as having four primary constituents1 : Motion: Figure: Ground: Path:

the presence per se of motion or locatedness; the moving object; the object with respect to which a Figure moves; the course followed or site occupied by a Figure with respect to a Ground.2

These are ‘internal constituents’ by Talmy (ibid.). In addition to these internal ones, an external co-event may be associated with a Motion event, and frequently a co-event expresses Manner or Cause. (1) Manner

Cause

a. Motion

The pencil rolled off the table.

The pencil blew off the table.

b. Location

The pencil lay on the table.

The pencil stuck on the table.

(ibid.)3 ‘rolled’ and ‘blew’ here communicate not only Motion information, also Manner information (how the pencil moved) and Cause information (why the pencil moved); ‘lay’ and ‘stuck’ communicate both the locatedness information (the pencil stayed where it was) and Manner or Cause information. The basic Motion event, the framing event, or main event (Pedersen 2009) together with the co-event composes macroevent (Talmy 1991, 2000b).4 In a Motion event, Figure may, like ‘pencil’ in (1a), change its original location (table) to somewhere else. Such Motion events are termed by Talmy (2000b: 25) as ‘translational Motion’ or ‘translocative Motion’ by Zlatev and Yangklang (2004) or ‘relocation’ by Smith (2005). All of these refer to the linguistic fact that ‘an object’s basic location shifts from one point to another in space’ along its course during the period of its occurrence (Talmy 2000b: 35). Such an event involves a moving object, Figure (‘Actant’ in this study),5 its basic location, starting point (), move, Motion (), its course, Path (), the passing location, Passing Point () and the destination, Goal () or endpoint (). Ideally, these 6 constituents could be configurated in the following way:

1 The

first letter of a TME constituent is capitalized. constituents will be capitalized in the following discussion. 3 Examples in this dissertation, if not specially noted, are all taken from our English-Chinese parallel corpus. 4 For detailed discussion of Macro-event, see Sect. 2.2.1. 5 TME constituents are placed between angle brackets () in our data tagging. 2 Such

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1 Introduction

Fig. 1.1 TME constituents

(2) All of them fell

from

1

the cliff across the slope down to

2

3

the river.

(Adapted from Slobin 2004)

We have 2 issues to clarify in this instance. First of all, it is those 3 Path constituents (1, 2, and 3 ) that make appearance here. Among them 1 marks the beginning part of Path, 2 , the medium part, and 3 , the finishing part. They three together constitute a whole Path.6 Secondly, we have , , and for Grounds. As this is a Motion event of location change, it stands very natural for the Actant to have a reference point at each change of location (Langacker 1991). But what kind of relationship do reference points bear to Ground? Based on the definition of Ground above, it is safe to conclude that reference points belong to Ground. In this research, however, we stray from this inclusion relation and subdivide Grounds into , , and /. We have all the six constituents in (2), in reality, however, constituents are frequently absent from these events’ representations. Take (1a) for example. In both cases, we have , , , , but is nowhere to find. Our research, however, will confine itself to Motion events like (2), in which starts from along to or via . Since it is a sequence of location changes, we adopt the term ‘translocative motion’ created by Zlatev and Yangklang (2004) to pinpoint its location-change feature. Therefore, in a TME, Figure usually acts as an Actant () moving () from Starting Point () via Passing Point () to Endpoint () or Goal () along its Path (). Similar to Bohnemeyer et al. (2007, 2010), we accept Jackendoff’s classification of Path types into three groups, namely, bounded Paths, routes, and directions (1983: 163–170). For bounded Paths, there are two subtypes, ‘source-Paths’ () and ‘goal-Paths’ (). For directions, there are also two 6 The representation of usually takes two forms: verbs or satellites (for definition and discussion

of satellite, see Sect. 2.2.1). Both, we believe, do not do justice to our conceptualization of physical path. Take (2) for instance, ‘from’ and ‘down to’ satellites at most indicate the initial point and final point of the route between ‘the cliff’ and ‘the river’. Therefore, we hold it will be more appropriate to give them the appellation of ‘path indicator’. We will elaborate more on this in Chapter 2.

1.1 Translocative Motion Event (TME)

5

subtypes, ‘away from’ () and ‘toward’ (). Figure 1.1 summarizes the constituents of TME discussed as yet, their subtypes included. Besides dwelling on Motion event constituents, Talmy also discusses the categorization of Motion events (1983, 1996, 2000a: Chap. 1; 2019). For him Motion events are factive or fictive, a binary taxonomy similar to the physical/abstract division proposed in Langacker (1987: 168–173). What we have so far discussed applies as well to fictive Motion as to factive Motion, the Motion event possessing ‘real motion’ (Matlock and Richardson 2004; Matlock 2006). Talmy characterizes fictive Motion as less ‘veridical’, in which a factively stationary situation is represented in terms of Motion (1996, 2000a: 102). For such an event, its stationariness is factive, while its Motion is fictive. Cognitively, fictive Motion is in some way analogous to factive Motion in that it takes time to ‘go’ from one imagined point in space and time to another. For instance, (3) This fence goes from the plateau to the valley. Generally, the fence is unable to go, but the sentence presents as if it is moving, for our cognitive system scans summarily (Langacker 1987: 145) the fence contour as the route between the plateau and the valley, placing the fictive starting point and endpoint. Furthermore, fence is envisaged as the moving Actant patrolling the route. Granting that fence could move, this representation would no longer be fictive! The TME under discussion here includes both these two types.

1.2 Purpose and Significance of the Study 1.2.1 Purpose of the Study The proposition of the Macro-Event Property (MEP) in Bohnemeyer et al. (2007) is based on a large scale, cross-linguistic study of Motion event segmentation among eighteen areally, typologically, and genetically different languages, using video stimuli and a questionnaire. Bohnemeyer et al. (ibid.) demonstrate that the MEP is a reliable tool for segmenting TMEs in these 18 diverse languages. One fundamental basis for that study is the Talmyan dichotomy typology of world languages. Talmy (1985, 2000b), starting from lexicalization patterns among languages, divides world languages into verb-framed ones (V-framed languages) and satellite-framed ones (S-framed languages). Bohnemeyer et al. (2007, 2010) discover that the Talmyan S-framed languages or V-framed languages does not segment alike as their typology indicates. To be specific, for a semantically identical stimulus, two S-framed languages, or V-framed languages may segment differently, some representing through one MEP expression, while others in need of two or three or more. For example, Yukatek belongs to the serializing languages, the same as Ewe and Lao, but it needs three MEP expressions to represent a stimulus while Ewe and Lao require only one. Bohnemeyer et al. (ibid.) thus conclude that lexicalization patterns

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1 Introduction

and the availability of constructions interact to influence the segmentation of Motion events. Chinese7 is classified as an S-framed language in the Talmyan typology like English. It is interesting to see whether Chinese users segment similarly TMEs as English users do. This may serve another piece of evidence for revising or maintaining the Talmyan typology. Furthermore, as an empirical study, this research may also provide justification for revising and bettering the MEP theory.

1.2.2 Significance of the Study Typological studies and contrastive analysis (CA)8 are two linguistic fields scarcely visit each other. For a long time typologists have been enchanting themselves with classifying and typologizing, while contrastive analysts drowning themselves in differentiating and comparing. This is evidenced by the fact that few typologists are contrastive analysts or vice versa. In fact, it is fairly convenient for these two fields to exchange and collaborate, for typological findings are usually sound bases for contrastive studies and the contrastive results are in turn proof of the typology and showing the way for its revision. Our research is such a case in point. Making use of the typological findings, we conduct a CA of TME segmentation and representation between English and Chinese. Essentially, there are two foundations for this analysis, the Talmyan typology and the MEP. Founded on these typological bases, our research has two central questions to reply: do the two typologically same languages perform alike in segmenting TMEs? And do they represent alike the TMEs which are semantically equivalent? We wish this will shed light on further typological studies in this regard.

1.3 Theoretical Framework and Research Methodology 1.3.1 Theoretical Framework The present study is built upon mainly the MEP theory, the Talmyan typology, and the conceptual structure theory. First, based on a large scale and cross-linguistic investigation, Bohnemeyer et al. (2007) generalize MEP and demonstrate that MEP is a reliable tool for segmenting TMEs in diverse languages. They summarize 4 principles or constraints, namely, the biuniqueness constraint, the macro-event linking principle, and the referential uniqueness constraint. Making use of this typological 7 If

there is no special note, Chinese in the present study all implies Mandarin Chinese.

8 Within this dissertation ‘contrastive analysis’ and ‘contrastive studies’ are interchangeable, though

they are claimed to each have its own limits (see Krzeszowski 1990; Xu 2002).

1.3 Theoretical Framework and Research Methodology

7

theory, we aim to compare the TME segmentation and representation in English and Chinese. Furthermore, Talmy (1985, 2000b) typologize English and Chinese as S-framed languages in terms of lexicalization patterns of Motion verbs. Areally, English and Chinese are mainly spoken distantly in the West and China; genetically, English and Chinese belong dissimilarly to Indo-European languages and Sino-Tibetan languages; typologically, English and Chinese have been long characterized as analytic-synthetic language and analytic/isolating language. But according to the Talmyan dichotomy, typologically, these two languages differ no longer from each other. This view gives the present study a very good point to start. Assuming English and Chinese are typologically resembling, our first query is whether the two languages bear resemblance to each other when segmenting TME constructions. Again by Talmy (ibid.), a TME consists of 4 ‘internal constituents’ as diagrammed in Fig. 1.1, and these constituents have regular association with surface linguistic expressions. This description provides for us an instrument to compare the linguistic representation of the same TME constituent in English and Chinese. Last, Jackendoff (1983) proposes the concept of ‘conceptual structure’ and classifies Path into 3 subtypes: bounded Paths, directions, and routes in terms of Path’s relation to the reference points. The types of Grounds are thus determined by on which Path they are positioned. Following this classification, were classified Paths and Grounds into minor types and compare and contrast their representation in English and Chinese.

1.3.2 Research Methodology As an empirical research, our main aim is to testify the validity of Talmyan typology on the basis of MEP in Chinese and contrast the English and Chinese TME segmentation and representation. For this end, we need to construct a parallel corpus of English and Chinese. Xu (1992: 54–55; 2002: 46–50) groups linguistic materials used in CA into two types. One is corpus-based data, a collection of instances illustrating how certain language is put into use in practice; the other is introspective data, obtained by inducing native speakers to make grammaticality judgments. And in order to safeguard the comparability of the bilingual data collected, the contrastive corpora usually have to be either translationally equivalent or comparable in register. Many scholars hold that it is a feasible way to conduct contrastive research and analysis on the basis of the collected original version and its translated version, with the proviso that the data collected should be authoritative and acceptable (James 1980: 175–178; Slobin 1996a, 1997, 2005a, b; Xu 1992: 54–55, 2002: 46–50; Defrancq 2008; among many others). Therefore, when deciding the material to be entered into corpus, we have the following criteria in mind. First, TMEs are our very concern; thus, the selected texts should be able to provide a rich description of such events. ‘Narratives are discourses that describe a set of actions’ (Zacks et al. 2001), and particularly those relating stories of location changes, are understandably replete

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1 Introduction

with descriptions of such events and naturally our desirable choice. Furthermore, the narratives chosen are relatively of the same length in order that the statistics worked out finally are on semblable bases. What is more, to warrant the data for analysis representative and error-proof, we select works and their translations both classical and familiar. To meet these requirements, the source narratives for the corpus are: Tender is the Night by Fitzgerald (1956) and its Chinese version by Chen (2006), The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James (1963) and its Chinese version by Xiang (1984), Chenzhong de Chibang 《沉重的翅膀》 ( ) by Zhang (2004) and its English version by Howard Goldblatt (1989), Luotuo Xiang Zi 《骆驼祥子》 ( ) by Lao she and its English version by Shi (2014). The collected descriptions in Bohnemeyer et al. (2007) are expected to be ‘the most natural ones of the various scenarios in the language under investigation; furthermore, these descriptions should be those making do with least efforts, in other words, the most densely packaged’, when depicting the scenarios listed in the questionnaire. Our data collecting shares the above expectations, but lives up to them in a different way. We first rake the English and Chinese source texts and sort out the TME descriptions. As this research concerns with only MEP expressions, our next step is therefore to pick out from the TME descriptions those with MEP and mark them out. Following this, we locate at the corresponding places the renditions of these MEP expressions in the translated texts and mark them out. In terms with the discussion in 1.1.2, we tag the constituents of each TME with MEP as , , , , /. TMEs are not only partonomical entities decomposable into different constituents; they are also temporal entities subdividable into spatio-temporal subevents. Any occurrence has its beginning, climax, and end, so is any TME. We segment TME chronologically into Departure event (DE), Passing event (PE), and arrival event (AE). These tagged texts will be entered into Excel sheets for further processing. And to determine the surface linguistic forms of the constituents, we adopt the segmentation tool ICTCLAS3.0 devised by Golaxy,9 which claims to be the most popular and has a segmentation accuracy of over 98.45%.

1.4 Organization of the Research The research is organized in the following way. As the foundational chapter, Chap. 2 first reviews the literature on Motion event typology, event segmentation, and the principles of MEP. Motion event typology presented in this chapter is of two schools: the Talmyan dichotomy and the nonTalmyan typology. Second, the research presents the four principles of MEP and the condition of losing MEP. Third, we introduce the conceptual structure theory of TME Paths and offer a classification of TME constructions with MEP.

9 A hi-tech company with the Institute of Computing Technology of Chinese Academy of Sciences.

1.4 Organization of the Research

9

Chaper 3 is a methodological chapter, which explains the research design, the parameter-setting of the TME constituents and how our data is tagged. To prepare for the analysis of the TME construction, the research introduces its constituents, and their parameters. And as this is mainly a CA study, Chap. 2 also deals very briefly with the TC theory and the TC for the present study. The working hypothesis is put forth at the end of the chapter. Chapter 4 begins the statistical comparison of the descriptions of English and Chinese TME constructions. The statistic work branches into two directions: the constituent combinations in English and Chinese TME constructions and the representation of the constituents in English and Chinese TME constructions. This is a chapter devoted to the conceptual structure of TME constructions. In comparison with Chaps. 4 and 5 surfaces further to analyze the TME representations in English and Chinese. Three issues are to be resolved in this chapter: (1) the representations of TMEs in English and Chinese as a whole, (2) the transformation of TMEs between English and Chinese, and (3) the representations of the Motion event constituents in both English and Chinese. Based on the above 5 chapters, Chap. 6 first summarizes the major findings in this research in view of segmentation and representation. These findings we believe have theoretical implications for both revising the Talmyan dichotomy typology and bettering the MEP theory. Finally, we set forth the limitations of the present study and directions for future research.

References in English Bohnemeyer, J., Enfield, N. J., Essegbey, J., Ibarretxe-Antuñano, I., Kita, S., Lüpke, F., et al. (2007). Principles of event segmentation in language: The case of motion events. Language, 83(3), 495–532. Bohnemeyer, J., Enfield, N. J., Essegbey, J., & Kita, S. (2010). The macro-event property—The segmentation of causal chains. In J. Bohnemeyer & E. Pederson (Eds.), Event representation in language and cognition (pp. 43–67). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brown, R., & Lenneberg, E. H. (1954). A study in language and cognition. Journal of Abnormal Social Psychology, 49(3), 454–462. Comrie, B. (1989). Language universals and linguistic typology: Syntax and morphology (2nd ed.). Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Defrancq, B. (2008). Establishing cross-linguistic semantic relatedness through monolingual corpora: Verbs governing embedded interrogatives. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 13(4), 465–490. Dowty, D. R. (1979). Word meaning and montague grammar. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Foley, W. A. (2010). Events and serial verb constructions. In M. Amberber, B. Baker, & M. Harvey (Eds.), Complex predicates: Cross-Linguistic perspectives on event structure (pp. 79–109). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Goldblatt, H. (1989). Heavy wings. New York: Grove Weidenfeid. Greenberg, J. H. (1966). Language universals, with special reference to feature hierarchies. The Hague: Mouton. Higginbotham, J., Fabio, P., & Achille, V. (Eds.). (2000). Speaking of events. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Hovav, R. M., & Levin, B. (2001). An event structure account of English resultatives. Language, 77(4), 766–797. Jackendoff, R. (1983). Semantics and cognition. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Jackendoff, R. (1986). Conceptual Semantics. In U. Eco, M. Santambroglio, & P. Violi (Eds.), Meaning and mental representations (pp. 81–99). Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Jackendoff, R. (1990). Semantic structures. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Jackendoff, R. (1991). Parts and boundaries. Cognition, 41(1–3), 9–45. James, C. (1980). Contrastive analysis. Harlow, Essex: Longman. Kenny, A. (1963). Action, emotion and will. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Krzeszowski, T. P. (1990). Contrasting languages: The scope of contrastive linguistics. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Langacker, R. W. (1987). Foundations of cognitive grammar (vol. 1): Theoretical prerequisites. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Langacker, R. W. (1991). Foundations of cognitive grammar (vol. 2): Descriptive application. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Lao, S. (1962). Luotuo Xiang Zi. Beijing: People’s Literature Publishing House. English edition: Lao, S. (2014). Camel Xiang Zi (X. Shi, Trans.). Beijing: Foreign Languages Press. Levin, B. (1999). Objecthood: An event structure perspective. In Proceedings of the 35th Annual Meeting of the Chicago Linguistics Society (pp. 223–247). Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society. Levinson, S. C. (1994). Vision, shape and linguistic description-Tzeltal body-part terminology and object description. Linguistics, 32(4–5), 791–856. Levinson, S. C. (1996a). Relativity in spatial conception and description. In J. J. Gumperz & S. C. Levinson (Eds.), Rethinking linguistic relativity (pp. 177–202). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Levinson, S. C. (1996b). Frames of reference and Molyneux’s question. In P. Bloom, M. A. Peterson, L. Nadel, & M. F. Garrett (Eds.), Language and space (pp. 109–169). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Lin, J. (2004). Event structure and the encoding of arguments: The syntax of the Mandarin and English verb phrase. Ph.D. thesis, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, MIT. Lucy, J. (1993). Reflexive language in the human disciplines. In J. A. Lucy (Ed.), Reflexive language: Reported speech and metapragmatics (pp. 9–32). New York: Cambridge University Press. Lucy, J. (1996). The scope of linguistic relativity: An analysis and review of empirical research. In J. J. Gumperz & S. C. Levinson (Eds.), Rethinking linguistic relativity (pp. 37–69). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Matlock, T. (2006). Depicting fictive motion in drawings. In J. Luchenbroers (Ed.), Cognitive linguistics: Investigations across languages, fields, and philosophical boundaries (pp. 67–81). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Matlock, T., & Richardson, D. C. (2004). Do eye movements go with fictive motion? In Proceedings of the 26th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 909–914). Chicago: The Cognitive Science Society. Miller, G. A., & Johnson-Laird, P. N. (1976). Language and perception. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pedersen, J. (2009). The construction of macro-events: A typological perspective. In C. S. Butler & J. M. Arista (Eds.), Deconstructing constructions (pp. 25–62). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Pustejovsky, J. (1991). The syntax of event structure. Cognition, 41(1–3), 47–81. Ryle, G. (1949). The concept of mind. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Shipley, T. F., & Zacks, J. M. (Eds.). (2008). Understanding events: From perception to action. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Slobin, D. I. (1996a). From “thought and language” to “thinking for speaking”. In J. J. Gumperz & S. C. Levinson (Eds.), Rethinking linguistic relativity (pp. 70–96). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Slobin, D. I. (1996b). Two ways to travel: Verbs of motion in English and Spanish. In M. Shibatani & S. A. Thompson (Eds.), Grammatical constructions: Their form and meaning (pp. 195–217). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Slobin, D. I. (1997). Mind, code, and text. In J. Bybee, J. Haiman, & S. A. Thompson (Eds.), Essays on language function and language type: Dedicated to T. Givón (pp. 437–467). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Slobin, D. I. (1998). Verbalized events: A dynamic approach to linguistic relativity and determinism. Paper presented at LAUD-Symposium: Humboldt and Whorf Revisited. Duisburg, Germany. Slobin, D. I. (2004). The many ways to search for a frog: Linguistic typology and the expression of motion events. In S. Strömqvist & L. Verhoeven (Eds.), Relating events in narrative (vol. 2): Typological and contextual perspectives (pp. 219–257). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Slobin, D. I. (2005a). Relating narrative events in translation. In D. Ravid & H. B. Shyldkrot (Eds.), Perspectives on language and language development: Essays in honor of Ruth A. Berman (pp. 115–129). Dordrecht: Kluwer. Slobin, D. I. (2005b). Linguistic representations of motion events: what is signifier and what is signified? In C. Maeder, O. Fischer, & W. Herlofsky (Eds.), Outside-in—Inside-out: Iconicity in language and literature 4 (pp. 307–322). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Smith, C. S. (1991). The parameter of aspect. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Smith, V. (2005, October 23–25). From motion events to(wards) a semantics of relocation. Paper delivered at new directions in cognitive linguistics. First UK cognitive linguistics conference, Brighton, UK. Talmy, L. (1983). How language structures space. In H. L. Pick, Jr., & L. P. Acredolo (Eds.), Spatial orientation: Theory, research, and application (pp. 225–282). New York: Plenum Press. Talmy, L. (1985). Lexicalization patterns. In T. Shopen (Ed.), Language typology and syntactic description (vol. 2): Grammatical categories and the lexicon (pp. 57–149). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Talmy, L. (1991). Path to realization: A typology of event conflation. In L. A. Sutton, C. Johnson, & R. Shields (Eds.), Proceedings of the Seventeenth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society (pp. 480–520). Berkeley: Berkeley Linguistics Society. Talmy, L. (1996). Fictive motion in language and “ception”. In P. Bloom, M. Peterson, L. Nadel, & M. Garrett (Eds.), Language and space (pp. 307–384). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Talmy, L. (2000a). Toward a cognitive semantics (vol. I): Concept structuring systems. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Talmy, L. (2000b). Toward a cognitive semantics (vol. II): Typology and process in concept structuring. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Talmy, L. (2019). Cognitive semantics: an overview. In C. Maienborn, K. von Heusinger, & P. Portner (Eds.), Semantics-theories (pp. 1–28). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Tversky, B. (1989). Parts, partonomies, and taxonomies. Developmental Psychology, 25(6), 983– 995. Vendler, Z. (1957). Verbs and times. Philosophical Review, 66(2), 143–160. Vendler, Z. (1967). Linguistics in philosophy. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press. Verkuyl, H. J. (1993). A theory of aspectuality: The interaction between temporal and atemporal structure. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Whorf, B. L. (1956). Language, mind, and reality. In J. B. Carroll (Ed.), Language, thought, and reality: Selected writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf (pp. 246–270). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Zacks, J., & Tversky, B. (2001). Event structure in perception and conception. Psychological Bulletin, 127(1), 3–21. Zacks, J. M., Tversky, B., & Iyer, G. (2001). Perceiving, remembering, and communicating structure in events. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 130(1), 29–58. Zlatev, J., & Yangklang, P. (2004). A third way to travel: The place of Thai in motion event typology. In S. Stromqvist & L. Verhoeven (Eds.), Relating events in narrative (Vol. 2): Cross-linguistic and cross-contextual perspectives (pp. 159–190). Mahwath, NJ: Erlbaum.

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References in Chinese Fitzgerald, S. (1956). Tender is the night. New York: Scribner. Chinese edition: Yese Wenrou. (2006). (L. Chen, Trans.). Wuhan: Changjiang Literature & Art Press/ Hubei People’s Press. James, H. (1963). The portrait of a lady. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Chinese edition: Guifu Huaxiang. (1984). (X. Y. Xiang, Trans.). Beijing: People’s Literature Publishing House. Xu, Y. L. (1992). An introduction to contrastive linguistics. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press. Xu, Y. L. (2002). Contrastive linguistics. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press. Zhang, J. (2004). Heavy wings. Beijing: People’s Literature Publishing House.

Chapter 2

MEP Principles and the Segmentation and Representation of TMEs

2.1 Introduction Event segmentation situates at the interface of psychology and linguistics. Psychologists are interested in locating the place where an event is initiated or ended, while linguists are more interested in summarizing the various ways language users employ to represent language segments. This research tries to combine the efforts in these two disciplines to compare the segmentation and representation of TMEs by English and Chinese users. In the first place, psychological studies (e.g., Miller and Johnson-Laird 1976; Tversky 1990; Zacks and Tversky 2001) have proved that events are partonomical entities, which can be divided into parts and subparts. Secondly, in linguistics Talmy (1985, 2000b) proposes a dichotomy typology of world languages on the basis of lexicalization patterns. According to this typology, whether a language is satelliteframed or verb-framed is determined by where Path is encoded. Conceptually, Paths are classified into three types by Jackendoff (1983), namely, bounded Paths, directions, and routes. Drawing on these, Bohnemeyer et al. (2007, 2010) put forward the MEP theory after examining the segmentation of Motion events in languages which are grouped in accordance with the Talmyan typology. The MEP theory is a complex whole of four principles and two conditions, under which the MEP may be lifted off.

2.2 Theoretical Review of Motion Event Typology Based on language lexicalization patterns, Talmy (1972, 1978, 1985, 2000b) put forth a dichotomy typology of world languages. Ever since its formulation, this dichotomy typology has immediately evoked wide and heated discussion on languages’ typological categorization. As a review of this theory and its main backwash, this section mainly introduces the Talmyan dichotomy and the trichotomy by Slobin as well as other propositions in this regard. © Shanghai Jiao Tong University Press 2021 G. Zheng, The Segmentation and Representation of Translocative Motion Events in English and Chinese Discourse, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-33-4037-4_2

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2 MEP Principles and the Segmentation and Representation of TMEs

2.2.1 Talmyan Dichotomy Typology Lexicalization refers to the regular association between certain semantic constituents and a particular morpheme. In other words, one surface form may incorporate more than one semantic constituent. In Sect. 1.1.2 we have instantiated that primarily a Motion event contains 4 internal constituents and 2 external constituents. These constituents, for instance Motion and Manner, may be mapped constantly onto Motion verbs in one language (English for instance), and onto other linguistic forms in another (Spanish for instance). Talmy (1985, 2000b: Chap. I) concentrates on such regular lexicalization discrepancies. According to Talmy, a complex motion event usually comprises two parts, the framing event and co-event, but is represented as a unitary clause on the surface. Together the framing event and co-event make up a macro-event through some support relation that the co-event maintains with the framing event. In a macro-event the framing event is the main event, providing ‘the overarching conceptual framework or reference frame within which the other included activities are conceived of as taking place’ (Talmy 2000b: 219). Put in another way, the framing event supplies ‘core schema’ for the macro-event (ibid.: 218). A framing event of Motion event, similar to what we have said of internal constituents in Chap. 1, conceptually has 4 constituents, figural entity, ground entity, activating process, and association function, which correspond in turn to the role of Actant, Ground, Motion, and Path. The coevent is the subordinate event, bearing support relations to the framing event. Similar to external constituents discussed in Chap. 1, these include Precursion, Enablement, Cause, Manner, Concomitance, Purpose, and Constitutiveness. Of them Cause and Manner are the commonest. For some language, the framing event is encoded by verb and the co-event in a non-verbal form, while some others encode co-event in verb and the framing event in a non-verbal form. For example: (4) a. The bottle

b. La botella the bottle

floated

into the cave.

co-event

framing event

entró entered (MOVED-in) framing event

flotando a la cueva.

(Spanish)

floating to the cave co-event

(adapted from Talmy

2000b: 227)

Conceptually, (4) represents an Actant (a bottle) moving into a Ground (cave) with the Manner of floating along the Path. The core schema of such an event is thus the Path along which the bottle moved into the cave. In (4a), it is represented by a preposition phrase (PP) ‘into the cave’ and the Manner element is mapped onto verb, while in (4b) the Path element is mapped onto the motion verb ‘entró’ and the Manner constituent onto a gerundive phrase ‘flotando’. Languages such as the former

2.2 Theoretical Review of Motion Event Typology

15

are classified as Satellite-framed languages, and those such as the latter, Verb-framed languages (Talmy 1985, 2000b). By Talmy (1985), Satellites are certain immediate constituents of a verb root other than inflections, auxiliaries, or nominal arguments. They relate to the verb roots as periphery (or modifiers) to a head. A verb root together with its satellites forms a constituent in its own right, the ‘verb complex’.

By Talmy (2000b: 102), It is the grammatical category of any constituent other than a noun-phrase or prepositionalphrase complement that is in a sister relation to the verb root. It relates to the verb root as a dependent to a head.

In summary, satellites are supportive of the verb. Their existence in an expression is dependent on the verb. According to Talmy (1985, 1991, 2000b), in English, satellites can be either a bound affix or a free word, generally, a verb particle, for example, ‘up’ in ‘walk up’, ‘out’ in ‘run out’; in Chinese satellites are usually verb complements, for example, ‘上 (shang up)’ in ‘走上 (zoushang walk up)’, ‘出 (chu out)’ in ‘跑出 (paochu run out)’. The reason for Talmy classifying English and Chinese as one language typology is mainly due to the fact that the two languages habitually map the framing event onto Path satellites and the co-event onto the verb root. Talmy (2000b: 109) holds that there are ‘entirely homologous’ path satellites and constructions with those of English. Therefore, the central issue for a language’s typological classification is where a language places the Path constituent, in the verb or in the satellite.

2.2.2 Dichotomy or Trichotomy Based on and inspired by Talmy’s innovative work on linguistic typology, a large number of studies have been or are being conducted around the world, revising the Talmyan typological dichotomy and proposing fresh models. Of these propositions Slobin’s typological trichotomy (2004) is most note-worthy. When applying the Talmyan typology to serial-verb languages, Slobin and Hoiting (1994) report that it is difficult to position such languages, for such languages normally map Manner and Path onto serial verb constructions (SVC), which are composed of two or more full verbs. As such languages still map Paths onto verbs, such languages are classified as V-framed languages, but as ‘complex V-languages’ (ibid.). Its bearing the modifier ‘complex’ is because ‘the serial verb construction functions as a sort of compound main verb in a clause, with no division between finite and nonfinite forms as in ‘standard’ V-languages’ (Slobin 2004). Slobin (ibid.), when discussing the ways languages differ in rhetorical styles in narrative, argues that Talmy’s typology ‘has engendered a good deal of research and debate in the literature on motion event descriptions’ and ‘provided important insights into the overall set of structures that define individual languages’. However, as the Talmyan

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2 MEP Principles and the Segmentation and Representation of TMEs

binary typology is founded solely on lexicalization patterns, Slobin (ibid.) argues that ‘the typology alone cannot account for discourse structures’, because language use is determined by other factors as well, such as morphosyntactic ones and psycholinguistic ones. This deficiency is indexed when applying the Talmyan typology to languages abounding in SVC, like Chinese and Tai. In the case of Chinese, an emblematical S-framed language ‘parallel’ to English by Talmy (1985, 2000b: 32), the core schema of a motion event is typically mapped onto the second or final part of a SVC. By Talmy (1985, 2000b) a head vs. non-head relation exists between verb and complement, namely, the verb, the head, and the complement, the non-head. In ‘跑出 (paochu run out)’, for example, ‘跑 (pao run)’ stands for the head and ‘ 出 (chu out)’ for non-head. Slobin (2004) accepts this proposal with reservation, because for him ‘跑 (pao run)’ and ‘出 (chu out)’ are equipollent in significance, one lexicalizing Manner information, another Path information, and Manner is not subordinated to Path syntactically. Furthermore, Chinese SVC constituents, unlike English verb particles, which are usually satellite adopositions and impossible to function independently as predicate verb, can always fill the position in their own right. For instance: (5) a. 他

爬

上

山。

Ta

pa

shang

shan.

a.′ He climb

up

hill.

He climed up the hill. b. 他

爬了

Ta

pa-le

b′ He

山。 shan.

climb-ASP

hill.

He climbed the hill. c. 他 Ta

上了

山。

shang-le

shan.

c′ He climb-ASP up

hill.

He climbed up the hill.

‘爬上 (pashang climb up)’ here is usually rendered as ‘climb up’ in English, but ‘爬 (pa climb)’ and ‘上 (shang up)’ can both fill the position of the predicate verb ((5b) and (5c)). This is impossible for ‘up’, the Path satellite here. Due to these considerations, Slobin adds a third type to the Talmyan dichotomy of typology, equipollently framed languages (E-framed languages), making it a trichotomy.

2.2 Theoretical Review of Motion Event Typology

17

Therefore, by Slobin (2004), in an E-framed language Path and Manner are expressed by grammatical forms of equal status. They carry similar weight and significance. This contrasts sharply with both S-framed languages and V-framed languages. We diagram the Motion event structure in these three types of languages as follows. a. V-framed language [Motion + Path]

Ground

|

the bottle

|

verbfinite

noun

entró

a la cueva

La botella

Manner

MOVED-in to

| verbnonfinite flotando. (Spanish)

the cave

floating

b. S-framed language [Motion + Manner] |

The bottle

Path

Ground

|

|

verbfinite

satellite

noun

floated

into

the cave.

c. E-framed language [Motion + Manner]

[Motion + Path]

|

|

verbfinite

verbfinite

Ground | noun

瓶子

漂

进

山洞。

Pingzi

piao

jin

shandong.

Bottle

float

enter

cave.

The categorization controversies over the serial verb languages are settled by Slobin’s trichotomy typology (Zlatev and Yangklang 2004; Zhuang 2007; Chen and Guo 2009; among others). For instance, Zlatev and Yangklang (2004) analyze the place of Thai, a serial-verb language, in Motion event typology and reaches the conclusion that neither V-framed languages nor S-framed languages can accommodate TMEs in Thai, for the Path and Manner constituents can be expressed by consecutive verbs. Zlatev and Yangklang contend that the Talmyan dichotomy typology is in need of extending to ‘at least into a ternary one’ (ibid.). Zhuang (2007) and Chen and Guo (2009) both attend to the place of Chinese in Motion event typology. Zhuang (2007) conducts three empirical experiments, translation equivalence experiment between English and Chinese of The Hobbit, picture and video clip recognition memory experiment, and similarity judgment experiment based on picture and video clips watching, to verify the place of Chinese in Motion event typology. All the

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2 MEP Principles and the Segmentation and Representation of TMEs

three experiments point to the same conclusion that English belongs to S-framed languages and Chinese the E-framed languages. By examining the Motion event descriptions in 9 Chinese novels, Chen and Guo (2009) find that ‘Chinese writers do not pattern their narrative descriptions of motion events as do writers of S-framed languages, nor as writers of V-framed languages. Rather, Chinese writers follow unique habitual patterns of language use that lead to the contention that Chinese is an E-framed language’. While Slobin’s trichotomy typology has been proved useful in many cases, it is not without flaw and too inclusive in covering all the languages. Huang and Tanangkingsing (2005) propose a quadruple typology in terms of narrative data from six western Austronesian languages, dividing world languages into S-framed languages, V-framed languages, serial-verb languages, and macro-event languages. While serial-verb languages correspond on the whole to E-framed languages by Slobin’s trichotomy, macro-event languages are a novel notion so far. They report that in a macro-event language ‘both path and manner are expressed by constituent morphemes’, Manner coded as a lexical prefix and Path as the verb root. Talmy (2008) expands the criteria for main verb status and ‘argues against too free a use of equipollent framing’ and ‘finds them applying to languages that Slobin had considered to be equipollently framed’. Talmy’s expanded criteria are in terms of morphology, syntax, cooccurrence patterns, class size, phonology, and semantics. The conclusion is that there do exist E-framed languages, but emerge ‘as a seemingly much rarer phenomenon than previously claimed’ (ibid.). Beavers (2008) discusses the nature of goal marking and delimitation in the case of Japanese and questions whether E-framed languages should include compounding languages like Japanese. Beavers et al. (2010), having investigated languages like Japanese, Korean, English, Chinese, Klamath, reveal that the encoding strategies particular to each type of languages ‘straddle’ across world languages and cast doubt directly about the issue of the typology of motion expressions. Other improvements on Slobin’s trichotomy typology can be found in Schultze-Berndt (2007), O’Connor (2009). Too much unanimity is not conducive to profile the specialty, but too many controversies can also cloud the direction for future progress. Therefore, as the departure of this study, we adopt the Talmyan dichotomy, for as O’Connor (2009) claims that, when discussing the predicate type in Lowland Chontal of Oaxaca, all typologies leak! Starting from the Talmyan dichotomy we will investigate the influence language typology exerts upon TME segmentation and in turn verify whether, as Talmy (1985, 1991, 2000b) claims, English and Chinese are S-framed languages.

2.3 Event Segmentation

19

2.3 Event Segmentation 2.3.1 Event Segmentation in Psychology Event segmentation is investigated both by psychologists and linguists, especially by psycholinguists. Current psychological studies on event segmentation follow usually the procedure developed by Newtson (1973), in which a video of some activity is watched by the participants and whenever they deem that a meaningful event ends and another begins, they press a button. This procedure aims to test the participants’ automatic segmentation of the event and their understanding of boundary between related events. Generally, a complex idea can be approached in two ways, subdividing them into kinds or parts. Subdivision into kinds is termed as taxonomy, while subdivision into parts is named as partonomy (Mandler 1979; Markman 1981; Miller and Johnson-Laird 1976; Tversky 1989). To study linguistics, for instance, we have phonetics, morphology, syntax, and the like; to study wine, for another, we have red and white. These are in a taxonomic vein. Everyday in life we have the impression that a continuation of external events makes their starts the moment we open our eyes in the morning and thread their way toward the end throughout the day. Recalling the past, the experienced episodes flash back one by one in a stepwise manner. Usually, the past is conceptualized as a seamless complex whole in our mind, having its spatio-temporal position in this world. Examined closer, parts of the complex whole are found to be discrete, having their spatio-temporal boundaries. This is in a partonomic vein and also the roadmap event segmentation follows. Event partonomies have been studied by looking at how people segment an activity as it happens. Objects have parts with a particular spatial configuration. A car has parts like doors, windows, an engine, wheels, and seats. These parts can in turn be divided into subparts; for example, a seat generally consists of a bench, a back, a seatbelt, and a headrest. The hierarchical relationship between parts and subparts constitutes a partonomy (Miller and Johnson-Laird 1976; Tversky and Hemenway 1984; Tversky 1990; Zacks and Tversky 2001). Partonomic relationships give rise to distinctive spatial configurations that can be of use in categorizing objects. In some situations objects can be quickly classified based on their shape (Rosch 1978). Where parts join, they give rise to distinctive physical features: contour discontinuities or maxima in local curvature (Biederman 1985; Hoffman and Richards 1984). A partonomy is one common form of hierarchical structure that characterizes objects. Following this, event segmentation is defined as ‘the process by which people parse a continuous stream of activity into meaningful events’ (Zacks and Swallow 2007; Zacks 2008). To sum up, the psychological studies on event segmentation demonstrate that a complex event is segmentable in terms of spatial or temporal (or both) boundaries. Across the boundaries, the discrete subevents present a gestalt in the conceptualizer’s mind. Lying between the parts and their subparts exists a hierarchical relationship. These psychological discoveries pave the way for linguistic studies on event segmentation.

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2 MEP Principles and the Segmentation and Representation of TMEs

2.3.2 Event Segmentation in Linguistics For linguists the unit of segmentation poses as the first hard nut to crack. Pawley (1987) and Givón (1990, 1991) are two major such attempts. Pawley (1987) makes a comparison between event descriptions in English and Kalam, a language spoken in the East New Guinea Highlands. Pawley refers to verbs as the ‘event classifier’ and the unit of his comparison is a ‘conceptual event’ containing only one such ‘classifier’. Pawley (1987) unveils sharp contrasts between English and Kalam. To express the conceptual content lexicalized in a single English ‘episodic’ verb,1 Kalam usually needs several verbs. The conceptual contents of ‘hunt’ and ‘throw’ are realized in Kalam as five and four verbs, respectively, for example, (6) a. basd

yes

ogok

md-l

kty am

kmn pak

dad ap -l

game [kill]VP

ancestor certain distant having. stayed-SS [they go] VP [carry having. come-SS]VP nb

okok

ad

ñbelgpal .

there around [bake]vp

[they.used.to.eat]VP

‘[certain ancestors] living there used to cook (and eat) in places around there the game they killed.’ (Pawley 1987:340) b. B monday d [man stick

yokek,

waty at

amb,

hold he]VP. [displaced.DS fence above

wog-mgan it]VP. [went

garden-inside it]VP. yowp. [fell]VP ‘The man threw a stick over the fence into the garden.’ (ibid: 354)

It is apparent that between ‘hunt’ and ‘am’, ‘pak’, ‘dad ap’, ‘ad’ and ‘ñbelgpal’ in Kalam, ‘threw’ and ‘monday’, ‘yokek’, ‘amb’ and ‘yowp’ in Kalam there is a vast discrepancy of lexicalization. But as Pawley’s definition of a conceptual event is built upon language-specific criteria, it is hard to function as a universal yardstick for a cross-linguistically valid definition of an event. Bohnemeyer et al. (2007) hold that though a Motion event can be broken down into three or four conceptual events in (6b), these still add up to one representation of a single Motion event, as there are mereological structures between the parts. Because of this, singling out any particular unit of syntax as the criterion of event segmentation seems rather arbitrary. On top 1 By

Tichý (1980) and Horák et al. (2005), episodic verbs take a stretch of time to materialize, signifying things done. For example, to say John gets up is to impute to him a piece of behavior, spending a positive amount of time getting through it.

2.3 Event Segmentation

21

of this, we believe there is also an issue of determining the event boundary. There is a relatively clear-cut line between day and night, but it is very hard to draw a line between the stages of the Second World War. So is a complex event. Givón (1990, 1991) segments events on the basis of pauses. The languages under his investigation are 4 Papuan languages, featuring heavy use of SVC and clausechaining construction, and Tok Pisin, an English-based Creole permitting few SVC and no clause chaining. The procedure follows Newtson (1973), offering a video stimulus in these 4 languages and recording the places of pauses. The research shows that within SVCs there is much lower likelihood of pause than anywhere else in any language. But according to Levelt (1989: 256–260, 385–387) pauses occur due to a host of factors, not just semantic ones. For example, we may stop halfway in a talk in the case of catching the sight of a falling kite, or finding abruptly it impertinent to go on then and there on the topic. In a nutshell, we may pause whenever the circumstances demand and semantic pause is really just one of them. Bisang (2009) also holds this view. Fewer pauses within SVCs reveal an important fact that the syntactic units of SVC are more tightly packaged than clause-chaining constructions or other syntactic units. This has significant consequences for event segmentation based on certain syntactic unit such as the clause or verb phrase. Bohnemeyer et al. (2007) compare English and Ewe representation of Motion events to make clear the constraints the two languages impose on Motion event encoding. The comparison is about Motion event descriptions of a red circle rolling from a blue square past a brown house-shaped object to a green triangle in English and Ewe. (7) a. The circle rolled from the blue square past the house-shaped object to the green triangle. b. Circle lá mli [circle DEF roll ŋú

tsó bluto gbó le

mó-á

dzí

tó xo-a

from blue place LOC road-DEF top]vp [pass house-DEF

yi dé triangle

lá

gbó. (Ewe)

skin]VP [go ALL triangle DEF place]VP [The circle leaves the

blue square]VP [pass the house-shaped object]VP [reach

the green triangle]vp. ‘The circle rolls from the blue place on the road, passes the side of the goes to the triangle.’

English encodes the sequence of location changes with just one VP in (7a), while Ewe requires three in (7b). Therefore, if the segmentation is based on VP, English contrasts sharply with both Ewe and Chinese. Bohnemeyer et al. (ibid.), however, hold that ‘The three VPs … arguably together form a single clause, since it is impossible in this kind of construction to negate one VP without negating the

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2 MEP Principles and the Segmentation and Representation of TMEs

entire sentence’. This implies that one Ewe Motion event representation like (7b) can accommodate more than one verb in a single clause. To put it in plainer words, while an English clause is constructed around only one verb, several Ewe verbs may chain together in one single clause. The clausehood yardstick by Bohnemeyer et al. (ibid.) is a lack of independent negation. This follows that the scope of the negative operator extends to every part of the clause, or the clausehood will disappear. Bohnemeyer et al. (2007, 2010) argue it is questionable as well using clausehood as the criterion of event segmentation. This is chiefly due to the reason that languages may represent the same concept differently and each representation profiles certain aspect. The representation of (7a) in Ewe has another choice: (7d) Circle lá mli

tsó bluto gbó le

[circle DEF roll from ŋú

hé vá

yi

mó-á

dzí

vá

tó xo-a

blue place LOC road-DEF top]vp [VEN pass house-DEF

dé triangle lá

gbó.

skin]VP [ITI VEN go ALL triangle DEF place]VP

(Ewe)

The differences between (7b) and (7d) lie in more directional information about goals and vectors conveyed in (7d), which is translated as a multi-VP or multi-clause construction in English (as shown above). Therefore, supposing the comparison is based on clausehood, English and Ewe differ vastly again in event segmentation. In effect, a concept can be represented variously even within the same language so that different elements of the frame (Fillmore 1982, 1985) can be profiled. For instance, to map the concept of a breaking event onto linguistic forms, we may profile the agent, the patient, the cause-effect, or the force-dynamics (Talmy 1988, 2000a: Chap. 7) and the like: (8) a. Sally broke the vase. (agent profiled) b. The vase was broken by Sally. (patient profiled) c. Sally broke the vase by knocking it over. (force-dynamics profiled) d. Sally knocked over the vase and it broke. (cause-effect profiled) (Adapted from Bohnemeyer et al. (2007))

To resolve the problem of comparison basis, Bohnemeyer et al. (ibid., 2010) propose Macro-Event Property (MEP) as the basis for motion event segmentation in cross-linguistic studies. By Bohnemeyer et al. (ibid.) MEP is a property of constructions that assesses the event construal they convey—specifically, the ‘tightness of packaging’ of subevents in the construction. A construction has the MEP if temporal operations such as time adverbials, temporal clauses, and tenses necessarily have scope over all subevents encoded by the construction… That is, an expression has the MEP iff any time-positional operator denoted by a time-positional adverbial, temporal clause,

2.3 Event Segmentation

23

or tense that ‘locates’ a subevent entailed by the expression in time also locates all other subevents in time.

This definition entails that MEP sets aside ‘constructions in each language that package the information about an event in comparable ways’ (ibid). In other words, constructions under comparison possess not only comparable semantic content but also MEP. Bohnemeyer et al. (ibid.) argue that (8a), (8b), and (8c) have MEP, since any temporal operators inserted control all the subevents in these expressions.

Vendler (1967: 144) claims ‘events…are primarily temporal entities’. They distribute information along the timeline we imagine and are individuated by temporal points. Conceptually, (8a)–(8d) are decomposable into two subevents, Sally’s knocking over the vase and the breaking of the vase, illustrated clearly by (8d). The time adverbials ‘instantly’ or ‘a moment later’ have control over these two subevents in (8a )–(8c ), indicating the overall interval of Sally’s knocking over the vase and the breaking of the vase, whereas they denote temporal distance between the subevents in (8d ). To clarify the point, (8d ) is rewritten as (8d ), (8d ) Sally knocked over the vase instantly and it broke a moment later. The comparison between (8a )–(8c ) and (8d ) or (8d ) demonstrates that the two subevents are quite tightly packaged that even the narrowest wedge is hardly driven in. Grammatically, we may rewrite (8c) as follows: (8) c′′. *Sally broke the vase instantly by knocking it over a moment ago. Semantically, however, it is hardly acceptable.

As a special category of events, TMEs can also be collected for comparison under MEP. As temporal entities, TMEs are subdivided by time into DE, PE and AE. For example:

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2 MEP Principles and the Segmentation and Representation of TMEs

(9) a. Floyd went from Rochester via Batavia to Buffalo on the morning of June 8th. DE

PE

AE

b. *Floyd went from Rochester at seven via Batavia at seven forty-five to Buffalo at eight thirty on the morning of June 8th.

The three subevents here are all within the scope of the time adverbial ‘on the morning of June 8th ’, as any other time adverbials inserted between the three subevents will render the expression awkward (9b). The reason behind this, similar to that of (8a )–(8c ), is that the three subevents accommodated in (9a) are so tightly packaged that the intervals existing in mental spaces (Fauconnier 1997: 34) find no expression in the surface constructions. The semantic sense of (9b) can be rightly represented as (9c) below: (9c) Floyd left Rochester at seven, passed through Batavia at seven forty-five, and arrived in Buffalo at eight thirty on the morning of June 8th . In contrast with the three subevents located within the same temporal operator, (9c) arranges for each subevent an operator. In accordance with the definition of MEP, the contrast here results that (9a) has MEP, while (9c) has not. Bisang (2009) regards MEP as a good basis for defining eventhood and a useful heuristic for the SVC studies. He believes that even though not all the constructions with MEP are SVCs, it is certain all SVCs have MEP. Thus, MEP becomes a ‘distinctive feature’ for some constructions. Pedersen (2009) divides a macro-event into main information construction and support information construction. He hypothesizes that MEP itself is stored in the grammar as an abstract MEP-construction and is linked to expressions of macro-events. In another way, MEP features the macroevent constructions. Zheng (2013, 2014) applies MEP to Chinese motion events and conclude that MEP is a helpful framework in comparing languages. Croft et al. (2010), however, holds that Bohnemeyer et al. (2007) is essentially a typology of the semantics of time-positional adverbial construction and ‘opportunism’ in Radical Construction Grammar (Croft 2001). The reason for their disfavor with Bohnemeyer et al. (2007) is that the latter compare languages on some abstract bases rather than concrete ones, such as VP constructions or clausal constructions, which the latter has made very much effort to explain.

2.4 Principles of MEP In addition to the availability of lexical forms and syntactic constructions, Bohnemeyer et al. (2007) propose four universal principles on from-form-tomeaning mapping in macro-event expressions. These include the biuniqueness

2.4 Principles of MEP

25

constraint or the biunique assignment of thematic relations (Fillmore 1968; Bresnan 1980; Chomsky 1993; Jackendoff 1990: 59–70), the macro-event linking principle, the referential uniqueness constraint, the unique vector constraint. Among these principles and constraints the first three are claimed to be applicable to all domains besides the Motion domain, while the last one is only Motion domain-specific. Furthermore, we cite Chinese examples at the end of each subsection to test the compatibility of these principles and constraints in Chinese.

2.4.1 The Biuniqueness Constraint The biuniqueness constraint requires that Every syntactic argument and oblique to be assigned exactly one thematic role by the lexical head of the verb phrase (and/or an argument structure construction in the sense of Goldberg 1995), and, conversely, every thematic role entailed by the lexical head or construction to be linked to exactly one argument or oblique. (Bohnemeyer et al. 2007)

This pinpoints to the one-to-one mapping between a thematic role and a syntactic argument or oblique. When discussing the theta criterion, Chomsky (1993: 36) states fairly clear that ‘Each argument bears one and only one θ-role, and each θ-role is assigned to one and only one argument’. It is just that θ-role has been named variously as ‘cases’ in Fillmore (1968), and ‘biuniqueness condition’ in Bresnan (1980). English Path expressions in TME constructions with MEP can encode a source, a route, and a goal at most; ungrammaticality will be incurred if more than one such an argument is present in an MEP-construction. (10) a. The ball rolled from the rock across the tracks to the hills. b.? Our final leg in the Across America North tour will take us across upper New York State thru the rolling farm country past Rochester. c.? The ball rolled from the rock across the tracks past the lake over the hills past the tree. d.? Floyd hiked over the mountain through the valley. e.* The ball rolled from the rock to the hills to the hole. f.* The ball rolled from the rock across the tracks from the lake. a′. The ball rolled from the rock across the tracks to the hills a moment ago. e′. The ball rolled from the rock to the hills. f′. The ball rolled from the rock across the tracks. (Adapted from Bohnemeyer et al. (2007))

26

2 MEP Principles and the Segmentation and Representation of TMEs

(10a) represents a TME that encodes one source expression, one route expression and one goal expression, all of which fall under the scope of the same temporal operator (see (10a )). Therefore, (10a) has MEP. (10e) and (10f) are both grammatically and semantically vague. This is resulted from the two goal expressions in (10e) and two source expressions in (10f), for both constructions become grammatically and semantically sound after dropping one of the two goal expressions and source expressions (see (10e ) and (10f )). The statuses of (10b)–(10d) seem rather dubious. Measured from our unique-role point of view, (10b)–(10d), all of which encode more than one route expression, are as ungrammatical as (10e) and (10f). Bohnemeyer et al. (ibid.) explain this in the following way: Strictly speaking, the question of whether there are (in any language) macro-event expressions that permit reference to more than one route ground remains unresolved… This seems fine as long as one assumes that the route grounds and the corresponding path segments overlap … and the … path-denoting phrases are in some kind of direct (modifying or appositive) syntactic relation. In this case they form a single superordinate path phrase and do not violate the generalization. Where this is not the case, macro-event expressions with multiple route phrases become dubious…

For Bohnemeyer et al. constructions like (10b) are problematically grammatical because more than one route role is assigned. But, as they have explained above, it will be fine if a single superordinate path phrase, consisting of the mutually overlapping route expressions, is formed. For this reason, it does not go against biunique constraint. Schematically, ‘across upper New York’ in the quote provides the ground for ‘thru the rolling farm’ and ‘past Rochester’. (10c) and (10d), nonetheless, offer no such reading. The route expressions are mutually independent and sporadic. ‘mountain’ and ‘valley’, for instance, are relevant conceptions but definitely not on the same ‘ground’ here. Hence, we may conclude that (10c) and (10d) are ungrammatical and (10b) grammatical. This analysis reminds us that complex relations exist among the encoded route expressions in constructions like (10b). Whether they are grammatical or not relies on the mutual dependency among them. Putting these confusing points aside, two preliminary conclusions may follow from this. Firstly, an English MEP-construction licenses only one source role and one goal role; more than this will effect damage to the construction’s MEP as well as their grammaticality ((10c), (10d)). Furthermore, when more than one route role is assigned, they should be mutually dependent and located on the same ground, potentially parts of a unitary whole. (10e) and (10f) gain their grammaticality by deleting some goal and source expression, thus abiding by the biunique constraint. Another way to improve constructions like (10e) and (10f) grammatically and semantically is inserting coordinators: (10) e″ The ball rolled from the rock to the hills (a moment ago) and (then) to the hole. f″ The ball rolled across the tracks from the rock (a moment ago) and from the lake (ten minutes later).

2.4 Principles of MEP

27

But different from (10e ) and (10f ), (10e ) and (10f ) lack the MEP, which is attested by the validity of the inserted time adverbials in both constructions. In (10e ) ‘a moment ago’ operates a departure subevent and a goal subevent, and the goal subevent left is under the scope of another temporal operator ‘then’. Similar to this, ‘a moment ago’ in (10f ) controls DE and a route subevent and the rest departure subevent is assigned to ‘ten minutes later’. These demonstrate that biuniqueness constraint is sensitive to the MEP for English. Drawing on the same method, Bohnemeyer et al. (2007) prove this also holds true for Japanese and Ewe. We next will test whether this is also applicable to Chinese. (11) a. 他 Ta

由 一个 you

He

煤铺

迁

yige meipu

from one

入

qian

裱糊得 雪白的

新房……

ru biaohude xuebaide xinfang…

coal shop moved into papered snowwhite newroom…

From a coal shop he had been plunged into a freshly papered bridal chamber as white as snow… b. 花轿 Huajiao

稳稳的

走

过 西安门，

wenwendi

zou

guo

go

pass

The bridal sedan – chair steadily

Xianmen, Xianmen,

西四牌楼…… Xisipailou… Xisipailou…

The procession made its way steadily past Xi’anmen Gate and the Xisi Arch… (11a) represents a TME, encoding one departure subevent and one AE. In other words, the construction assigns one source role and one goal role, thus abiding by the biuniqueness constraint. The two subevents are packaged very tightly so that they allow of the same temporal operator over them. See (11a ) and (11a ): (11) a′. 他 昨天 Ta zuotian

由 you

一个 煤铺 yige

迁

meipu qian

入 裱糊得 ru

He yesterday from one coal shop move into

雪白的

biaohude xuebaide

新房…… xinfang…

papered snowwhite new room…

From a coal shop he had been plunged into a freshly papered bridal chamber as white as snow yesterday…

28

2 MEP Principles and the Segmentation and Representation of TMEs

a″. *他 昨天 Ta zuotian

由

一个 煤铺

今天

you

yige

jintian qian ru

He yesterday from one 雪白的

meipu

迁

coal shop today

入

裱糊得 biaohude

move enter papered

新房……

xuebaide xinfang… snowwhite new room…

From a coal shop today he had been plunged into a freshly papered bridal chamber as white as snow yesterday… ‘昨天 (zuotian yesterday)’ in (11a ) operates both DE ‘由一个煤铺 (you yige meipu from a coal shop)’ and AE ‘迁入裱糊得雪白的新房 (qian ru biaohude xuebaide xinfang plunged into a freshly papered bridal chamber as white as snow)’. To test whether (11a) allows of two temporal operators, we add another time adverbial ‘今天 (jintian today)’ to (11a ), resulting an erroneous construction (11a ). This proves (11a) has MEP. (11b) encodes two route expressions and thus violates the biunique mapping between form and function. The two PEs are not so tightly packaged as (11a) does, for they permit more than one time adverbials inserted to operate them: 先

(11b′) 花轿

稳稳的

走

过

wenwendi zou

guo

Huajiao

xian

The bridal sedan – chair

firstly steadily go

西安门， 然后

西四牌楼……

Xianmen, ranhou

Xisipailou…

Xianmen, then

Xisipailou…

pass

The procession firstly made its way steadily past Xi’anmen Gate and then the Xisi Arch… In (11b ) the controlling scope of the first time adverbial ‘先 (xian firstly)’ terminates at the end of the first PE, and the second PE is under the control of another time adverbial ‘然后 (ranhou then)’. In terms of MEP requirement, (11b) lacks MEP. The discussion upon Chinese data above demonstrates that the biuniqueness constraint is generally applicable to Chinese MEP constructions. For a construction to have MEP, it should at least accept the constraint of biunique mapping principle between form and meaning.

2.4 Principles of MEP

29

2.4.2 The Macro-Event Linking Principle Macro-event linking principle states that The only subevents that may be referred to in a macro-event expression are those subevents to which the (temporal, causal, etc.) relations encoded by the expression are understood to apply. (Bohnemeyer et al. 2007)

The principle applies mainly to MEP constructions containing more than one successive subevent, which abide by the constraints imposed by temporal, causal, or other operators. The sequence of the subevents is not always in line with their surface representing order. For example, (12) a. Sally walked past the barn to the mill. b. Sally walked to the mill past the barn. c. Sally walked to the mill and later passed the barn. c′. Sally walked to the mill at seven and later passed the barn. (13) a. Sally walked out of the house into the garden. b. Sally walked into the garden out of the house. c. Sally walked into the garden and later left the house. c′. Sally walked into the garden at seven and later left the house (adapted from Bohnemeyer et al. ibid.).

Both (12a) and (12b) are two location-change macro-event expressions; their difference lies in (12b) representing AE first and PE second, but this does not alter their identicalness in sequence in human conceptualization. Reading (12b), which places AE before PE, we will not draw the conclusion that AE takes place before PE. Similarly, the macro-event expressions (13a) and (13b) differ from each other in the representing order of DE and AE, but this does not affect their linear sequence on the timeline of the physical world. So the English macro-event expressions are not sensitive to the surface representing sequence of the subevents contained. (12c) and (13c) exemplify the situation where the subevent sequence must be profiled. Like (12a), (12b), (13a), and (13b), (12c) and (13c) are also composed of one passing/departure subevent and goal/AE; but unlike them, (12c) and (13c) introduce coordinator ‘and’ and time adverbial ‘later’. By this change, the order between the two subevents

30

2 MEP Principles and the Segmentation and Representation of TMEs

becomes stabilized; in the meantime, MEP also disappears after this improvement.2 (12c ) and (13c ) demonstrate the two subevents encoded in each construction are under the scope of different temporal operators, which violates the fundamental requirement of MEP. The foregoing discussion proves that within an English two location-change macro-event expression the surface representing sequence of subevents and their positions on the timeline are not invariably the same. Not infrequently, for example, for different pragmatic or semantic purposes, will passing or arrival/goal subevent be moved to the front. The representing difference, however, does not affect its macro-event status; to stabilize the representing order, coordinator and temporal operator needs to be inserted between the subevents to break the unitary macroevent expressions into two macro-event expressions. Furthermore, two additional points are equally worth noticing. One of them is the constructions Bohnemeyer et al. (ibid.) cited contain without exception just two location-changes. As we have discussed above, a TME with MEP can encode maximally three subevents of departure, passing, and goal/arrival, respectively. Besides, in comparison with (12a) and (13a), (12b) and (13b) are sound in grammar too, though they do not stand in line with the cognitive iconic principle (Ungerer and Schmid 1996: 250–255; Zhao 2000: 158– 161). We hold, therefore, to solidify our findings in this section so far, it is better to extend the constructions to those accommodating three location changes. Our solution is enriching (12) and (13) by adding a DE or PE to them:

2 In

fact, the insertion of coordinator between the subevents suffices by itself to sacrifice MEP. The sequence of the encoded subevents is fixed by the time adverbial. In (15c) and (16c), for instance, the coordinator ‘and’ parallels the two subevents encoded, leaving space for time adverbial addition, but it remains unsettled which subevent occurs in advance. Take Sally walked to the mill and passed the barn for instance. We are only sure that two subevents take place in this construction, probably Sally walking to the mill first and then passing the barn, or Sally first passing the barn on the way to the mill. But when we say Sally walked to the mill and later passed the barn, the occurring order of the two subevents is clear enough, Sally walking to the mill precedes her passing the barn.

2.4 Principles of MEP

31

(12)′ a. Sally walked from the river past the barn to the mill. b. Sally walked to the mill past the barn from the river. c. Sally walked past the barn from the river to the mill. d. Sally walked from the river to the mill past the barn. e. Sally walked to the mill from the river past the barn. f. Sally walked past the barn to the mill from the river. g. Sally walked from the river past the barn to the mill in the afternoon. h. Sally walked to the mill and then passed the barn and later went from the river. (13)′ a. Sally walked out of the house past the barn into the garden. b. Sally walked into the garden past the barn out of the house. c. Sally walked past the barn into the garden out of the house. d. Sally walked into the garden out of the house past the barn. e. Sally walked past the barn out of the house into the garden. f. Sally walked out of the house into the garden past the barn. g. Sally walked out of the house past the barn into the garden in the afternoon. h. Sally walked into the garden and then passed the barn and later went out of the house.

As is shown here, the three subevents have six possible combinations, resulting twelve constructions to express the idea an Actant moving from its source to its goal by way of a passing point (bold and italicized parts in (12 ) and (13 )). We send by email these expressions ((12 a–f), (13 a–f)) to 10 native speakers3 living the US and the UK to inquire about their grammaticality. The investigation shows that (12 a) and (13 a), whose 3 subevents are represented in line with their occurring sequence, are unanimously accepted as grammatical. The investigation also finds that (12 d) and (13 f), which both represent the 3 subevents in the order of DE 走到 那头 (walked to that end). (14a) represents the sequence as it naturally stands, and therefore it is acceptable. Contrary to (14a), (14a ) violates the principle of temporal sequence by putting AE before DE; hence it is unacceptable according to the principle of temporal sequence. The acceptability of (14b) is resulted from this iconic correspondence too. (14b) expresses a fictive Motion event of numbness creeping from arm to hand; this is rightly captured in (14b) by reporting PE (沿着手臂 (along his arms)) at first and the goal subevent secondly. Similar to (14a ), (14b ) disobeys 4 Zheng 5 Ye

Ziyun, a radical reformist and one of the main heroes in Chen Zhong de Chi Bang. Zhiqiu, a reporter with a Party newspaper and supportive of reform.

34

2 MEP Principles and the Segmentation and Representation of TMEs

the principle of temporal sequence too, reversing the natural order. Hence, it is also unacceptable. Dissimilar to the previous discussion about English, the presenting order of the encoded subevents in a Chinese two location-change Motion macro-event is not that flexible as their counterparts in English. For a Chinese two location-change Motion macro-event, the reporting sequence is iconic and the change of it leads to ungrammaticality, let alone retaining the MEP. To have a reverse reading of (14a) and (14b), simply moving AE before DE or PE does not work (see (14a ) and (14b )). The macro-event expression has to be broken up into two new macro-event constructions. Consider (15a) and (15b): (15)

十一

a. 郑子云 Zheng Ziyun

shiyi

Zheng Ziyun

11

点钟

走

dianzhong o’clock

到

那头——

zou

dao

natou-

walk

reach that end

Zheng Ziyun walked to that end at 11 o’clock. 他

十点钟

从

ta shi dianzhong He 10 o’clock

这头

出发。

cong zhetou chufa. from

this end

set off.

He set off from this end at 10 o’clock. 麻木感……那时

b. 一种

通向

手掌——

Yizhong mamugan… nashi tongxiang shouzhang – One kind numbness… then go toward

此前

它 途径

palm

手臂。

Ciqian ta tujing shoubi. Before it

pass

arm.

Numbness was creeping to his palms. It had passed his arms before. Bohnemeyer et al. (2007) have not explained why the reporting order of macroevent expressions in English and Japanese can be reversed and exerts no impact on MEP or why it is hard to alter in Ewe. For Chinese, being a non-inflectional language, word order plays an essential role in its grammatical system (Hu 1984/2002, 1995; Huang and Liao 2002: 2; Liu et al. 2001: 30–35, inter alia). In comparison with inflectional languages, word order functions more semantically in Chinese (Tai 1985). Though there are fewer inflections in modern English, English aspect, plurality, tense, and so on, still rely very much on inflections, which provides the language flexibility

2.4 Principles of MEP

35

in arranging word order. Chinese, however, depends on word order to manifest the order of the subevents composing a macro-event. In other words, the changing of the word order in the linguistic representation implies the different occurring order from the reality, which will unavoidably cause logic confusion in semantic sense and erroneous representation in grammatical form. Based on the iconic motivation proposed by Tai (1993), (14a) and (14b) follow order motivation, reporting subevents in their natural sequence. So they are both sound in meaning and form. (14a ) and (14b ) reverse the natural order, turning out an expression contrary to reality, thus it is confusing in meaning and awkward in form. In a word, the iconic motivation is pervasive in world languages, but its representation forms are varying from language to language. As far as English and Chinese are concerned, English relies on inflections to arrange word order relatively flexibly, while Chinese encodes the natural order of events into its expressions. Put in another way, two location-change macro-event motion expressions are less sensitive to order motivation in English than those in Chinese, whose MEP will be deprived of once the iconic order principle is transgressed. We next analyze whether three location-change macro-event constructions in Chinese follow what we have theorized for two location-change constructions. Consider (16): (16)

Ta cong S.F.

kai

He from S.F. drive

qiche

jingguo

car

pass

Chicago Chicago

dao

N.Y..

arrive N.Y..

“He drove to N.Y. from S.F. through Chicago.” (Adapted from Tai 1993)

(16) encodes three subevents, the Actant departing from S.F. as DE, passing through Chicago as PE, and arriving at his destination N.Y. as AE. Temporally and spatially, (16) follows the order motivation. Tai (1993) holds that the word order of (16) can not be changed, or its grammaticality will be affected. The three subevents in (16) may be further reorganized as follows:

36

2 MEP Principles and the Segmentation and Representation of TMEs

(16) a. ?他 从

旧金山 开

汽车

到

纽约

经过

芝加哥。

Ta cong S.F. kai qiche dao N.Y. jingguo Chicago. He from S.F. drive car b. *他 开

汽车

经过

arrive N.Y. pass

芝加哥 到

纽约 从

Chicago. 旧金山。

Ta kai qiche jingguo Chicago dao N.Y. cong S.F. He drive car *

c. 他

开

Ta He *

pass Chicago arrive N.Y. from S.F.

汽车

经过

芝加哥

kai qiche jingguo Chicago drive

d. 他 开

car

汽车

pass

到

纽约

从 旧金山 到

cong S.F. dao N.Y..

Chicago from 从

纽约。

旧金山

S.F. arrive N.Y..

经过

芝加哥。

Ta kai qiche dao N.Y. cong S.F. jingguo Chicago. He drive car e. *他 开

汽车

arrive 到

N.Y. from S.F. 纽约

经过

pass

Chicago.

芝加哥 从 旧金山。

Ta kai qiche dao N.Y. jingguo Chicago cong S.F.. He drive car

arrive

N.Y. pass

Chicago

from S.F..

Of these constructions, only (16a) is marginally grammatical, which places PE after AE. To have a (16a) reading, as we have discussed of (14a ) and (14b ), it has to be broken up into at least two macro-event expressions. Consider (16a ): (16) a′. 他 从

旧金山 开 汽车 到 纽约，中途

Ta cong S.F. kai qiche dao N.Y.,

zhongtu

经过

芝加哥。

jingguo Chicago.

He from S.F. drive car arrive N.Y., on his way pass Chicago.

‘中途 (zhongtu on one’s way)’ as a temporal operator here, has control only over PE, hence lifting MEP. On the other hand, by this minor permutation, the grammatical uncertainty of (16a) clears away. Constructions (16b)–(16e) more or less follow this suit. This follows in Chinese, the same as two location-change macro-event motion expressions, the three location-change macro-event motion expressions are also sensitive to the iconic order principle. Reporting the subevents in any order different from the natural order will incur the loss of MEP.

2.4 Principles of MEP

37

2.4.3 The Referential Uniqueness Constraint The referential uniqueness constraint concerns predominantly with Grounds in the macro-event Motion constructions. Bohnemeyer et al. (2007) propose that It appears to be universally impossible to refer to the same ground more than once in the same macro-event expression, even if the reference is under different thematic relations (here, path functions).

This definition indicates that the same Ground can be referred to only once in a macro-event expression, or its MEP identity will disappear. In terms of Binding Theory (BT) (Chomsky 1980, 1993; Büring 2005), NPs are of three categories, reflexives, and reciprocals (like himself, yourselves, one another), non-reflexive pronouns (like he, you, your), and full NPs including proper names (like Peter, the baroness).6 For NPs there are actual requirements or conditions on them in relation to the positions where they may make appearance. Generally, there are three such conditions: Condition A states that a reflexives or reciprocal must have a local antecedent. Thus, John washed himself obeys Condition A: the antecedent of himself, which is John, is nearby, and both refer to the person ‘John’. In contrast, *John asked Mary to wash himself is unacceptable, because the reflexive and its antecedent are too far away from each other. Condition B states that a non-reflexive pronoun can have an antecedent, as long as the antecedent is not local, i.e., the antecedent must be ‘far away’. Thus, John asked Mary to wash him obeys Condition B: John is the antecedent of him, and ‘him’ is sufficiently far away; on the other hand, *John washed him, where John is intended to be the antecedent of him, is unacceptable. Condition C states that a full NP can not have an antecedent. Thus, *He asked Mary to wash John, with the interpretation that He is the antecedent of John, is unacceptable. The Ground expressions in TME constructions are mostly NPs. These, therefore, should accordingly comply with such binding conditions. As the present study is about TME constructions of more than 2 location-changes, and at least 2 Ground phrases will as a consequence be encoded, the referential uniqueness constraint is thus designed to regulate the relations between these phrases.

6 By Chomsky (1993: 225), the three categories of NPs are anaphors, pronominals and R(eferential)-

expression. But confusions arise from these terms. For example, the term ‘anaphor’ is traditionally employed for any NP with an antecedent and ‘pronominal’ is rather confusing with pronoun. Thus we prefer the classification in Büring (2005) to avoid fuzziness.

38

2 MEP Principles and the Segmentation and Representation of TMEs

(17) a. *Floyd went from [the tree]i to [the tree]i/iti. b. Floyd went away from [the tree]i and then back to iti (again). (18) a. *Sally went out of [the tunnel]i in(to [the tunnel]i/iti). b. Sally went out of the tunnel and then in (again). (Adapted from Bohnemeyer et al. (2007))

Superficially, (17a) accommodates a DE and an AE, just starting point and endpoint identifying with each other. But as the full NP ‘the tree’ presents itself twice, we usually attribute such anomaly to repetition. In terms of BT, it is in contradiction with what Condition C has stipulated: a full NP can not have an antecedent, if we take the first full NP as the antecedent of the second full NP. Suppose we replace endpoint ‘the tree’ with non-reflexive pronoun ‘it’, as indicated by (17a), it contradicts again with what Condition B has stipulated: a non-reflexive pronoun can have an antecedent on the condition that the antecedent is not ‘local’. It is apparent ‘it’ and ‘the tree’ are located in the same clause; hence they are not ‘far away’ from each other. The anomaly of (18b) can be expounded in the similar fashion. Starting point ‘the tunnel’ is the same as endpoint, which violates the binding Condition C. It will go against Condition B if the full NP is substituted by the non-reflexive pronoun ‘it’. To have the reading like (17a) or (18a), we need to break the mono-macro-event construction into two macro-event constructions. (17b) and (18b) illustrates this. In (17b) and (18b), the temporal operator ‘then’ denotes the beginning of another event, hence taking MEP away from (17a) and (18a). This demonstrates convincingly that MEP is sensitive to the incidence of the same Ground expression in a TME construction. The MEP licenses a single reference to the same Ground in one macroevent Motion construction. Two or more references to the same Ground cause the loss of MEP. Besides English, Bohnemeyer et al. (ibid.) prove that Japanese and Ewe obey this constraint too. We next test this sensitivity in Chinese. Consider (19) and (20)7 :

7 (26)

and (27) are our translation of (22) and (23).

2.4 Principles of MEP

39

(19) a. *佛洛伊德 从

这棵树

走到

这棵树。

Floyd

cong zhekeshu zoudao

Floyd

from this tree walk arrive this tree.

b. 佛洛伊德 从

这棵树

zhekeshu.

走开， 然后

又

走了 回来。

Floyd

cong zhekeshu zoukai, ranhou you zouleASP huilai.

Floyd

from this tree walk away, then again walked return.

c. *佛洛伊德

从

这棵树

走开，然后

又

走 回

它。

zou hui

ta.

Floyd

cong zhekeshu zoukai, ranhou you

Floyd

from this tree walk away, then again walked return it.

d. 佛洛伊德

从

Floyd Floyd

这棵树

走开，

然后

又

cong zhekeshu zoukai, ranhou you from 到

this tree walk away, then

走

回

zou

huidao zhekeshu.

again

这棵树。

walked return this tree. (20) a. *佛洛伊德 从

这个

隧道

出

来

Floyd

cong zhege suidao chu lai

Floyd

from this

b. 佛洛伊德 走 Floyd

zou

Floyd

walk

c. *佛洛伊德 走 Floyd

zou

Floyd

walk

d. 佛洛伊德 走 Floyd

zou

Floyd

walk

走

进了

出

出

out

ranhou

this tunnel, then 隧道， 然后

又 you

this tunnel, then

又 you

又

chu zhege suidao, ranhou

you

这个

this tunnel, then 隧道。

this tunnel .

进去。

zoule ASP jinqu.

走 zou

into. 进 它。 jin

ta.

again walked into it.

出 这个 隧道， 然后

out

走了

again walked

zhege suidao, ranhou

zou jin-le zhege suidao. walk-ASP into

zou jin zhege suidao.

这个 隧道， 然后

这个

chu

隧道。

tunnel out come walk into this tunnel.

chu zhege suidao, out

走 进 这个

again

40

2 MEP Principles and the Segmentation and Representation of TMEs

(19) and (20) are the Chinese translation of (17) and (18). (19a) and (20a) are as odd as (17a) and (18a). The reason is not far to seek, into which we have probed when analyzing English macro-event construction sensitivity to the referential uniqueness constraint. To have the reading of an Actant leaving a place and returning to it, (19a) and (20a) have to be rewritten as the multi-macro-event constructions like (19b), (19d), (20b), and (20d). Apparently, the referential uniqueness constraint is also sensitive to MEP in Chinese. Similar to English, probably to many other languages we believe, we can stylistically impute this oddity to the repeated use of the same full NPs ‘这棵树 (zhekeshu this tree)’ and ‘这个隧道 (zhege suidao this tunnel)’. In terms of Binding Theory, similar to English again, they go against Binding Condition C for encoding within the same clause a full NP and its antecedent. But unlike English, as shown by (19) and (20), Chinese users first of all disfavor using bare pronouns behind the second Motion verb. The strangeness of (19c) and (20c) reflects this. This oddity can be ridden of when the bare pronouns are taken away (see (19b) and (20b)) or substituted by the full NPs (see (19d) and (20d)). This is supported by our corpus investigation. We get 5081 concordance lines with the search term ‘它 (ta it)’ in the modern Chinese corpus of Center for Chinese Linguistics of Peking University (CCL).8 The search term is decided upon two reasons. As endpoint of a TME, it is mostly impersonal; when it is a human being, it refers to the location where the being is. Secondly, being at the end of an expression is conducive to singling out all the bare pronoun cases. Of these concordance lines none of the bare ‘它’ is individually employed as endpoint of a TME construction. The second difference between English and Chinese lies in expressing ‘happening again’. For English ‘again’ is optional (see (17b) and (18b)), but ‘又 (you again)’ is obligatory in Chinese when expressing the meaning of ‘happening again’ (see (19b), (19d), (20b), and (20d)). The optionality of ‘again’ in such English constructions is due mainly to the presence of coordinator ‘and’; Chinese, however, lack of such formal devices, makes use of word order and lexical item to express such concepts.

2.4.4 The Unique Vector Constraint By Bohnemeyer et al. (2007), the foregoing three principles are not domain-specific; in other words they are practicable beyond Motion domains. The fourth principle they propose about MEP is unique vector constraint, which ‘concerns specifically the encoding of direction in formation in macro-event expressions’ (ibid.). Direction constitutes an essential constituent in Motion event semantics (Jackendoff 1983; Levin and Hovav 1991; Talmy 2000a, b; Slobin 2005; Lamarre 2007; Croft et al. 2010; Zheng and Ouyang 2016, inter alia). The unique vector constraint is first

8 CCL,

world.

boasting of 47.7 million characters, ranks among the largest modern Chinese corpora in the

2.4 Principles of MEP

41

discussed in detail in Bohnemeyer (2003) as follows, borrowing the geometric term ‘vector’: Unique vector constraint (UVC): all direction vectors denoted in a single simple clause referring to a single continuous motion event must be collinear and of the same polarity.

Geometrically, a vector has two constituents: magnitude or length and direction. Magnitude or length refers to the distance between the initial point A and the terminal point B, and direction is the one goes linearly from the initial point A to the terminal −→ point B, the vector thus formed represented usually as AB, with A as the tail and B as the head. Applying this to Motion event analysis, the initial point and terminal point −→ of vector AB, for example, coincide with starting point and endpoint, as indicated in Fig. 2.1. A direction vector is any vector that describes a line segment between two distinct points on the line. So far as Motion event is concerned, magnitude is of little interest compared with direction, for we concern more with where the Actant goes and the Path it follows to endpoint. The direction of a vector is usually described as an angle of rotation of the vector around its tail in a two-dimensional coordinate system. For the present study it follows that connecting the initial point and the terminal point is a conceptually direct line. This requires the subevents embedded in a macroevent construction develop in the same direction. Schematically, they should be of one linear line, no matter how many segments the event might be subdivided into. Starting point, passing point, and endpoint in a TME become the head or tail of the direction vector. Therefore, all the direction expressions in a TME construction describe the same direction. Bohnemeyer et al. (2007) prove that MEP is sensitive to the unique vector constraint: one MEP-construction licenses only one direction. Suppose John is going from place A to place B along a conceptually straight route, as shown in Fig. 2.4, the motion event is represented as: 21 John goes from A to B. Obviously, the construction satisfies the requirements of MEP. Suppose John does not go straightly to B, he stops by another place C, which is located triangularly to A and B. The situation is schematically illustrated in Fig. 2.2a: Verbally, we represent it as: Fig. 2.1 The vector

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2 MEP Principles and the Segmentation and Representation of TMEs

Fig. 2.2 The vector of three locations

(22) a. John goes from A to B via C. b. John goes from A to C (northeastward) and then from C to B (southeastward).

Both (22a) and (22b) can capture the concept of an Actant’s displacement starting from A, passing C and ended at B. But the directional change displayed in Fig. 2.2a is not manifested explicitly in construction (22a), which meets the regulations of MEP. Conceptually, the schema represented by (22a) is still a straight line joining A and B, C being merely one of the ordinary points on this line. The coarse-grained depiction, therefore, skips the directional change at C, heeding nothing to what happens along the path in reality. The consequence for this depiction is only one direction vector represented and the construction has MEP. To capture the directional change indicated by Fig. 2.2a, (22b) adds the coordinator ‘and’ and the time adverbial ‘then’. To clarify the point, directionals ‘northeastward’ and ‘southeastward’ are inserted into (22b) in brackets. These result in, on the one hand, a multidirection construction, hence multidirection vectors encoded, and on the other hand, a construction without MEP. The analyses above tellingly demonstrate that MEP is sensitive to the representation of direction in English. If there is more than one direction to be expressed, more MEP constructions will be utilized. Bohnemeyer (2003) and Bohnemeyer et al. (2007) prove that the unique vector constraint is also valid in Ewe. Each direction vector is represented by one macroevent expression. Figure 2.3 illustrates the translocation of a circle from inside a u-shaped object to the top of a triangle. Altogether the circle makes six changes of direction during the whole translocative process: namely, rolling to the right inside,

Fig. 2.3 The rolling circle

2.4 Principles of MEP

43

up the inside wall, out over the top, down on the outside wall, rightward again toward the triangle, and finally up the triangle to the top. (23) Circle lá

líá

rectangle lá

hédi

tó anyígbá

[circle DEF climb rectangle DEF]VP [ITI descend pass ground]VP yi

da-líá

triangle lá

vá

dó

é-ta-me.

[go DIR-climb triangle DEF]VP [VEN arrive 3SG-peak-in]VP ‘The circle climbed the rectangle, descended passed the ground, climbed the triangle, came arriving at the top.’ (Ewe)

To express the serial changes of direction as shown in Fig. 2.3, Ewe employs four MEP expressions to bring out the sense, omitting the initial move rolling to the right inside within the u-shaped blue object and the move out over the top. All the rest direction changes are each represented by a single MEP expression, simply one MEP-construction per direction vector. Chinese displays similar tendency when encoding directional changes: (24) a. 往

南， 往

东，

再

往

南，

wang nan, wang dong, zai wang nan, toward south, toward

east, again toward south,

他奔了

天桥

去。

ta ben-le

tianqiao

qu.

he run-ASP Bridge of Heaven go. He turned south and then east and then south again, crossing over by the Bridge of Heaven. b. 先

往南，

再

往东，

然后

再

xian wangnan,

zai

wangdong, ranhou zai

往南， wangnan,

First toward South, again toward East, then again toward South, 他 奔了

天桥

ta ben-le

tianqiao

去。 qu.

he run-ASP Bridge of Heaven go. He turned first south, and then east, and then south again, crossing over by the Bridge of Heaven.

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2 MEP Principles and the Segmentation and Representation of TMEs

(24) reports the three directional changes in succession on Xiang Zi’s9 way to Tianqiao. Compare (24a) and (24b), it is easy to detect that (24a) lacks MEP and the three direction vectors are represented, respectively, by an MEP expression.

2.4.5 The Loss of MEP The foregoing four principles lay down the conditions for a construction to have MEP, implying the breach of any of them will incur the loss of MEP. In addition to these four conditions, Bohnemeyer et al. (2007) put forth two other ways of ‘lifting’ MEP, ‘event nominals’ (Ochi 2001; Davies and Dubinsky 2003; Landau 2007; Gehrke 2008, inter alia) and the introduction of coordination. Based on the definition of MEP, generally English VPs have MEP. But as event nominals possess VP-like characteristics and license time-positional operators, the appearance of event nominals may lift MEP from the construction: (25) a. The Franco-Russian War lasted from 1812 to 1813. b. The Franco-Russian War lasted from the invasion of Russia by the Grande Armee in 1812 to the Battle of Leipzig in 1813.

Being a mono-event construction, apparently (25a) has MEP. The identity gets changed in (25b), contrasting with (25a) for taking up two event nominals. With the introduction of the two event nominals (‘the invasion of Russia’ and ‘the Battle of Leipzig’), 1812 and 1813, two temporal points in (25b) originally, evolve into twotime adverbials having control over the event nominals, respectively, thus turning the construction against the requirement of MEP. Introducing coordination is another way of lifting MEP. For convenience, (9a) is repeated as (26a) below: (26) a. Floyd went from Rochester via Batavia to Buffalo on the morning of June 8th. b. Floyd went from Rochester via Batavia to Buffalo on the morning of June 8 th and to Pittsburgh in the afternoon.

As a typical three location-change TME construction analyzed in Sect. 2.2.2, (26a) can be broken down into three subevents: DE, PE, and AE, which are packaged so tightly that they are all under the control of the same time adverbial. (26b) takes up coordination after PE, which licenses another time adverbial. This, according to 9 Xiang

Zi: the hero in Luotuo Xiang Zi by Lao She.

2.4 Principles of MEP

45

Bohnemeyer et al. (2007), is ‘presumably tied to a VP-ellipsis’. Actually, it is also accountable in terms of the biuniqueness constraint, which demands a one-to-one mapping between thematic roles and syntactic argument and oblique. In the event that the coordinator ‘and’ is removed from (26b), the goal role will be twice assigned and consequently results in anomaly.

2.5 The Segmentation of Complex Motion Events and TME Constructions with MEP The bountiful research output in event segmentation by both linguists and psychologists bears it out that the segmentation of Motion events sits at the interface between psychology and linguistics. The psychological experiments conducted by Miller and Johnson-Laird (1976), Rosch (1978), Tversky (1989), Zacks and Tversky (2001), Zacks (2008), and many others lay bare the partonomical nature of any event and pave well the way for event segmentation. The linguistic studies, particularly in the cognitive vein (Talmy 1972, 1985, 1991, 2000b; Jackendoff 1983, 1990; Tai 2003; Slobin 2005; Bohnemeyer 2003, 2010; Bohnemeyer et al. 2007; inter alia), on the other hand, investigate intensely the structure of events with verbs at the center. Combining the two directions together, we embark on discussing the conceptual structure of TME constructions with MEP10 and their segmentation. For the conceptual structure of events we follow mostly Jackendoff (1983) and Tai (2003) and for the segmentation of TME constructions we depend predominantly on Tversky (1989), Zacks and Tversky (2001), and Bohnemeyer et al. (2007).

2.5.1 The Conceptual Structure and Types of Motion Event Path Language is to represent the world of physical existence and virtual reality via human conceptualization. The Boas-Sapir-Whorf linguistic relativity defines the relationship between language and thought, as the former determines the latter, failing overgeneralization but sparking huge amount of controversies. Piaget (1998: 93), based on his observation of children development, believes that language is dependent on thought. Vygotsky (2004) holds, on the other hand, that language and thought are interdependent. The present study shuns these controversies, nonetheless. As a probe into the mapping relation between form and function, we are more preoccupied with the representation of the underlying thought of each speech. Therefore, we assume that human beings of this globe comprehend 10 For

the convenience of expression, ‘TME construction’ equals ‘TME construction with MEP’ from now on.

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2 MEP Principles and the Segmentation and Representation of TMEs

identically the happenings around us. The differences lie in how these happenings are represented in each language. Jackendoff (1983: 17) proposes There is a single level of mental representation, conceptual structure, at which linguistic, sensory, and motor information are compatible… characterized by a finite set of conceptual, well-formedness rules…these rules are universal and innate- that everyone has essentially the same capacity to develop concepts- but that the concepts one actually develops must depend to some extent on experience.

As a particular category of events, Motion events are conceptualized as having constituents of Actant, Path, Source, Goal, Route, and direction centered on Motion.. These constituents are abstracted in our mind and will be activated when the occasion arises. Partonomically, motion events are conceptualized as a complex whole comprising three subevents along the timeline: DE, PE, and AE. Each of these has their slot on the timeline and is individuated by the time they last. Following the temporal advance, Actant departs from Source in the direction of Goal, which thus consists of a spatio-temporal entity. The spatial distance between Source and Goal measures the Actant’s journey so far. The traces Actant leaves constitute its Path and Source, Route and Goal are the reference points (Langacker 1991: Chap. 6; 2001; Croft and Cruse 2004: 51; Traugott and Dasher 2002, inter alia) for Actant to assess what progress it has achieved. As a core constituent, Path is of 3 types based on Jackendoff (1983: 165): bounded Paths, directions, and routes. This classification is in terms of Path’s relationship to reference points. Bounded Paths may begin in a Source Path and/or end in a Goal Path, thus requiring the presence of the constituents Source and/or Goal in addition to those obligatory ones. A bounded Path can usually be demonstrated graphically as a line bounded at both ends or one end. Figure 2.4 denotes and exemplifies the three subtypes of bounded Paths: (1) full bounded Paths bounded at both ends, (2) Source Paths bounded at the Source, and (3) Goal Paths bounded at the Goal. It is apparent that bounded Paths do not necessarily require the presence of both Source and Goal in the surface construction. In other words, bounded Paths, the other two types of Path alike, are more mental representations of the traces left by the Actant physically or imaginarily. Unlike bounded Paths, the reference point does not fall on the Path traveled by the Actant so far in directions, but would, suppose the Path extends endlessly. We schematize the situation in Fig. 2.5. Directions have two subtypes as indicated above: (1) Goal-specified direction Path, (2) Source-specified direction Path. The reference points A in Fig. 2.5(1) and B in Fig. 2.5(2) symbolize the directions the Actant is moving toward or away Fig. 2.4 Bounded Paths

2.5 The Segmentation of Complex Motion Events and TME Constructions with MEP

47

Fig. 2.5 Directions

Fig. 2.6 The Routes

from, while the dotted parts of the Path explain that reference points A and B are not traversed by the Actant, but would if the Path were extended. This probability narrows the gap between directions and bounded Paths. Suppose in Fig. 2.5 John reached the house or John started from the house, the TOWARD type of directions will turn to be Goal Paths and the AWAY FROM type of directions will turn to be Source Paths. This is also observable from the comparison between Figs. 2.4(3) and 2.5(1), Figs. 2.4(2) and 2.5(2). The hard lines in Fig. 2.4 become dotted ones in Fig. 2.5. This follows that the directions and the bounded Paths are similar to some extent. The reference points of Routes are located somewhere on the Path, so that the Actant may traverse it on its way. The relationships between Actant and reference point are threefold: the Actant may simply move by the reference point (Fig. 2.6(1)), along it (Fig. 2.6(2)) or through it (Fig. 2.6(3)), each instantiating a mental representation of the conceptual structure of the Actant’s traversal. It is easily observable that the reference point may be just a dot, a container, or a phase of the Actant’s journey. Up to now, the present discussion seems to take it for granted that Paths are comparable to straight lines. This, however, is not true to the reality. The Path shape of a motion event (van der Zee 2000; van der Zee et al. 2010; Bohnemeyer 2003; Zwarts 2005; Dewell 2007) does not always present as a linear line. Prepositions like ‘around’ and ‘along’ and Motion verbs like ‘circle’, ‘thread’, ‘weave’, and ‘zigzag’ all encode a non-linear path. But the non-linear path shape does not affect our interpretation of the event as one departing from a place and terminating at another. Bohnemeyer (2003) holds Utterances that contain expressions of non-linear path shape do not necessarily violate the unique vector constraint because path shape expressions do not by themselves entail directions. Path shapes do not determine directions, they merely determine the change (with non-linear shapes) or preservation (with linear shapes) of directions.

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2 MEP Principles and the Segmentation and Representation of TMEs

Table 2.1 Subevents and Path types

Subevents DE PE AE

Path Types bounded direction

Path Subtypes source goal away from toward

route

Although this rings plausible, we believe there are more conceptual reasons beyond Bohnemeyer’s explanation. The gestalt psychology informs us that we tend to scan the event summarily (Langacker 1991: 21; Ungerer and Schmid 1996: 193) and then decompose the ‘perceived whole’ into individual properties or attributes (Ungerer and Schmid 1996: 33). Additionally, the perceived whole is not merely the adding-up of these individual properties or attributes; its holistic structure results more from the profile-base relationship (Langacker 1991: 23), which profiles only those figural parts and places those not into the background. As for these two stages of perceiving an event, the first is indispensable, while the second is ‘optional’ (Ungerer and Schmid 1996: 33). So far as Path is concerned, the end-points of it attract most of our attention, hence the profile. Lying between or beyond the end-points composes the base. The shape of the Path, which does not affect the ‘holistic’ structure of the Path, is also a constituent of the base and backgrounded in our conception. These conceptual entities interweave with each other and form the underlying conceptual structure of the surface constructions. The three subevents interact with different path types on the basis of their differing conceptual structures. DE, the first stage of the Actant’s journey and denoting the sense of initiation, naturally selects the Source Path or the away-from type of Path to begin. Following this is PE, the second or the medial stage of the Actant’s journey and denoting the sense of coming by, chooses Routes to fulfill the task. The last stage of the Actant’s journey denotes conclusion, arrival, and the finish of the Motion event. To accomplish this purpose, AE usually follow a Goal-bounded Path or the toward type of Path. The interrelated association between subevents of a Motion event and Path types is summarized in Table 2.1. Based on the interaction between Motion event subevents and Path types, we generally cull the following Motion event types of the Path combinations.11,12 a. Source(DE) + route (PE) + goal (AE) b. Source (DE) + route (PE) + toward (AE) 11 The order of the subevents is assumed to be chronological, though it is usually reshuffled for different profiling or windowing of attention (Talmy 2000a: Chap. 4). 12 For convenience we assume Motion events are universally of 3 subparts, though in practice many constructions skip one or two subparts. As the present study concerns only with constructions encoding at least 2 location changes, there is at most one subpart skipped.

2.5 The Segmentation of Complex Motion Events and TME Constructions with MEP

49

c. away from (DE) + route (PE) + toward (AE) d. away from (DE) + route (PE) + goal (AE).

2.5.2 Segmentation of Complex Motion Events Discussions in Sects. 2.2.2 and 2.4.1 bear it out that the human mind conceptualizes the world partonomically and hierarchically. Such discussions revolve, in fact, around the issue of granularity (Devos et al. 1998, 1994; Slobin 2004, 2005; van Staden and Narasimhan 2013) for where to place the boundaries between discrete subevents in linguistic descriptions. Zacks and Tversky (2001) distinguish three levels of granularity. At the lowest end are the smallest segments, which are perceived as the physical changes in the environment and conceived as single units. The intermediate level is formed by intentional actions, which concern goal-directed actions and causal relations between physical changes. The highest level is scripts, formed in turn by the intentional actions. The perception of Goal-directed actions and causal are universally in existence in human cognition; therefore, it is reasonable to assume that all languages have expressions for this type of event. Newtson (1973) and Zacks and Tversky (2001) have justified with evidence that within cultural groups there is clear agreement on what constitute natural event boundaries. But across cultural groups such clear agreement may decrease. For example, von Stutterheim et al. (2002) prove that it is more likely for speakers of German to express an endpoint of a Motion than that for speakers of English or Spanish. German speakers tend to select a broader level of granularity when reporting events; in contrast, English speakers favor selecting a finer level of granularity. As two distinct cultural groups, English and Chinese understandably possess, respectively, characteristic traits in the segmentation of complex motion events. Motion events can be componentially partitioned into, in the parlance of Talmy (1985, 1991, 2000b: Chap. I), Figure (here Acant), Ground, Path, Motion, Manner, and other constituents. Of them Ground includes subordinate constituents of Source, Goal, and Passing Point, which are collectively referred to as reference points in the previous sections. As we have noted more than once, Motion events possess temporal aspect and are segmentable accordingly into DE, PE, and AE. Each such subevent selects the proper constituents for linguistic representations. For instance, Actant and Source are usually encoded in DEs, while Passing Points and Goal are as a rule accommodated in PEs and AEs. Furthermore, there are also regular associations between the constituents of Motion events and the lexical items within certain language. In most cases, take English for example, Actant and Ground associate with NPs, Path with PPs or Path VPs, Motion with Motion VPs and Manner with Manner VPs.

50

2 MEP Principles and the Segmentation and Representation of TMEs

2.5.3 TME Constructions with MEP Up to now we have clarified notions like TME constructions and MEP, yet one issue needs further clarification: not all TME constructions bearing the MEP. MEP definition requires that only constructions whose subevents all fall under the control of the same temporal operator and meet the requirements of the four constraints have MEP. Under such requirements, (9c) repeated here as (27a) lacks MEP, while (9a) repeated here as (27b) has: (27) a. Floyd left Rochester at seven, passed through Batavia at seven forty-five, and arrived in Buffalo at eight thirty on the morning of June 8th. b. Floyd went from Rochester via Batavia to Buffalo on the morning of June 8th.

Three-time adverbials function as temporal operators for each of the three subevents, taking MEP away from (27a). The construction of (27b) licenses just one temporal operator, whose scope ranges over all of the three subevents. (27b) hereby has MEP. What is concerned in the present study are TMEs encoding at least two locationchanges. Psychological and typological research demonstrates that location changes usually mark the places where one subevent is joined by another (Zacks and Tversky 2001; Zacks and Swallow 2007; Kurby and Zacks 2007; Zacks et al. 2009; Swallow et al. 2009). Consequently, the constructions under discussion represent as a rule at least two subevents, which can be any of the following combinations: a. b. c. d.

DE + PE + AE DE + PE DE + AE PE + AE.

It is worth noticing that the representing order of the encoded subevents varies with languages. As discussed previously, English, for example, exhibits far greater flexibility than Chinese in this regard. Furthermore, better economy is accomplished with MEP constructions. Take (27b) for example. Its semantic sense can also get expressed in the following way: (27c) On the morning of June 8th , Floyd went from Rochester, passed Batavia and arrived in Buffalo. Compared with (27a), (27c) retains most of the semantic sense, but reduces greatly in the economy of expression by employing more lexical items.

2.6 Summary

51

2.6 Summary The central issue for this chapter is to review MEP theory and TME constructions with MEP. For this purpose, we explicate in detail the four principles or constraints of MEP theory and introduce Chinese constructions to test their compatibility. Largely, MEP theory is formulated on the basis of previous research in event segmentation and linguistic typology by psychologists and linguists. In previous sections we have reviewed and discussed the typological research in the field of Motion events and the dichotomic and trichotomic models by Talmy and Slobin. The present study follows the dichotomic model and attempts to find the place of Chinese in this typology. Event segmentation is also a mental process. The investigations in the vein of psychology shed much light for cognitive linguistic analysis, especially the partonomical view by Tversky and Zacks. The review and discussion here lay the theoretical foundation for this research; as for the empirical work upon such a foundation we will explain in Chap. 3.

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Davies, W., & Dubinsky, S. (2003). On extraction from NPs. Natural Language & Linguistic Theory, 21(1), 1–37. Devos, F., Gyseghemb, N., Vandenberghe, R., & De Caluwe, R. (1994). On extraction from NPS. Journal of Quantitative Linguistics, 21(1), 189–194. Devos, F., Maesfranckx, P., & De Tré, G. (1998). Granularity in the interpretation of around in approximative lexical time indications. Journal of Quantitative Linguistics, 5(3), 167–173. Dewell, R. B. (2007). Moving around: The role of the conceptualizer in semantic interpretation. Cognitive Linguistics, 18(3), 383–415. Fauconnier, G. (1997). Mappings in thought and langauge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Fillmore, C. J. (1968). The case for case. In E. Bach & R. T. Harms (Eds.), Universals in linguistic theory (pp. 1–88). New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston. Fillmore, C. J. (1982). Frame semantics. In The Linguistic Society of Korea (Ed.), Linguistics in the morning calm (pp. 111–137). Seoul: Hanshin. Fillmore, C. J. (1985). Frames and the semantics of understanding. Quaderni di Semantica, 6(2), 222–254. Gehrke, B. (2008). Goals and sources are aspectually equal: Evidence from Czech and Russian prefixes. Lingua, 118(11), 1664–1689. Givón, T. (1990). Syntax: A functional-typological introduction (Vol. II). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Givón, T. (1991). Serial verbs and the mental reality of ‘event’. In E. C. Traugott & B. Heine (Eds.), Approaches to grammaticalization (Vol. 1, pp. 81–127). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Goldberg, A. E. (1995). Constructions: A construction grammar approach to argument structure. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Hoffman, D. D., & Richards, W. A. (1984). Parts of recognition. Cognition, 18(1–3), 65–96. Horák, A., Pala, K., Duží, M., & Materna, P. (2005). Verb valency semantic representation for deep linguistic processing. In Proceedings of the 5th Workshop on Important Unresolved Matters (pp. 97–104). Ann Arbor: Association for Computational Linguistics. Huang, S., & Tanangkingsing, M. (2005). Reference to motion events in six western Austronesian languages: Toward a semantic typology. Oceanic Linguistics, 44(2), 307–340. Jackendoff, R. (1983). Semantics and cognition. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Jackendoff, R. (1990). Semantic structures. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Kurby, A. Christopher, & Zacks, J. M. (2007). Segmentation in the perception and memory of events. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 12(2), 72–79. Lamarre, C. (2007). The linguistic encoding of motion events in Chinese: With reference to crossdialectal variation. In C. Lamarre & T. Ohori (Eds.), Typological studies of the linguistic expression of motion events (vol. 1): Perspectives from East and Southeast Asia (pp. 3–33). Tokyo: Center for Evolutionary Cognitive Sciences at the University of Tokyo. Landau, I. (2007). Constraints on partial VP-fronting. Syntax, 10(2), 127–164. Langacker, R. W. (1991). Foundations of cognitive grammar (vol 2): Descriptive application. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Langacker, R. W. (2001). Dynamicity in grammar. Axiomathes, 12(1), 7–33. Levelt, W. J. M. (1989). Speaking. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Levin, B., & Hovav, M. R. (1991). Wiping the slate clean: A lexical semantic exploration. Cognition, 41(1–3), 123–151. Mandler, J. M. (1979). Categorical and schematic organization in memory. In C. R. Puff (Ed.), Memory, organization and structure (pp. 259–299). New York: Academic Press. Markman, E. M. (1981). Two different principles of conceptual organization. In M. E. Lamb & A. L. Brown (Eds.), Advances in developmental psychology (Vol. I, pp. 199–236). Hillside, NJ: Erlbaum. Miller, G. A., & Johnson-Laird, P. N. (1976). Language and perception. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Newtson, D. (1973). Attribution and the unit of perception of ongoing behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 28(1), 28–38. O’Connor, L. (2009). All typologies leak: Predicates of change in Lowland Chontal of Oaxaca. In P. Epps & A. Arkhipov (Eds.), New challenges in typology: transcending the borders and refining the distinctions (pp. 343–364). Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Ochi, M. (2001). Move F and Ga/No conversion in Japanese. Journal of East Asian Linguistics, 10(3), 247–286. Pawley, A. (1987). Encoding events in Kalam and English: Different logics for reporting experience. In R. S. Tomlin (Ed.), Coherence and grounding in discourse (pp. 329–360). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Pedersen, J. (2009). The construction of macro-events: a typological perspective. In C. S. Butler & J. M. Arista (Eds.), Deconstructing constructions (pp. 25–62). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Rosch, E. (1978). Principles of categorization. In E. Rosch & B. Lloyd (Eds.), Cognition and categorization (pp. 27–48). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Schultze-Berndt, E. (2007, October). Verb-framed, satellite-framed or neither? An Australian perspective on Talmy’s typology of motion events. In University of Manchester Linguistics Seminar Series. Manchester: University of Manchester. Slobin, D. I. (2004). The many ways to search for a frog: Linguistic typology and the expression of motion events. In S. Strömqvist & L. Verhoeven (Eds.), Relating events in narrative (vol. 2): Typological and contextual perspectives (pp. 219–257). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Slobin, D. I. (2005). Linguistic representations of motion events: What is signifier and what is signified? In C. Maeder, O. Fischer, & W. Herlofsky (Eds.), Outside-in—Inside-out: Iconicity in language and literature 4 (pp. 307–322). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Slobin, D. I., & Hoiting, N. (1994). Reference to movement in spoken and signed languages: Typological considerations. In S. Gahl, A. Dolby, & C. Johnson (Eds.), Proceedings of the 20th Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society (pp. 487–505). Berkeley: Berkeley Linguistics Society. Swallow, K. M., Zacks, J. M., & Abrams, R. A. (2009). Event boundaries in perception affect memory encoding and updating. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 138(2), 236–257. Tai, J. H.-Y. (1985). Temporal sequence and Chinese word order. In J. Haiman (Ed.), Iconicity in syntax: Proceedings of a symposium on iconicity in syntax (pp. 49–72). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Tai, J. H.-Y. (1993). Iconicity: Motivations in Chinese grammar. In M. Eid & G. K. Iverson (Eds.), Principles and prediction: The analysis of natural language (pp. 153–173). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Tai, James H.-Y. (2003). Cognitive relativism: Resultative construction in Chinese. Language and Linguistics, 4(2), 301–316. Talmy, L. (1972). Semantic structures in English and Atsugewi. Ph.D. dissertation, University of California at Berkeley. Talmy, L. (1978). Figure and ground in complex sentences. In J. H. Greenberg (Ed.), Universals of human language, vol. 4: Syntax (pp. 625–649). Stanford: Stanford University Press. Talmy, L. (1985). Lexicalization patterns. In T. Shopen (Ed.), Language typology and syntactic description (vol 2): Grammatical categories and the lexicon (pp. 57–149). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Talmy, L. (1988). Force dynamics in language and cognition. Cognitive Science, 12(1), 49–100. Talmy, L. (1991). Path to realization: A typology of event conflation. In L. A. Sutton, C. Johnson, & R. Shields (Eds.), Proceedings of the Seventeenth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society (pp. 480–520). Berkeley: Berkeley Linguistics Society. Talmy, L. (2000a). Toward a cognitive semantics (vol. I): Concept structuring systems. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Talmy, L. (2000b). Toward a cognitive semantics (vol. II): Typology and process in concept structuring. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

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Talmy, L. (2008). Main verb properties and equipollent framing. In J. Guo, E. Lieven, N. Budwig, S. Ervin-Tripp, K. Nakamura, & S. Ozcaliskan (Eds.), Crosslinguistic approaches to the psychology of language: Research in the tradition of Dan Isaac Slobin (pp. 389–402). London: Psychology Press. Tichý, P. (1980). The semantics of episodic verbs. Theoretical Linguistics, 7(1–3), 263–296. Traugott, E., & Dasher, R. B. (2002). Regularity in semantic change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tversky, B. (1989). Parts, partonomies, and taxonomies. Developmental Psychology, 25(6), 983– 995. Tversky, B. (1990). Where partonomies and taxonomies meet. In S. L. Tsohatzidis (Ed.), Meanings and prototypes: Studies in linguistic categorization (pp. 334–344). London: Routledge. Tversky, B., & Hemenway, K. (1984). Objects, parts, and categories. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 113(2), 169–193. Ungerer, F., & Schmid, H. J. (1996). An introduction to cognitive linguistics. Harlow, Essex: Longman. van der Zee, E. (2000). Curvature representation in the lexical interface. In E. van der Zee & U. Nikanne (Eds.), Cognitive interfaces: Constraints on linking cognitive information (pp. 143–182). Oxford: Oxford University Press. van der Zee, E., Nikanne, U., & Sassenberg, U. (2010). Grain levels in English path curvature descriptions and accompanying iconic gestures. Journal of Spatial Information Science, 1(1), 95–113. van Staden, M., & Narasimhan, B. (2013). Granularity in the cross-linguistic encoding of motion. In M. Dimitrova-Vulchanova & E. van der Zee (Eds.), Motion encoding in language and space (pp. 134–148). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Vendler, Z. (1967). Linguistics in philosophy. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press. von Stutterheim, C., Nüse, R., & Murcia-Serra, J. (2002). Cross-linguistic differences in the conceptualisation of events. In H. Hasselgård & S. Johansson, B. Behrens & C. Fabricius- Hansen (Eds.), Information structure in a cross-linguistic perspective (pp. 179–198). Amsterdam, New York: Rodopi. Vygotsky, L. S. (2004). Thought and word. In R. W. Rieber, D. K. Robinson, J. Bruner, M. Cole, J. Glick, C. Ratner, & A. Stetsenko (Eds.), The essential Vygotsky (pp. 65–110). New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers. Zacks, J. (2008). Event perception. Scholarpedia, 3(10), 3837. Zacks, J., & Swallow, K. (2007). Event segmentation. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 16(2), 80–84. Zacks, J., & Tversky, B. (2001). Event structure in perception and conception. Psychological Bulletin, 127(1), 3–21. Zacks, J. M., Speer, N. K., & Reynolds, J. R. (2009). Segmentation in Reading and film comprehension. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 138(2), 307–327. Zlatev, J., & P. Yangklang. (2004). A third way to travel: The place of Thai in motion event typology. In S. Stromqvist & L. Verhoeven (Eds.), Relating events in narrative (Vol. 2): Cross-linguistic and cross-contextual perspectives (pp. 159–190). Mahwath, NJ: Erlbaum. Zwarts, J. (2005). Prepositional aspect and the algebra of paths. Linguistics and Philosophy, 28(6), 739–779.

References in Chinese Hu, Y. S. (1995). Contemporary Chinese. Shanghai: Shanghai Education Publishing House. Hu, Y. S. (2002). Issues in Chinese word order research. In F. Kaitai (Ed.), Selected writings of Hu, Yushu and Zhang, Bin (pp. 218–226). Changchun: Northeast Normal University Press.

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Huang, B. R., & Liao, X. D. (2002). Xiandai Hanyu (3rd ed.). Beijing: Higher Education Press. Liu, Y. H., Pan, W. Y., & Gu, W. (2001). Chinese grammar. Beijing: The Commercial Press. Piaget, J. (1998). The language and thought of the child (3rd ed.), (M. Gabain & R. Gabain, Trans.). London & New York: Routledge. Zhao, Y. F. (2000). An introduction to cognitive linguistics. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press. Zheng, G. F. (2014). The macro-event property and the segmentation of English and Chinese translocative motion events: A corpus-based contrastive analysis. Foreign Language and Literature, 30(6), 74–78. Zheng, G. F., & Ouyang, Q. F. (2016). A review of the studies on direction of motion events in Chinese and English in the last three decades. Journal of Xi’an International Studies University, 24(3), 1–4. Zheng, G. F., & Wu, J. W. (2013). The macro-event property and the segmentation and representation. Journal of East China University of Science and Technology (Social Sciences), 28(4), 97–104. Zhuang, Y. (2007). Language and cognition: Investigating the possible difference between Chinese and English speakers in their perception of a motion event. MA Dissertation, National Cheng Kung University Institute of Education.

Chapter 3

Research Design and Data Tagging

3.1 Introduction While Chap. 2 theoretically prepares for the present research, the present chapter will methodologically describe the procedures by which we will apply those theoretical underpinnings. To realize such a goal, we have to first specify the research design and research questions, set the parameters of the TME constituents, and lastly explicate the process of corpus construction and data collecting. In addition, as this study is a CA between English and Chinese and tertium comparationis (TC, hereafter) is the departing point of any CA (James 1980; Krzeszowski 1990; Chesterman 1998; Xu 1992a, b, 2002), we review briefly the past studies upon TC and ascertain the TC for this research.

3.2 Research Design Structurally, this research is of two parts, migrating from the conceptual structure of TME to its surface linguistic form, making a ‘TME’ by itself. As we have quoted in Sect. 2.4.1, Jackendoff (1983: 17) defines conceptual structure as ‘a single level of mental representation’ and concludes that conceptual structure is semantic structure (ibid.: Chap 6). Drawing on this, Bohnemeyer et al. (2007) hold that, partonomically, a TME is segmentable into subevents of DE, PE, and AE on the timeline. These subevents are said to be of one unitary macro-event when they share the same temporal operator, as reviewed in Chap. 2. They lay down 4 principles and constraints for TMEs with MEP, which lend aid to us in assessing whether the constructions are qualified to be entered into the corpus. Furthermore, following the tripartite segmentation of a TME with MEP, we are in a position to examine how many subevents the English and Chinese semantically equivalent TMEs have and whether English and

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Chinese TMEs segment alike. For this part we have the following research questions to answer: a. Do English and Chinese users segment TMEs alike? b. Do English and Chinese TMEs on the whole share the same conceptual structure? c. Do English and Chinese TME subevents share the same conceptual structure? This entails 3 minor questions: (i) Do English and Chinese DEs share the same conceptual structure? (ii) Do English and Chinese PEs share the same conceptual structure? And (iii) Do English and Chinese AEs share the same conceptual structure? Based on the discussion of the conceptual structure of TME and its subevents, we proceed to compare the surface representation of TMEs in English and Chinese, including the representation of the unitary event, the subevent representation, and the constituent representation. Such a series of comparisons is a bottom-up process and of course built upon the constituent analysis. Talmy (1985, 2000b: Chap. 1) describes a Motion event as a quartet of Motion, Actant, Path and Ground, and explains that there is usually no universal association between the constituents and the surface linguistic forms across different languages. For instance, to represent Path English users typically employ satellites, whereas Spanish users make do with Motion verbs. For the subclassification of Paths and Grounds we follow Jackendoff (1983: Chap. 6),1 who subcategorizes Paths into bounded Paths, directions and routes, and Grounds into starting points, passing points, goals, and endpoints. For bounded Paths there are two subtypes and , and for directions there are and . In terms of the AE Paths listed here, Grounds are either for or for . Our analysis will statistically examine the realization forms of such TME constituents, which combine to form subevent constructions and the unitary TME constructions. For this part, we hope to resolve the following questions: a. Do English and Chinese TMEs on the whole share the same surface linguistic forms? b. Do English and Chinese TME subevents share the same surface linguistic forms? This entails 3 minor questions: (i) Do English and Chinese DEs share the same surface linguistic form? (ii) Do English and Chinese PEs share the same surface linguistic form? and (iii) Do English and Chinese AEs share the same surface linguistic form? c. Do English and Chinese TME constituents share the same surface linguistic form? This entails 4 minor questions: (i) Do English and Chinese Actants share the same surface linguistic form? (ii) Do English and Chinese Motions share the same surface linguistic form? (iii) Do English and Chinese Paths share the same surface linguistic form? 1 Talmy

(2000a: Chap. 2) also elaborates on the subclassification of Paths, but the classification is devoted the fictive event and in terms of the overall Path. Jackendoff’s model here, focusing more on the subevent Path, seems more appropriate for our segmentation purpose.

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(iv) Do English and Chinese Grounds share the same surface linguistic form?

3.3 Constituents of TMEs and Their Parameters As spatio-temporal entities, TMEs are subdivided coarsely into DE, PE, and AE, which are in turn composed of constituents like Actant, Motion, Path, and Ground. Our analysis in this section will follow this hierarchical relationship and set the parameters of each constituent for further statistical work.

3.3.1 Actant 3.3.1.1

Defining Actant

Figure-Ground organization is initially studied in human perception and made known largely by the faces-vase drawing described by Danish psychologist Rubin. With efforts of the gestalt psychologists this Figure-Ground segregation is later integrated into the more extensive framework of perceptual organization (Ungerer and Schmid 1996: 157). It is made widely known in cognitive linguistics due mostly to the works by Talmy (1972, 1978, 1983, 2000a: Chap. IV), Langacker (1987: 120–122; 1991: 5– 6), Croft and Cruse (2004: 56–58), especially those of Talmy. The following analysis, therefore, will draw heavily on works by Talmy. By Talmy (1978, 2000a: 312) Figure (here Actant) refers to a moving or conceptually movable entity whose path, site, or orientation is conceived as a variable, the particular values of which is the relevant issue.

This is called ‘profile’ or ‘trajector’ in the parlance of Langacker. Whatever appellation it may bear, by definition Actant stands as the focus of the situation and calls for most of the attention. The well-known ‘bottle’ example in Sect. 2.2.1 repeated here as (28) glosses this saying: (28)The bottle floated into the cave.

As analyzed in Sect. 2.2.1, the construction depicts a situation in which the bottle, functioning as the Actant, went into the cave, functioning as the Ground (or Goal), in the Manner of floating. The manner-of-Motion verb ‘float’ defines the Motion of the Actant, the satellite preposition ‘into’ supplies Path for the Actant, and finally the locative NP ‘the cave’ provides Goal for the Actant. Hence ‘bottle’ the Actant situates at the center of attention, exactly as Langacker (1987: 120) writes, Impressionistically, the Actant within a scene is a substructure perceived as “standing out” from the remainder (the ground) and accorded special prominence as the pivotal entity around which the scene is organized and for which it provides a setting.

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Table 3.1 General attributes of Actant Definitional characteristics

has no unknown spatial (or temporal) properties to be determined

Associated characteristics

more movable smaller geometrically simpler (often pointlike) in its treatment more recently on the scene/in awareness of greater concern/relevance less immediately perceivable more salient, once perceived more dependent

3.3.1.2

General Attributes of Actant and Its Parameters

Talmy (2000a: 315–316) summarizes and contrasts the attributes of Actant and Ground in simple clauses and complex clauses. As the primary concern of the present study is simple clauses, we accordingly just introduce the attributes of Actants in simple clauses in this subsection and the attributes of Grounds in simple clauses in Sect. 3.3.4.2. Talmy divides the general attributes into ‘definitional characteristics’ and ‘associated characteristics’ (Table 3.1). In brief, Actants in TMEs are provided with some special attributes. In the first place, being an ‘entity’, Actants are commonly realized by NPs (Chen 2005). Syntactically, Actants usually fill the slot of subject in non-caused Motion event or object in the caused Motion event, which is inherently nominal. And nominals are either animate or inanimate. In the present analysis, being animate is represented as ‘+’ and inanimate as ‘−’. Furthermore, Actant is not in a one-to-one relationship with certain construction. In constructions containing vehicle, for example, both the passenger and the vehicle are Actant candidates. Of these attributes we choose ‘animateness’ for analyzing Actant in English and Chinese TME constructions, with a view to finding the effect of different Actants upon syntactic structure.

3.3.2 Motion 3.3.2.1

Defining Motion

Motion permeates the universe, ‘since nature is a principle of Motion and change’ (Irwin and Fine 1995: 200b). The solar system is in Motion, the earth is in Motion, our body is in Motion, and even our life is in Motion! Etymologically, the word ‘Motion’ can be traced to the Latin past participle of ‘movere’, which means ‘to

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move’. In Chinese its counterpart ‘运动 (yundong)’ debuts as a word meaning movement from one place to another as early as in Han Dynasty.2 Motion itself is a physical phenomenon, which refers to a change in position of an object with respect to time. The study of Motion traces back as far as to Aristotle (ibid.), who argues specifically on Motion in Book III of Physics. Much of the discussion of Motion in linguistics derives its origin from physics. Such explorations are initiated by Talmy (1972) on the lexicalization patterns and later developed in works on Motion events by Talmy (1978, 1991, 2000a, b, 2008, 2011, 2019, inter alia), Slobin (1996b, 2004, 2005b, 2008, inter alia), Zlatev (2003, 2006), Zlatev and Yangklang (2004), Özçalı¸skan and Slobin (1999), Özyürek and Özçalı¸skan (2000), Özçalı¸skan (2003, 2007), Levin and Hovav (1991), Tai (2003) and many others. Being not works of physics, these literature in practice is concerned not with its physical significance but with its linguistic actualization. Motion is isolated as a constituent of the cognitive structure of a Motion event and encoded in Motion verbs along with other possible constituents. The present study will follow this line and sort out one attribute as its parameter for further analysis.

3.3.2.2

General Attributes of Motion and Its Parameters

Motion is categorized differently in different fields and in terms of different judgment. In physics, for example, Motion is dividable into types like linear Motion, reciprocating Motion, circular Motion, rotary Motion; and in kinematics, for another, Motion has types such as rotational Motion, translational Motion, oscillatory Motion. In linguistics two pairs of Motion events are widely studied and debated: caused Motion events and spontaneous Motion events,3 factive Motion events and fictive Motion events. Generally, caused Motion events are defined as events in which an agent (particularly animate) causes another entity (typically inanimate) to move from one place to another, as in he put the book into the bag. Goldberg (1995) summarizes this as ‘X caused Y to move Z’. In contrast, spontaneous Motion events refer to those in which an entity (particularly animate) spontaneously starts the Motion, resulting in a change of location, as in Then the frog ran out of the bottle toward the speaker. The factive/fictive organization (Talmy 1983, 1996, 2000a: Chap II, 2019) classifies Motion events into factive ones and fictive ones, as we have introduced in Sect. 1.2.2. Factive Motion events refer to the Motion events having physically perceivable Motion such as (36) The bottle floated into the cave, presenting a seeable Motion of going into the cave. By Talmy fictive Motion events4 are imagined Zhongshu (董仲舒) in Yu Bao Dui 《雨雹对》 ( ) writes: “运动抑扬, 更相动薄 (yundong yiyang, gengxiang dongbo one motion varies, and it leads to changes)”. 3 Spontaneous Motion is also named variously as, self-Motion (Rohde 2001; Özçalı¸skan 2005; Lamarre 2007; Zlatev et al. 2010), self-generated Motion (Thothathiri and Snedeker 2008), selfagentive Motion (Croft et al. 2010), autonomous Motion (Zeng 2009) and the like. We here follow Talmy. 4 Talmy (1983) first uses ‘virtual Motion’ to refer to this phenomenon, which has been termed ‘abstract Motion’ in Langacker (1986) and ‘subjective Motion’ in Matsumoto (1996). 2 Dong

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events and less ‘veridical’ compared with the factive Motion events, because their Motion is fictive but their stationariness is factive, as exemplified in the famous fence example This fence goes from the plateau to the valley. In the present analysis we are concerned mostly with the factive/fictive organization. We parameterize factive Motion constructions are as ‘Z’, and the fictive Motion constructions as ‘X’.5

3.3.3 Path 3.3.3.1

Defining Path

Motion event constructions encode a figural entity moving from one location to another along a course. The course here consists of the Path of a Motion event. In discussing the constituents of Motion events, Talmy (1985, 2000b: 25) defines Path as ‘the path followed or site occupied by the Figure object with respect to the Ground object’. As Talmy himself indicates, this definition includes both translocative (or translational in the Talmyan parlance) Motion events and located Motion events. As we are concerned only with TME constructions, which encode at least two location changes and imply a directed Motion from Point A to Point B, we define Path after Rohde (2001), who modifies the Talmyan Path definition to ‘a FIGURE’s dynamic traversal of a specified GROUND’. By this definition Rohde classifies Path into dynamic and non-dynamic subtypes. The dynamic Path predicates the occurrence of TME and the non-dynamic Path do not, as shown in (29): (29) a. We want to dictate our own conditions," said Marndouh Abu Watfa, 13, as he waited for noon prayers inside the Palestine Mosque. b. In an exercise familiar to most Americans, 49 numbered ba11s will spin inside a clear plastic drum and six balls will be selected at random to determine each week’s winners. c. Near daybreak, Wade said, Winslow went inside the cabin. (ibid.: 33)

‘inside’ in (29a) specifies the site of the ‘noon prayers’, nothing of location change. In (29b) ‘inside’, similar to (29a), clarifies again the site of something, the only difference between them being in the latter case it is an occurrence. (29c) depicts the movement of the ACT from the outdoors to the indoor, ‘inside’ illustrating both the process and the endpoint of the event. The first two explicate what is termed as static or non-dynamic Path, while the last demonstrates dynamic Path. 5 ‘Z’ here stands for ‘真实 (zhengshi)’in Chinese, the translation of factive, and ‘X’ for ‘虚拟 (xuni)’

in Chinese, the translation of fictive.

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Worthy of note, Rohde (ibid.) regards fictive Motion6 events like This fence goes from the plateau to the valley as ‘static configuration’ and ‘the only dynamic aspect is the mental scanning process’, hence resulting in ‘non-translocational’ Motion. Ringing reasonable at the first moment, for there being really no actual Motion of Actant, it deserves further contemplation. On the one hand, since Motion is characterized as some entity changing its location actively or passively over a span of time, it is describable as a spatio-temporal phenomenon. Such characterization entails that a Motion event should possess location change and temporality. Though fictive Motion is mentally simulated (Matlock 2004, 2006), in linguistic representation it still features a Motion verb delineating the schema of translocation, distinguishing it clearly from the non-translocational Motion like (29a) and (29b). As for temporality, Matsumoto (1996) holds it is possible for fictive Motion expressions to collocate with temporal phrases (30a), which is not for the static scene (30b): (30) a. The highway runs along the coast for a while.

b. *The highway is along the coast for a while.

In constructions like (30a) Matsumoto (ibid.) contends that the Motion of something unexpressed is involved. On many occasions the moving ‘something’ is just the focus of attention or the image of something specific. In terms of (30a), the temporal phrase ‘for a while’ certainly does not indicate the duration of the movement of the highway; it is, for example, a person or a car that flashes upon our mind. On the other hand, linguistic representation presents human conceptualizations of both the external world and the internal world. Either physical or fictive Motion events are both the objects of such conceptualizations, and in due course the objects of linguistic representation. Physically translocative events differ from fictively translocative events in the way of existence, with the former being objectively observable and the latter being subjectively imaginable. But on the whole they are both conceptualized dynamically (Matlock 2010) and encoded in Motion verbs and dynamic prepositions (Rohde 2001; Chen 2005). It is due to this reason that the present investigation includes this type of events within TME.

3.3.3.2

General Attributes of Path and Its Parameters

For Talmy, Path functions to relate Actant to Ground and constitutes the core schema alone or the major part of it (Talmy 2000b: 218). Therefore, usually it is after Path that a Motion event is named and, if the information about Path is not ascertained, a sentence cannot be said to express a Motion event even though a Motion verb encoding the Motion that an object undergoes is employed. Typically, Path has three main constituents, namely vector, conformation and deictic (ibid.: 53). Vector is of 6 Rohde

(2001) adopts ‘subjective motion’ (Langacker 1987) for fictive motion.

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three basic types of departure, traversal, and arrival, illustrating the spatial relationship between Actant and Ground. Conformation is a geometric complex functioning to match the vector and the fundamental Ground schema with a full Ground object. To clarify, the ‘inside’ conformation will match the departure vector ‘From’ and the fundamental Ground schema ‘a point which is of the inside of an enclosure’ with ‘out of’. Deictic indicates Motion is speaker-oriented or away from the speaker. In English, for instance, the deictic verb pair ‘come’ and ‘go’ rightly bring out this notion. This categorization partially concur with what we have discussed about Path types in Sect. 2.4.1, where, according to Jackendoff (1983: 165), Path is grouped into bounded Paths, directions and routes. Each of these types has subtypes based on the deictic, the vector and the conformation, as shown above. It is due to this that the present analysis will follow the Jackendoff model of Path. The bounded Paths are subgrouped into Source and Goal, represented as and ; the directions have subtypes of ‘away from’ and ‘toward’, represented respectively as and . The routes are treated collectively as one type and represented as , as there do not exist fundamental distinctions among the subtypes. In addition, to show the differences between English and Chinese in linguistic representation of these Path types, we note the grammatical categories of each such Path type as in ‘ADV’, meaning ‘the Source Path is represented in an adverb’.

3.3.4 Ground 3.3.4.1

Defining Ground

Scanned sequentially, Ground situates at the end of the combination of the Motion event constituents, but when scanned summarily, Ground constitutes one of the four core constituents of a Motion event. Talmy (1978, 2000a: 312) characterizes Ground as a reference entity, one that has a stationary setting relative to a reference frame, with respect to which the Figure’s path, site, or orientation is characterized.

It is evident that Ground is mostly a reference entity that defines Actant. However, this reference cannot be taken superficially, for there is frequently not merely one single Ground entity, more often there are two or more. The starting point contained in DE, the passing point contained in PE and the endpoint contained in AE are all qualified Ground entity candidates.7 The number of Ground entities in a Motion event is determined by the type of Motion events. As the present analysis focuses on investigating TME constructions encoding at least two location changes, constructions involving more than two Ground entities are candidates of our examination. 7 The

shape of Ground can be a point, a line or any geometric configuration, but schematically it can be conceptualized as a point with respect to Actant. So ‘entity’ here does not specify Ground as some existing physical object, but certain existence, be it fictive or factive.

3.3 Constituents of TMEs and Their Parameters

65

Table 3.2 General attributes of Ground in simple clauses (Talmy 2000a: 315–316) Definitional characteristics

acts as a reference entity, having known properties that can characterize the ACT’s unknowns

Associated characteristics

more permanently located larger geometrically more complex in its treatment more familiar/expected of lesser concern/relevance more immediately perceivable more backgrounded, once ACT is perceived more independent

3.3.4.2

General Attributes of Ground and Its Parameters

As is analyzed in Sect. 3.3.1.2, Actant and Ground are to some extent complementary schemas; their attributes, therefore, are also complementary (Table 3.2). In summary, similar to Actant, Ground possesses some special attributes. First of all, being an ‘entity’, Grounds are commonly realized by NPs (Chen 2005). Different from Actant, Grounds are represented commonly by VPs, as in He caged the bird. The Motion verb ‘cage’ lexicalizes not only Motion and Path, but also Ground. Its conceptual structure can be represented as: (31)He caged the bird.

EVENT CAGE

THING

THING

HE , THE BIRD

PLACE ,

INTO A CAGE

In terms of Jackendoff (1983), (10) demonstrates that ‘caged’ expresses a semantic function that maps two arguments onto an [EVENT]. The two arguments, corresponding to the readings of the subject and the object, are two [THING]s and subcategorize nothing, but conceptually ‘caged’ also has the third argument that is not represented syntactically. This is resulted from the denominal reading of ‘cage’: A MOVE into a cage. The PLACE reading of ‘cage’ subcategorizes Path and Place or Ground in the spirit of the present analysis. Furthermore, in TMEs there are usually more than two Ground entities, which together constitute the Ground defining the Actant. In TME constructions these entities are not represented universally by NPs; not infrequently the Ground entities are realized linguistically by ADVs or ADJs or other grammatical categories, collectively noted as ‘XPs’. To calculate the Ground entities represented by these grammatical categories, we mark the three Ground

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entities of starting point, passing point and endpoint respectively as, for example, NP, NP and NP, when the XPs are NPs. Thus, the formula is +grammatical category.

3.4 The Corpus Construction Having clarified the attributes and parameters of each TME constituent, we turn now to the corpus that consists of the constructions encoding such constituents. For the purpose of linguistic studies, parallel texts have been more or less systematically employed a long time ago. In the British Museum, a stone on display contains inscriptions in three distinct scripts: Egyptian hieroglyphs, demotic script,8 and Greek, providing clues to decoding the hieroglyphs. Much more recent than this, Mathesius (1975) speaks about analytical comparison as a way of determining the characteristics of languages and gaining a deeper insight into their specific features and makes use of parallel translation texts in his comparison of the word order between English and Czech. The contrastive studies adopting the corpus-based approach nowadays are numerous, for this ‘increases the validity and reliability of the comparison’ (Johansson 2007: 5). As a CA of the similarities and differences between English and Chinese TME constructions, we also adopt the corpus-based approach. Parallel corpora are largely of two types, translation corpora and comparable corpora. Both types of corpora have their merits and demerits for contrastive studies. Translation corpora, are especially helpful to compare the expressions of the same idea in two or more languages, but, due to the fact that the quality of the translation texts is constantly uncontrollable for reasons like translators’ understanding, translationese, etc., the translation corpora might mislead the CA. Comparable corpora contain everyday language use and ‘should allow safe conclusions on similarities and differences between the languages compared’ (ibid.: 10), but they may not be semantically correspondent against the formal correspondence. Because of these limitations, Baker (1993, 1995) advocates a special type of ‘comparable corpus’, which is comprised of not only comparable original texts, also translated texts. Adopting this corpus model, the contrastivists are empowered to compare the original texts of two or more languages, the original and the translated of the same language, the original and the translated of more than two languages and the translated texts of more than two languages. Johansson (2007: 11) summarizes this in Fig. 3.2 and the bidirectional arrows indicate the comparison can be carried out in either direction between two kinds of texts.

8A

late cursive form of hieroglyphs.

3.4 The Corpus Construction

67

3.4.1 The Parallel Translation Corpus We follow Baker’s proposal and construct a parallel corpus containing English and Chinese TME constructions. Different from Johansson (2007) and to reduce the translational idiosyncrasy, we choose two translations for the original texts, one of them being the main data source. For English we select two classics: Tender Is the Night (Tender) by Fitzgerald (1956) and The Portrait of a Lady (Portrait) by Henry James (1963). For Chinese we select Luotuo Xiang Zi9 (Xiang Zi) by Lao She (1936) and Chenzhong de Chibang10 (Chibang) by Zhang Jie (1981), both being influential modern Chinese novels. The two translations of Tender Is the Night are, respectively, by Tang Jianqing (1999) (Tang) and Chen Li (2006) (Chen), Chen being the main data source and Tang being the reference. The two translations of The Portrait a Lady are by Xiang Xingyao (1984) (Xiang) and Wu Ke (2000) (Wu), Xiang being the main data source and Wu being the reference. On the other hand, it is not that convenient for us to obtain two English translations for the same Chinese narrative, especially when considering the length, time, quality and the like. The two translations of Luotuo Xiang Zi are respectively by Shi Xiaoqing (1981) (Shi) and King (1945) (King), Shi being the main data source and King being the reference, and those of Chenzhong de Chibang by Goldblatt (1989) (Goldblatt) and Yang (1987) (Yang), Goldblatt being the main data source and Yang being the reference. Restricted by these requirements, the total amount of the English data and that of the Chinese data are respectively 320,000 words and 350,000 characters, relatively in correspondence. For convenience we tabulate the selected narratives and their translations in Table 3.3. Thus, for this analysis we can adapt Fig. 3.1 as Fig. 3.2. An issue worth a passing note is that the comparisons between, for example, the English originals and Chinese translations, are not all performed in a wholesale manner. For this research, we have two English and two Chinese original texts, each text being matched with two translations. Therefore, the CAs between the original texts and their translations, which are not parallel in length, can only be carried out in a one-to-one way, while the CAs between English originals and English translations, Chinese originals and Chinese translations, English originals and Chinese originals, Table 3.3 The corpus texts Language

Originals

Translations

Language

Originals

Translations

English

Tender

Tang

Chinese

Xiang Zi

Shi

Chi Bang

Goldblatt

Chen Portrait

Xiang Wu

9 《骆驼祥子》 (Luotuo Xiangzi). 10 《沉重的翅膀》(Chenzhong de Chibang).

King Yang

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Fig. 3.1 The model for English-Norwegian parallel corpus

Fig. 3.2 English-Chinese parallel corpus

English ORIGINALS

Chinese TRANSLATION

English TRANSLATION

Chinese ORIGINALS

and English translations and Chinese translations, which are committed to unraveling the overall picture of the two languages, can be executed in a wholesale manner.

3.4.2 Sentence Selection and Tagging The goal of this research is to compare the segmentation of TMEs and their representation in English and Chinese. As defined and clarified in Chap. 1, TMEs under the present investigation refer to an Actant’s/Actants’ Motion from one location to another. In linguistic representation the TME subevents are within the scope of the same temporal operator; in other words, they posses MEP. (32) is typical of such constructions.

3.4 The Corpus Construction

69

(32) a. The Divers flocked from the train into the early gathered twilight of the valley. b. 他的

心

好似

由

老远

的

又

tade xin haosi

you

laoyuan de

you

his

heart seemed from

落到

自己 的

luodao ziji de fall to self

very far

again

心口中…… xinkouzhong… chest…

…his heart seemed to drop from a great height back to his chest…

By definition Motion events refer to those whose Actants move from one place to another, but in linguistic representation, due to varied reasons, while the location changes are fully captured in some constructions, they are only partially expressed in others. To have a full appreciation of the Motion events involving series of location changes, we believe it will accomplish more to work on the first category of constructions, for the second stands only as a subspecies of the first. The present investigation concerns essentially with TME constructions encoding at least two location changes in both English and Chinese. Take (32) for example. In (32a) the Actant, the Divers, experienced two location changes: getting off from the train and going into the valley; similar to this, the two location changes embedded in (32b) are moving from a distant place (‘由老远的’ you laoyuan de from a great height) and falling into heart (‘落到自己的心口中’ luodao zijide xinkouzhong drop back to his chest). Besides, the constructions that encode implicitly over two location changes, i.e., one location change is explicitly represented by locatives and another is by VPs or ADVs, are also included. (33) is typical of such constructions. (33) a. He had driven over from his own place with a portmanteau… b. 精明的

吴阿姨……系着

Jingming de wuayi… Smart

Wu aunt

xizheASP wearing

围裙

从

厨房里

跑过来。

weiqun cong chufangli

paoguolai.

apron from kitchen within

ran come over.

Smart aunt Wu came running over from kitchen in apron.

In (33a) DE is explicitly represented by ‘from his own place’; in contrast, AE is implicitly connoted by the ADV ‘over’. Similarly, (33b) represents DE manifestly through ‘从厨房里 (cong chufangli from kitchen)’ and AE vaguely through the VP ‘跑过来’ (paoguolai came running over). Finally, the fictive TME constructions, which, as discussed in Chaps. 1 and 2, depict the stationariness of the Actant by employing Motion verbs, are also selected. In consistency with the primary concern

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of this research, the fictive TME constructions also contain at least two location changes. See (34): (34) a. and such lingering touches as kisses and embraces slipped directly through the flesh into the forefront of her consciousness. b. 扎

牙根的

凉，

从

zha

yagende

liang,

cong kozhong manman

口中

pierce teeth root coldness, from mouth

慢慢

凉到

胸部……

liangdao xiongbu…

slowly spread to

chest…

…this cold that struck at the roots of his teeth moved down his throat until it reached his stomach…

The tagging of a TME construction is threefold: subevents, Path types and constituents. Based on the conceptual structure of a TME, it is segmented into three subevents: DE, PE and AE. And as these subevents are represented by the core constituents of Motion events and in turn realized by the ‘XPs’, the combinations of the Motion event constituents with the XPs are in the formular of ‘XP’. In a Motion event, Paths are the defining constituents and the subevents are thus categorized in the type of Paths as discussed in Sect. 3.3.3. Furthermore, to determine the ‘X’ in ‘XPs’ in Chinese texts,11 we adopt the segmentation software ICTCLAS3.0 devised by Golaxy,12 which claims a segmentation accuracy of over 98.45% and ranks the most popular. Thus characterized, a tagging system for the sentences selected is devised (Table 3.4). For example, the tagging of (40a) is, (32a ) The DiversNP approachedPv the Agiri FairNP throughPP a menagerie of mammoth steamrollers that made way for themNP.

In Excel sheet, (32a ) is entered as, Actant NP

11 As

DE

PE

AE

ppNP

PvNP

we know, due to the fact that English is more formal than Chinese, the analyzers usually have an easier time deciding the grammatical category of an English word. 12 A hi-tech company by the Institute of Computing Technology Chinese Academy of Sciences.

3.4 The Corpus Construction Table 3.4 The tagging system

71 I Constituents

II Paths

IV Grammatical categories

1. 2. 3. 4. a.

1. Bounded Paths a. Goal Path:

b. Source Path:

2. Directions a. toward: b. away from 3. Routes: III Subevents 1. departure event: DE 2. passing event: PE 3. arrival event: AE

1. Noun phrase: NP 2. verb phrase: VP (1) Path verb: Pv (2) Manner verb: Mv (3) Cause verb: Cv (4) Cognition verb: CoV (5) Figure verb: Fv 3. Presposition: PP 4. Adverb: ADV 5. Adjective: ADJ 6. Conjunction: CONJ 7. Deverbal noun: DN

Actant: Motion: Path: Grounds: Starting point:

b. Passing point:

c. Endpoint: d. Goal:

3.4.3 Variables According to Gui and Ning (1997: 264–270), Xu (2002), the independent variables are input or stimulus, and the dependent variables index what kind of effect or change the independent variables have. Therefore, such two types of variables are in a cause-effect-like relationship. Take the present research for example. We aim to unveil the similarities and differences in English and Chinese TME segmentation and representation and have variables of languages, text types, Motion event constituent combinations and their linguistic representations. Therefore, we may have language as the independent variable to observe the Motion event constituent combinations and their linguistic representations, which are taken as the dependent variables. Besides these two variables, there are moderator variable, control variable, and intervening variable and the like. Specifically, we are concerned with moderator variable and control variable. Moderator variables are secondary independent variables aiding the main independent variable and control variables are those held unchanged in the analysis. In the foregoing example, we may have text types as moderator variable and languages as control variable to examine Motion event constituent combinations and their linguistic representations. We summarize these in Table 3.5.

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Table 3.5 Variablesa Independent variables

Moderator variables

Dependent variables

Language

Text Types

segmentation

English

Original

constituent combinations linguistic representations Translation

segmentation constituent combinations linguistic representations

Chinese

Original

segmentation constituent combinations linguistic representations

Translation

segmentation constituent combinations linguistic representations

a Control variables are assigned under practical conditions in analysis. Therefore, they are not listed

here

3.5 Tertium Comparationis To conduct a CA between two languages, it is of vital importance to know the basis upon which the analysis will be carried on. This is usually named as ‘tertium comparationis’. In this section we will review briefly the past significant studies upon this notion and argue for the feasibility of basing the CA on a combinatory TC of form and function.

3.5.1 A Brief Review of the Past TC Studies Contrastive linguistics, since its inception by Lado (1957), has been variously defined and terminized (James 1980: 3; Krzeszowski 1990: 10; Chesterman 1998: 29; Xu 1992a, b: 4; 2002: 4; Ke 1999: 9, inter alia). Various though the definitions are, TC lies constantly at the center of contrastive linguistics and ‘the choice of tertium comparationis will also constitute the determining factor in establishing similarities and differences between the phenomena compared’ (Krzeszowski 1984, 1990: 15), being ‘a vital ingredient for any comparative-contrastive enterprise’ (James 1980: 90–91). Krzeszowski (1990) devotes a whole chapter (Chap. II) to discussing TC in CA. He notes All comparisons involve the basic assumption that the objects to be compared share something in common, against which differences can be stated. This common platform of reference is called tertium comparationis.

3.5 Tertium Comparationis

73

As language is a complex hierarchy of different levels capturing the world around us, various TCs can be established upon these levels like phonology, morphology, and semantics. The CA built upon such TCs will also be thus denominated. Krzeszowski (1984, 1990) holds that equivalence and TC are just two sides of the same coin and summarizes seven types of TC: statistical equivalence, translation equivalence, system equivalence, semanto-syntactic equivalence, rule equivalence, substantial equivalence, and pragmatic equivalence. Chesterman (1998), beginning with a detailed introduction to Krzeszowski (1990), devises a contrastive functional analysis model and, to avoid circularity in CA, proposes treating TC as the end product of CA and a perceived similarity between the compared items as the starting point. In response to Krzeszowski’s typology and Chesterman’s new model, Xu (1988, 1992a, 2002, 2007) contends that there is still room for improvements upon Krzeszowski’s typology, especially the translation equivalence. Based on Widdowson (1974/1979: 65), Xu (1988, 1992a, 2002) believes it is not necessary to set translation equivalence aside as an independent type and, secondly, it is incomplete for not embracing TCs in sociolinguistics and text linguistics. Xu (2002) defines TC as A TC is the common point of departure or reference in a contrastive description of two languages, which is usually a universal property or category or at least a property or category shared by the two languages under comparison.

Starting from this and adopting the general framework by Ellis (1966: 33–34), Xu (1988, 1992a, 2002: Chap. 2) classifies TC firstly into extra-linguistic and intra-linguistic. The extra-linguistic TCs can be further grouped into three subcategories: material substance, social context and communicative situation. And the intralinguistic TCs are reclassified on the whole into form and function, with the former containing subcategories of linguistic system, linguistic structure and linguistic rule, and the latter containing subcategories of grammatical function, textual function and functional load. Consequently, nine types of TCs are proposed (Fig. 3.3).

Extra-linguistic

TC form

TC1

material substance

TC2

social context

TC3

communicative situation

TC4

linguistic system

TC5

linguistic structure

TC6 linguistic rule

Intralinguistic

TC7 function

grammatical function

TC8 textual function TC9 functional load

Fig. 3.3 Types of TCs (Xu 1988, 1992a, 2002)

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As for Chesterman’s disbelief in TC, Xu (2007) holds that it is unnecessary to equate TC with the result of CA, for it has been a deep-rooted concept to take TC as the foundation and starting point for a CA, and even Chesterman conflicts himself by still regarding TC as the starting point (Chesterman 1998: 94).

3.5.2 TC for This Study The foregoing subsection documents very briefly the past studies on TC; in this section we attempt to argue for the feasibility of basing CA between English and Chinese TME constructions upon a combinatory TC of function and form. It is by no means a novel idea to anatomize language largely into form and function. And it also goes without saying that language is a tool for communication. We communicate our purposes, ideas, plans, worries and so on and so forth through lexical items and their interrelations we find appropriate for the situation. Chesterman (1998) discusses ‘means’ and ‘ends’ relationship in language. In accordance with this discussion, these lexical items and their interrelation serve the means for our communication; what we want to communicate, i.e., our purposes, worries, ideas and the like, serve the needs for our communication. These two levels of language communication correspond to what are termed as form and function. Starting from this conception Xu (1988, 1992a, 2002) classifies intra-linguistic TCs into form and function types, with the former including linguistic system, linguistic structure and linguistic rule and the latter consisting of grammatical function, textual function, and functional load. In practice, a lot of contrastive analyses are not based purely on function TC or form TC; quite frequently the chosen TC features a complex whole of form and function. Krzeszowski (1984, 1990: 16–17) summarizes the reasons for this situation as …formal likeness alone cannot serve as a tertium comparationis without support from semantic equivalence. At best a comparison based on formal criteria alone is incomplete, at worst it cannot be performed at all, and in many cases it is misleading…Somewhat less obviously, a CA based on semantic similarity alone can also be inadequate and misleading.

In the case of the present analysis, we aim at discovering the segmentation similarities and differences between English and Chinese TME constructions. As aforementioned, MEP regiments TME constructions whose subevents are under the control of the same temporal operator. To bring out the segmentation similarities and differences between such constructions, we select from narrative sentences bearing MEP and examine their subevents distribution in the translated versions. Though translated texts are usually claimed as qualified data for contrastive studies (James 1980: 175–178; Slobin 1996a, 1997, 2005a, b; Xu 1992a: 54–55; 2002: 46–50; Defrancq 2008; inter alia), they are not free from problems due to the reasons summarized in Krzeszowski (1990: 17): (1) errors in translation; (2) formal properties of respective languages; and (3) what is loosely called ‘stylistic’ reasons. Therefore, to reduce

3.5 Tertium Comparationis

75

these problems to the least, we choose two translated versions for the original texts for the present analysis, with one as the main data source and another as the reference. Hence the TC here is the TME constructions, a combinatory TC of function and form.

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Talmy, L. (1972). Semantic structures in English and Atsugewi. Ph.D. dissertation, University of California at Berkeley. Talmy, L. (1978). Figure and ground in complex sentences. In J. H. Greenberg (Ed.), Universals of human language, vol. 4: Syntax (pp. 625–649). Stanford: Stanford University Press. Talmy, L. (1983). How language structures space. In H. L. Pick, Jr. & L. P. Acredolo (Eds.), Spatial orientation: Theory, research, and application (pp. 225–282). New York: Plenum Press. Talmy, L. (1985). Lexicalization patterns. In T. Shopen (Ed.), Language typology and syntactic description (vol. 2): Grammatical categories and the lexicon (pp. 57–149). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Talmy, L. (1991). Path to realization: A typology of event conflation. In L. A. Sutton, C. Johnson, & R. Shields (Eds.), Proceedings of the Seventeenth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society (pp. 480–520). Berkeley: Berkeley Linguistics Society. Talmy, L. (2000a). Toward a cognitive semantics (vol. I): Concept structuring systems. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Talmy, L. (2000b). Toward a cognitive semantics (vol. II): Typology and process in concept structuring. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Talmy, L. (2008). Main verb properties and equipollent framing. In J. Guo, E. Lieven, N. Budwig, S. Ervin-Tripp, K. Nakamura, & Seyda Ozcaliskan (Eds.), Crosslinguistic approaches to the psychology of language: Research in the tradition of Dan Isaac Slobin. London: Psychology Press. Talmy, L. (2011). Universals of semantics. In P. Hogan (Ed.), The Cambridge encyclopedia of the language sciences (pp. 754–756). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Talmy, L. (2019). Cognitive semantics: An overview. In C. Maienborn, K. von Heusinger, & P. Portner (Eds.), Semantics-theories (pp. 1–28). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Thothathiri, M., & Snedeker, J. (2008). Syntactic priming during language comprehension in threeand four-year-old children. Journal of Memory and Language, 58(2), 188–213. Ungerer, F., & Schmid, H. J. (1996). An introduction to cognitive linguistics. Harlow, Essex: Longman. Widdowson, H. G. (1979). The deep structure of discourse and the use of translation. In C. J. Brumfit & K. Johnson (Eds.), The communicative approach to language teaching (pp. 61–71). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Zlatev, J. (2003). Holistic spatial semantics of Thai. In E. Casad & G. Palmer (Eds.), Cognitive linguistics and non-Indo European languages (pp. 305–336). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Zlatev, J. (2006). Semantics of spatial expressions. In E. K. Brown (Ed.), Encyclopedia of language and linguistics (2nd ed.) (pp. 173–180). Oxford: Elsevier. Zlatev, J., & Yangklang, P. (2004). A third way to travel: The place of Thai in motion event typology. In S. Stromqvist & L. Verhoeven (Eds.), Relating events in narrative (Vol. 2): Cross-linguistic and cross-contextual perspectives (pp. 159 –190). Mahwath, NJ: Erlbaum.

References in Chinese Fitzgerald, S. (1956). Tender is the night. New York: Scribner. Chinese edition: Yese Wenrou. (2006). (L. Chen, Trans.). Wuhan: Changjiang Literature & Art Press/Hubei People’s Press. Gui, S. C., & Ning, C. Y. (1997). Methodology in linguistics. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press. Xu, Y. L. (1988). On the tertium comparationis of contrastive analysis. Journal of Foreign Languages, 55(3), 28–33. Xu, Y. L. (1992a). The definition and typology of contrastive linguistics. Journal of Foreign Languages, 80(4), 12–17.

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Xu, Y. L. (1992b). An introduction to contrastive linguistics. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press. Xu, Y. L. (2002). Contrastive linguistics. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press. Xu, Y. L. (2007). Tertium comparationis revisited. Journal of Foreign Languages, 172(6), 21–27. Zeng, C. L. (2009). The syntactic expression of motion event in the Chinese language. Journal of Jimei University (Philosophy and Social Sciences), 12(3), 52–57.

Chapter 4

General Statistical Description of English and Chinese TME Constructions

4.1 Introduction Chapter 2 lays the theoretical foundation for the present study and Chap. 3 plans out the steps that we will take in this chapter to describe statistically TMEs in English and Chinese. Based on Jackendoff (1983), Talmy (1985, 2000), and Bohnemeyer et al. (2007, 2010), a TME is understood to be a conceptually complex whole of 3 subevents, viz., DE, PE, and AE. These subevents are in turn composed of ‘internal components’ like Actant, Motion, Path, and Ground. In terms of lexicalization patterns, Talmy (1985, 2000) typologizes English and Chinese as satelliteframed languages. This entails that English and Chinese express Path similarly by means of satellite. However, Bohnemeyer et al. (2007, 2010) demonstrate that typologically identical languages (e.g., Yukatek and Japanese) may segment differently and the factors behind this difference are lexicalization patterns and the availability of expressions. Assuming English and Chinese are both satellite-framed languages, we desire to see whether they segment alike. We resolve this issue by investigating statistically the conceptual structure of the semantically equivalent TME constructions. Following the investigation of the overall conceptual structure of TMEs, we are also interested in whether statistically their subevents conceptually are organized similarly. If English and Chinese belong to the same language typology, according to Talmy, they should represent Path similarly, for instance, through satellites. Our statistical investigations are thus devoted to the representation of each TME construction constituent in English and Chinese, namely, Actant, Motion, Path, and Ground.

© Shanghai Jiao Tong University Press 2021 G. Zheng, The Segmentation and Representation of Translocative Motion Events in English and Chinese Discourse, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-33-4037-4_4

79

80

4 General Statistical Description of English …

4.2 Constituent Combinations in English and Chinese TME Constructions TMEs are believed to be conceptually tripartite complex wholes of DEs, PEs, and AEs, which are mapped semantically on to the combination of the Motion event constituents. These combinations are in turn syntactically represented by grammatical categories.

4.2.1 MEP Sentences in English and Chinese Texts In accordance with the criteria of MEP, we obtain 201 English examples and 224 Chinese examples, of which 135 are from original English texts, 67 from translated English texts, 71 from original Chinese texts, and 153 from translated Chinese texts, as summarized in Table 4.1. As translated texts, ideally, the total number of the English MEP sentences and Chinese MEP sentences should match each other; in effect, due to various reasons, the match is too great an expectation. Table 4.1 displays this discrepancy. Numerically, there are 134 original English examples, but we ferret out about 20 more sentences in translated Chinese texts, making 153 translated Chinese MEP sentences. This holds also true for the 71 original Chinese examples, for we turn up 67 translated English MEP sentences, leaving four sentences nowhere to be located in the translated texts. These mismatches, however, are merely superficial. First, as translators are of diverse kinds and languages possess usually dissimilar kit of expressions, the 153 translated Chinese sentences, for example, do not necessarily include all the translations of the 134 original English sentences. As a matter of fact, a sentence possessing MEP may lose it when translated into another language, which disqualifies the translations to be chosen. Second, the sentences selected for the present study are of at least two location changes, hence the translations that reduce the number of location change to less than two are ruled out. In addition, some TME constructions become state constructions after being translated, which also banishes them from being considered. The alignment of the original sentences and their translations reveals that 112 of the 134 original English sentences are mapped similarly by the translators onto Chinese and 46 of the 71 original Chinese sentences do so onto English. These 112 original English sentences and 46 original Chinese sentences, containing at least two location changes and possessing MEP, are segmented accordingly into at least two subevents. These are tabulated in Table 4.2. Table 4.1 English and Chinese MEP constructions found

Languages

Originals

English

134

Translations 67

Total 201

Chinese

71

153

224

4.2 Constituent Combinations in English and Chinese … Table 4.2 The relatively parallel scene between original texts

81

MEP constructions

MEP constructions

English original

134

Chinese original

71

Chinese translation

112

English translation

46

Percentage

64.8%

Percentage

83.6%

From this we may conclude that generally English TME constructions in the original texts are matched with Chinese constructions of similar properties (83.6%). In original Chinese texts, the majority of TME constructions tend also to be rendered as constructions with MEP (64.8%), differing from the English TME constructions in being relatively lower in percentage. We next start from the translated texts. As shown in Table 4.1, there are, respectively, 67 and 153 MEP constructions in the English and Chinese translated texts. Some of these are translations of the original MEP constructions; others, however, are created by translators in compliance with the rules and regulations of TL. Through the alignment of the MEP constructions in translated English and Chinese texts, we find that 46 of the 67 translated English MEP constructions are matched with similar Chinese constructions with MEP, accounting for 68.7%; 112 of the 154 translated Chinese MEP constructions are matched similar English constructions with MEP, accounting for 72.7%. Table 4.3 summarizes these statistics. Table 4.3 shows that the majority of translated TME constructions in both English (68.7%) and Chinese (73.2%) are matched with similar TME constructions in SL texts. This is in general consistency with what we have briefly concluded about the MEP sentences in the original texts and their translations. We thus contend that TMEs are generally segmented alike by English and Chinese users. Table 4.3 The relatively parallel scene between translated texts

MEP constructions

MEP constructions

English translation

67

Chinese translation

153

Chinese original

46

English original

112

Percentage

68.7%

Percentage

73.2%

82

4 General Statistical Description of English …

4.2.2 Subevent Constituent Combinations in English and Chinese TMEs are segmented into DE, PE, and AE, and these subevents are in turn combinations of Motion event constituents. As what we have mentioned previously, Talmy (1985, 1991, 2000: Chap. I) proposes that Motion events are composed of Actant, Ground, Path, Motion, and other constituents. Our present investigation attempts to disinter the typical subevent constructions composed of such constituents in English and Chinese through empirical statistical work. As laid down in Sect. 3.3.1, Actants are usually animate or inanimate, and as they are performers of any part of the TME, we do not cram them into any subevents of a TME. Grounds are reference points indexing the progress an Actant has made. In line with the tripartite division of a Motion event, Grounds are reclassified as Starting Point (), Passing Point () and endpoint () or Goal () according to where the Ground is referred to. Whether it is or is dependent on which AE Path the Actant is following. As demonstrated in Table 3.4, Paths are broadly of three types, which are further subdivided into five minor subtypes: Source Path (), Goal Path (), Direction Path of ‘toward’ () or ‘away from’ and Route Path ().1 Having thus clarified, we present the following series of statistical results for DEs, PEs, and AEs in original English texts, translated English texts, original Chinese texts, and translated Chinese texts. For DEs, our investigation gathers 134 for English and 157 for Chinese, of which 79 are from original English texts, 55 from translated English texts, 62 from original Chinese texts, and 95 from translated Chinese texts. In English the top two typical constituent combinations of DEs in the original texts are (38 cases) and (36 cases), amounting to 74 cases or 93.7% of all the original English DEs. And in translated English texts they are (28 cases) and (27 cases), totaling 55 cases or 100% of all the translated DEs. In original Chinese texts the top two typical constituent combinations of DEs are (55 cases) and (4 cases), totaling 59 cases or 96.7% of all the original Chinese DEs. And in translated Chinese texts they are (78 cases) and (6 cases), totaling 84 cases or 88.4% of all the translated Chinese DEs. We, therefore, may conclude that English users and Chinese users conceptualize similarly the TME DEs regardless of text types. However, cross-linguistically, English and Chinese users conceptualize DEs rather differently. Table 4.4 summarizes the results for DEs:

1 In

accordance with Jackendoff (1983), Route Paths are also subdividable based on where the Path lies in relation to the Ground (through, via, or along), but, being not basically different from each other, we regard them unitarily as one type.

4.2 Constituent Combinations in English and Chinese …

83

Taken as a whole, the English texts contain 134 DEs and the Chinese texts 157. For English DEs, the top two constructions are (65 cases) and (64 cases), totaling together 129 or 96.3% of all the English DEs and indicating that the English users map DEs averagely onto two constructions. The top two DE constructions in Chinese texts are (133 cases) and (6 cases), totaling together 139 or 89.1% of Chinese DEs and indicating that Chinese users map DEs predominantly onto one construction. The same tendency can be noticed when comparing the constructions of DEs between English originals and Chinese translations, English translations and Chinese originals. Simplifying Table 4.4, we have Table 4.5 illustrating the above results. Given the fact that the top constituent combination of DEs in both languages is the same, it stands to reason that English users and Chinese users conceptualize DEs in a relatively similar fashion. But this similarity in the top DE construction does not explain everything. First, the amount of the top two English DE constructions contrasts very mildly (only one case), differing vastly from the amount distance between the top two Chinese DE constructions (127 cases). Furthermore, relevant to the above analysis, the second top DE construction in English texts, amounting to 64 cases, has a higher frequency of 47.8% than the second top Chinese DE construction, which has 6 cases and has a frequency of just 3.8%. As for PEs, what the present investigation first brings out is that they are of the least amount in comparison with DEs and AEs in either English or Chinese. Examining closer, we notice that such inferiority in the number of PEs exist in all types of texts under investigation. Table 4.6 presents the comparison. It shows that we have altogether 78 PEs in English and in Chinese it is 81, much smaller an amount as compared with DEs or AEs. 61 of the English PEs are from original English texts and 17 from translated English texts. In Chinese there are 13 Table 4.4 DEs in English and Chinese TMEs Languages Text types

Amount Top two constructions

English

79

Original

1.

Percentage 2.

93.7

Translation 55

1.

2.

100

2.

96.7

Chinese

Original

62

1.

Translation 95

1.

2.

88.4

Table 4.5 DEs in English and Chinese Languages

Amount

Top two constructions

Percentage

English

134

1.

2.

96.3

Chinese

157

1.

2.

89.1

84

4 General Statistical Description of English …

Table 4.6 Fewer PEs

Text types

DE

PE

AE

Original English

79

61

130

Translated English

55

17

64

English as a whole

194

134

78

Original Chinese

62

13

69

Translated Chinese

95

68

152

Chinese as a whole

157

81

221

PEs from original Chinese texts and 68 from translated Chinese texts. The top two PE constructions in original English texts are the same as those in translated English texts. They are (29 cases in original English texts and 10 cases in translated English texts) and (22 cases in original English texts and 7 cases in translated English texts). Similar to English, the top two PE constructions in the original Chinese are also identical with those in translated Chinese texts. They are (7 cases in the original Chinese tests and 37 cases in translated Chinese texts) and (5 cases in original Chinese texts and 27 cases in translated Chinese texts). What strikes us is the similarity between English and Chinese top PE construction. English users map half of the concept of passing a location onto the construction , while Chinese users map 54.3% of the concept of passing a location onto the construction . The two languages contrast in the sequence of the three constituents, specifically the position of Motion. In English, Motion occurs before the Path constituent, while in Chinese it situates after the Path constituent. (35) demonstrates this point. (35) a.

Following

the

voice

sheNP

ranMv

archNP intoPP a courtNP, b. 他NP……穿过Pv 马路NP ta He

chuanguo cross

malu street

到了Pv 大门口NP。 daole arrive-ASP

damenkou. gate.

throughPP

the

4.2 Constituent Combinations in English and Chinese …

85

He crossed to the opposite side of the street before he came to the building. Apparently, the positional difference of Motion stems from the representation of Path. In English as in (35a), Path is independently expressed by a satellite ‘through’, however, Path is lexicalized in Path Motion verb ‘穿过 (chuanguo cross)’ in (35b). As a rule, our tagging order of the constituents in such cases is Path before Motion. Provided that our tagging rule were revised for highly lexicalized grammatical items, namely, placing Motion before Path, the two top constructions for PEs would be identically ! We summarize these in Table 4.7. In sharp contrast with PEs, AEs constitute the largest number in both types and amount, be it in English or in Chinese. Table 4.8, an extension of Table 4.6, summarizes the panorama. Aided by this table, we believe that the superiority of the types and amount of AEs among the three subevents needs no further glossing. Like the analyses of DEs and PEs above, we next focus on the top two constructions of AEs. The top two AE constructions in English are , 67 cases from original English texts and 30 cases from translated English texts, and , 18 cases from original English texts and 12 cases from translated English texts. The two constructions account for 65.5% of all the English AEs. Table 4.7 PEs in English and Chinese Languages

Text types

Amount

Top two constructions

English

Original

61

1.

2.

83.6

Translation

17

1.

2.

100

Original

13

1.

2.

92.3

Translation

68

1.

2.

94.1

Chinese

Percentage

Table 4.8 Types and amount of DEs, PEs, and AEs Text types

DE Types

PE Amount

AE

Types

Amount

Types

Amount

79

4

61

10

130

English texts Original English

5

Translated English

2

55

2

17

7

64

English as a whole

5

134

4

78

12

194

Chinese texts Original Chinese

3

62

3

13

11

69

Translated Chinese

9

95

5

68

15

152

Chinese as a whole

9

157

5

81

18

221

86

4 General Statistical Description of English …

Table 4.9 The role of the top two constructions

DE (%)

PE (%)

AE (%)

English

96.3

87.2

65.5

Chinese

89.1

93.8

51.6

In Chinese texts, the top two AE constructions areare , 16 cases from original Chinese texts and 62 cases from translated Chinese texts, and , 15 cases from original Chinese texts and 21 cases from translated Chinese texts. These two constructions make 51.6% of all the Chinese AEs. Percentages of the top two AE constructions of either all the English AEs or the Chinese AEs are a lot lower than those of DEs or PEs in English and Chinese. To clarify the point, we put these in Table 4.9. While the top two constructions represent overwhelmingly the majority of DEs and PEs, they express only a bit more than half of AEs in both English and Chinese. In addition, English and Chinese users map the concept of AEs onto different constructions. As noted above, in English these are and , and in Chinese these are and . A closer scrutiny of the constructions of AEs in English and Chinese shows that all AE constructions in Chinese contain at least one Motion constituent, which is not the case in English. Due to this, the top AE construction in English, for example, even finds no realization in Chinese.

4.3 Linguistic Expressions in English and Chinese TME Constructions In the foregoing two subsections we are concerned statistically firstly with the segmentation of TMES and then with the conceptual structures of subevents. In this section we will transform further to the surface to compute the linguistic representations of each TME constituent. Simply put, we aim to array the possible surface linguistic forms of each Motion event constituents, namely, Actant, Motion, Path, and Ground here, and work out the amount and percentages of every form in order to make clear the typical forms representing these constituents.

4.3 Linguistic Expressions in English …

87

Table 4.10 Animate and inanimate Actants Language

Text types

Animate (%)

English

Original

104

77.6

30

22.4

Translation

37

55.2

30

44.8

Total

141

70.1

60

29.9

Original

46

64.8

25

35.2

Translation

110

71.9

43

28.1

Total

156

69.6

68

30.4

Chinese

Inanimate (%)

4.3.1 Who Is Moving Actants, as we have discussed in Sect. 3.3.1.2, are commonly realized by NPs and usually fill the syntactical slot of subject in non-caused motion event or object in caused motion events. And as we have set in Sect. 3.3.1.2, Actants can be dichotomically grouped into animate ones (+) and inanimate ones (−). The present section is devoted to unearthing statistically which group of Actants prevails in TME constructions in English and Chinese. Our first task is to identify Actants and tagging them with ‘+’ or ‘−’. At this stage we notice that Actants of TMEs, be they ‘+’ or ‘−’, are predominantly ‘moving’ individually. In English the Actants moving individually totalize 94.5% and in Chinese they account for 94.2%. Furthermore, most of these Actants are animate (70.1% in English and 69.6% in Chinese), and of the TMES which have more than one Actant the prevailing form is ‘+→+’, denoting a double-Actant caused TME. We gather 6 cases in English and 7 cases in Chinese. In view of the fact that the two Actants contained in such constructions both bear the feature ‘+’, we still classify them as animate Actants. There are also a few cases containing more than one Actant that are not unanimously animate or inanimate, but as they are of very little amount (5 cases in English and 6 cases in Chinese) and do not cluster in types, we at the moment pass them into oblivion. Specific to different text types, we have Table 4.10 for illustration. This demonstrates that in each text type, marginal differences though there are, the animate Actants predominate over the inanimate Actants in both English and Chinese. Thus, we are now in a position to answer the question posed by this subsection: it is animate Actants that are often moving. Besides this, we also notice that in both English and Chinese there are about 30% inanimate Actants that are also moving. Our investigation denotes that these moving inanimate Actants are mostly those participating in fictive Motion events.

88

4 General Statistical Description of English …

4.3.2 How to Move Languages across the world typically encode Motion that an object undergoes in verbs (Chen 2005). But verbs usually do not lexicalize merely Motion; more often they also lexicalize Manner, Path, Actant, Ground, and other event constituents. Based on these lexicalization patterns, Talmy (1985, 2000) puts forward three major typological categories for Motion verbs, namely, Motion + Path, Motion + Co-event, and Motion + Figure. The category Motion + Co-event usually lexicalizes either Manner or Cause of Motion, resulting four major typological categories for Motion verbs. In addition to these, we have cases like (34b) tagged here as (36): (36)扎 牙 根 的 凉 NP ， 从 PP 口 中 NP 慢 慢 凉 CoV 到 Pv 胸部NP…… …this cold that struck at the roots of his teeth moved down his throat until it reached his stomach…

Here ‘凉 (liang cold)’ encodes mostly our cognition of the feeling of coolness spreading, hence we enter verbs of this kind as Cognition verbs (CoV). As Motion is shared across these categories, verbs tend to be named after the non-Motion constituent conflated. Take ‘to fly’ for instance. It encodes not only Motion but also Manner of the event, thus verbs like ‘to fly’ are classified under the appellation of ‘Manner verb’ or ‘Mv’ in the present analysis. Table 3.4 has listed the five main categories of the Motion verbs, viz., Path verb (Pv), Manner verb (Mv), Cause verb (Cv), Figure verb (Fv), and Cognition verb (CoV). Besides these, there are also few cases employing idioms, deverbal nouns, conjunctions, or other non-verbal grammatical categories to represent Motion. For these, we enter in capitals as ‘IDIOM’, ‘DN’, or ‘CONJUNCTION’ for the statistical work, which is supposed to work out the verb categories mostly utilized to represent Motion, the relationship between subevents and Motion verbs, and Motion combination in English and Chinese texts. Conceptually, for the macro-motion event as a whole, Motion is essential and indispensable, and in representation its surface form should stick only with certain subevent, either DE or PE or AE. We find few exceptions ((45a)) in our English texts to this generalization, which, however, is much challenged by the Chinese data, for quite a lot of Chinese TMEs employ more than one Motion verb, even within one subevent ((37b), (37c)).

4.3 Linguistic Expressions in English …

89

(37) a. A ballNP comesPv sailing Mv overADV fromPP the basketball courtNP and CONJhitsMv Zheng Ziyun in the heelNP, b. 这些 专拉 Zhexie zhuanla

洋买卖的NP 讲究Mv 一气儿

由PP

yangmaimaide

you

These specially pull foreign trade 交民巷NP

jiangjiu

yikouqier

particular

in one breath

from

拉Mv 到Pv 玉泉山NP，

the diplomatic quarter

la

the diplomatic quarter

pull

颐和园NP

西山NP。

或

dao

the Jade Fountain,

arrive

the Jade Fountain,

the Summer Palace huo the Western Hills. the Summer Palace

or the Western Hills

These are real long-distance runners whoNP … runMv non-stop fromPP the diplomatic quarterNP all the way outADV toPP the Jade FountainNP, the Summer PalaceNP or the Western HillsNP. c. 他们NP 离开Pv 房子NP 朝PP tamen

likai

they

leave

fangzi house

chao toward

海堤NP 走Mv 去Pv。 haidi

zou

seawall

walk

qu go.

TheyNP… bornePv away fromPP the houseNP towardPP the seaside wallNP…

For (37a) our understanding is that, ‘comes’ and ‘sailing’, while both functioning as the Motion supplier, are integrated to supply the information of Path and Manner for the construction, because the sentence remains sound if ‘comes’ or ‘sailing’ is taken away:

90

4 General Statistical Description of English …

Table 4.11 Representing types and amount for Motion in DEs English texts

Types

Amount

Chinese texts

Types

Original English

6

40

Original Chinese

3

Amount

Translated English

4

28

Translated Chinese

5

16

English as a whole

6

68

Chinese as a whole

6

23

7

(37) a′ A ball comes over from the basketball court and hits Zheng Ziyun in the heel, a″ A ball sailed over from the basketball court and hits Zheng Ziyun in the heel,

The only difference is that (37a ) will be more appropriate when profiling the Path of the event, and (37a ), the Manner of the event. This aside, there is no difference in the Motion they are representing. If (37a) is not commonly seen in English,2 its counterpart Chinese construction (as in (37b)) is of much higher frequency. As our statistical work indicates, for instance, the Motion is represented in the form of MvPv in 66 of all the 221 Chinese AEs containing Motion, accounting for almost 36.7%, ranking the 2nd among all the 14 Motion representation forms. Unlike (37b) verbs conglomerating in one subevent, (37c) exemplifies that verbs may scatter over any subevent. In terms of (37c), the three Motion verbs are accommodated in DE and AE, profiling Path and Manner of the event. Such constructions, which are generally nowhere to be seen in English, are SVCs and in frequent use in Chinese. As we have discussed in Chap. 1, SVCs have MEP and therefore are legitimate candidates for the present analysis. Such things clarified, our investigation will examine each of the subevents and sum up the major types representing Motion in both English and Chinese. Table 4.11 sums up the representing types and amount for Motion in DEs. Apparently, in comparison with Chinese a lot more English DEs encode Motion constituent, though the representing types are of the same amount in both languages. The foregoing sections in the present Chapter report there are 134 English DEs and 157 Chinese DEs in our corpus; hence we can conclude that English DEs tend highly more (50.7%) to encode Motion than Chinese DEs (merely about 14.6%). A closer look reveals this tendency clearer. 40 DEs in original English texts encode Motion, but in translated Chinese texts only 16 DEs encode Motion. In another direction, 7 DEs in original Chinese texts contain Motion, but in translated English texts the amount rockets to 28. In terms of text types, we find by combining Tables 4.8 and 4.11 here that about 50% of original English DEs (50.6%) and translated English DEs (50.9%) encode Motion. In Chinese, about 11.3% of original DEs and 16.8% of translated DEs contain Motion, much lower than those in English texts. Furthermore, 2 Certainly

this does not imply that the construction v+v-ing is rare in English. We merely suggest its rarity in our corpus.

4.3 Linguistic Expressions in English …

91

we also want to see whether English and Chinese differ in the representing forms. Table 4.12 shows the Motion representing forms in both languages. This shows that on the whole English and Chinese parallel in the first three most frequently employed forms in representing Motion in DEs, namely, Pv, Mv, and Fv, especially Pv and Mv, predominating over all the other forms in either original English and Chinese texts, or translated English and Chinese texts. Following DE Motion we next investigate statistically PE Motion. We tabulate the representing types and amount for Motion in PEs in Table 4.13. Dissimilar to DEs, the same amount (49 cases) of English PEs and Chinese PEs encode Motion constituent. Such an amount accounts for 62.8% of all the English PEs or 60.8% of all the Chinese PEs. The text type analysis also reveals this similarity. Among original English PEs 63.9% encodes Motion and the percentage is 58.8% among translated English PEs. In Chinese, 61.5% original PEs and 60.3% translated PEs contain Motion. And the similarity continues well into the amount of the representing types in both languages, 4 in English and 5 in Chinese. Comparing Tables 4.11 and 4.13, we notice that this near identicalness is in consistence with the approximation in amount between English PEs and Chinese PEs, as summarized in Table 4.8. Next we examine PE Motion representing forms in English and Chinese as summarized in Table 4.14. As shown here, English and Chinese do not parallel so much in representing PE Motion as they do in Table 4.13. In English the most frequent form representing Table 4.12 Motion representing forms in DEs English texts

Forms

Amount Chinese texts

Forms

Original English

Pv

20

Pv

5

Mv

15

Mv

1

Cv

2

Fv

1

Fv

1

DN

1 Translated Chinese Pv

10

CoV Translated English Pv

Original Chinese

Amount

1 18

Mv

8

Mv

Fv

1

CoV

1

DN

1

MvPv

1

PvPv

1

English as a whole Pv

38

Chinese as a whole Pv

3

15

Mv

23

Mv

4

Fv

2

Fv

1

Cv

2

CoV

1

DN

2

PvPv

1

CoV

1

MvPv

1

92

4 General Statistical Description of English …

Table 4.13 Representing types and amount for Motion in PEs English texts

Types

Amount

Chinese texts

Types

Original English

4

39

Original Chinese

2

Amount 8

Translated English

3

10

Translated Chinese

3

41

English as a whole

4

49

Chinese as a whole

5

49

Table 4.14 Motion representing forms in PEs English texts

Forms

Amount

Chinese texts

Forms

Original English

Pv

19

Pv

7

Mv

18

Original Chinese

MvPv

1

Translated Chinese

MvPv

3

IDIOM

1

Translated English

English as a whole

IDIOM

1

Fv

1

Mv

5

Pv

3

Fv

2

Mv

23

Pv

22

Fv

3

IDIOM

1

Chinese as a whole

Pv

Pv

Amount

37

44

MvPv

4

IDIOM

1

PE Motion is Mv (23 cases or 29.5% of all the English PEs), while in Chinese the form is Pv (44 cases or 54.3% of all the Chinese PEs). Pvs rank second in English among the forms expressing PE Motion (22 cases or 28.2% of all the English PEs). In another way, however, Mv, the most frequent form in English and Fv the third, are altogether not made use individually in Chinese. Herein lies the first reason why we say that the two languages do not parallel so much. Secondly, the English PE Motion is universally represented by means of a single Motion verb; the Chinese PE Motion, however, are represented by SVCs on a few occasions, though the amount is not decisively large. In terms of text types, Pv is the first choice in representing original English PE Motion and all the Chinese PE Motion, namely, in both original Chinese texts and translated Chinese texts. Mv ranks first in representing translated English PE Motion, but it is not individually used in Chinese. Fvs are employed in both original and translated English text to represent PE Motion, but they are not made use of in Chinese. Furthermore, SVCs are utilized in both original and translated Chinese texts for PE Motion representation, but are not employed in English. Following the discussion of PEs, we look next at AEs, the most numerous as well as complicated subevents. As pointed out in the foregoing section, AEs constitute the largest body in both English and Chinese. In terms of our statistical work, we root out of the 194 English AEs 86 cases encoding Motion, which resolve into 7 types and account for 44.3% of all the English AEs. We have 221 Chinese AEs, which are categorized into 14 types and accounting for 100% of all the Chinese AEs;

4.3 Linguistic Expressions in English … Fig. 4.1 The Motion-encoding tendency

93 English

Chinese

120.00%

Amount

100.00% 80.00% 60.00% 40.00% 20.00% 0.00%

DE

PE

AE

Subevents

Table 4.15 Representing types and amount for Motion in AEs English texts

Types

Amount

Chinese texts

Original English

7

53

Original Chinese

Types

Translated English

4

33

Translated Chinese

12

69

English as a whole

7

86

Chinese as a whole

14

221

9

Amount 152

in other words, all the Chinese AEs contain Motion. Assuming an event proceeds sequentially in the order of DE, PE, and AE and drawing on the discussion about DEs and PEs, we can contour the Motion-encoding subevents in English and Chinese in Fig. 4.1, which demonstrates quite visibly the contrasting tendency in English and Chinese TME subevents encoding Motion: English tends to encode Motion similarly in DEs and AEs at the rate of 40%; Chinese nearly averts encoding Motion in DEs, but demands complete Motion-encoding in AEs. For PEs in English and Chinese, they intersect between the two languages by performing similarly at the rate of 60%. In Table 4.15 we summarize the representing types and amount for Motion in English and Chinese AEs. It displays on the whole that English disfavors encoding Motion in AEs while Chinese favors. In original English texts we have 53 Motionencoding AEs, but in translated Chinese texts they zoom to 69, increasing by over 30%; in the other way, the 152 Motion-encoding AEs in original Chinese texts shrink drastically to 33, about 80% Motion-encoding AEs transformed to non-Motionencoding AEs in English. But in representation, the scene becomes confusing, for on the one hand both languages represent AE Motion mostly in the form of Pv3 ; on the other hand, the English Motion-encoding AEs contrast with their Chinese counterpart in making few use of compound forms of representing Motion. In English there are only three cases or about 1.5% of all the English AEs expressing AE Motion in compound forms, but in Chinese we have 81 cases or 36.7% of all the Chinese AEs representing AE Motion in compound forms. As AE Motion is of many forms, we choose the top two forms and summarize in Table 4.16. Thus, combining Tables 4.12, 4.14, and 4.16 together, our answer to the question put at the beginning of this section is that both English and Chinese employ most 3 Only

the original Chinese texts are an exception, in which the form Pv ranks the 2nd, but it is only one case less than the top form.

94

4 General Statistical Description of English …

Table 4.16 The top two Motion representing forms in AEs English texts Forms

Amount

Chinese texts Forms

Original English

1. Pv

31

Original Chinese

2. Mv

15

Translated English

1. Pv

26

2. Mv

5

English as a whole

1. Pv

57

2. Mv

20

Amount

1. MvPv

24

2. Pv

23

Translated Chinese

1. Pv

95

2. MvPv

42

Chinese as a whole

2. MvPv

1. Pv

118 66

frequently Pvs to represent Motion. Beyond this the two languages also display contrasting aspects in encoding Motion. On the top of this list is that English DEs and AEs encode Motion at a similar rate of 40%, while Chinese DEs refrain from encoding Motion and AEs demand complete encoding. Next to this is in English subevents Motion gets expressed mostly in the form of a single Motion verb, while Chinese employs quite a lot of SVCs to represent Motion.

4.3.3 Which Road to Follow Path is the defining property of a Motion event, which is as a rule named after the Path it follows. An event expression can not be said to express a Motion event unless information about Path of movement is specified. This has been shown by (29), which is repeated here for convenience as (38). (38) a. We want to dictate our own conditions," said Marndouh Abu Watfa, 13, as he waited for noon prayers inside the Palestine Mosque.

b. In an exercise familiar to most Americans, 49 numbered ba11s will spin inside a clear plastic drum and six balls will be selected at random to determine each week’s winners. c. Near daybreak, Wade said, Winslow went inside the cabin. (Rohde 2001: 33)

‘inside’ in both (38a) and (38b) specifies the site of an occurrence, providing no information about the traversal that the Actant has passed. Different from this, ‘inside’ in (38c) informs the reader of the Actant, Winslow here, traversing from the outdoors into the indoor, thus enabling the reader to visualize the Path Winslow has followed. Rohde (ibid.) names ‘inside’ used in contexts like (38a) and (38b) as static preposition, and those in contexts like (38c) as dynamic preposition.

4.3 Linguistic Expressions in English …

95

(38c) explains the situation in which just one location change is incurred, hence resulting in a mono-subevent Motion event. The present investigation probes into the situation in which at least two location changes are involved. This signifies that at least two subevents are inlaid in the construction, which gives rise to one issue awaiting clarification: whether each subevent follows its own Path or all the subevents of one macro-event share the same Path. To resolve this issue, we need to look at (32) repeated here as (39): (39) a. The Divers flocked from the train into the early gathered twilight of the valley. b. 他的

心

好似

tade xin haosi

由 you

老远

的

laoyuan de

his

heart seemed from

落

到

自己 的

心口中……

luo

dao ziji de

xinkouzhong…

fall

arrive

self

very far

又 you again

chest…

…his heart seemed to drop from a great height back to his chest…

(39a) comprises of a DE (from the train) and an AE (into the early gathered twilight of the valley), each subevent headed by a dynamic preposition: ‘from’ indicating the source of the Motion, while ‘into’ making clear the goal of the Motion. This is congruent with the definition or description of Path in Jackendoff (1983) and Talmy (1985, 2000), therefore we treat ‘from’ and ‘into’ as Path indicators for each subevent. (39b) differs a little bit from (39a) in that the second subevent (AE) is not headed by a preposition as does by DE, but by a directional verb ‘落到 (luodao drop to)’, which lexicalizes both Motion and Path of AE. This brief analysis reveals that every subevent comprising a Motion event has their own Path, be it in the form of a preposition or lexicalized in a Motion verb. Based on Sect. 3.3.3 and Table 3.4, Paths are of five types, viz., , , , , and . The present section is committed to ascertaining the Path types encoded in each kind of subevent and the realization of each type of Paths. We examine firstly the Path types encoded in DEs in English and Chinese. For DEs, two Path types are usually to be followed, namely, and . By Jackendoff (1983: 165) belongs to bounded Paths, while , the directions. As we have distinguished them in Sect. 2.5.1 and illustrated by Figs. 2.4 and 2.5, the reference point of starting falls on but not on . Our empirical research shows that s outnumber s by a crushing majority in either English or Chinese, in either original texts or translated texts. Table 4.17 visualizes this conclusion. On the whole, of all the 134 English DEs 129 cases or 96.3% follow , leaving merely 5 cases or 3.7% after ; in Chinese the is encoded in

96

4 General Statistical Description of English …

Table 4.17 s overwhelming s English texts

Chinese texts

74

5

Original Chinese

Translated English

55

0

English as a whole

129

5

Original English





62

0

Translated Chinese

87

8

Chinese as a whole

149

8

149 cases or 94.9% of all the 157 DEs, sparing just 8 cases or 5.1% to move along . In the translated English texts or original Chinese texts even no case is collected encoding . Up to now the discussion about DE Path types in English and Chinese pinpoints the reality that both language users conceptualize alike the road they travel along. We next delve beyond this conceptual likeness into its linguistic realization. To represent , we obtain in English two forms, namely, PP (128 cases) and ADV (one case only). The scene looks confusing when we turn to Chinese , for there are altogether 4 forms found representing this kind of Path. These 4 forms are PP (130 cases), Pv (10 cases), NP (8 cases), and ADJ (one case) in order of amount. The 2 languages display agreement in representing forms of , as they both express it by means of Pv and PP. This agreement, nonetheless, exists almost just nominally. Of the 5 found English cases only one case is realized in the form of Pv, whereas in Chinese 6 of the 8 found cases are in the form of Pv. These are summarized in Table 4.18. As shown here, on the whole both English and Chinese users represent mainly by way of PP (128 cases or 95.5% of all the 134 cases in English and 130 Table 4.18 vs. in form Path types

Pv

PP

NP

ADJ

ADV

Total

0

73

0

0

1

74

1

4

0

0

0

5

Translated English

0

55

0

0

0

55

0

0

0

0

0

0

English as a whole

0

128

0

0

1

129

1

4

0

0

0

5

5

54

3

0

0

62

0

0

0

0

0

0

5

76

5

1

0

87

6

2

0

0

0

8

10

130

8

1

0

149

6

2

0

0

0

8

English texts Original English

Chinese texts Original Chinese Translated Chinese Chinese as a whole

4.3 Linguistic Expressions in English …

97

cases or 82.8% of all the 157 cases in Chinese). Such an overwhelming majority can be proved in either the original texts or the translated texts. This aside, we also note that Chinese on some occasions represent in the form of Pv (10 cases or 6.4% of all the 157 cases) or NP (8 cases or 5.1% of all the 157 cases). As we have said above, English and Chinese users contrast in representing . English users tend more (4 cases or 80% of all the 5 cases) to express through PPs, while Chinese users favor the form of Pv more (6 cases or 75% of all the eight cases). For PEs there is only one type of Path, viz., to follow, therefore we need just examine the linguistic realization of it in English and Chinese. To represent , English and Chinese primarily make use of PP and Pv. Only one exception of IDIOM occurs in Chinese, which makes no difference to the overall representation of . Behind this interlinguistic consistency, however, stands a sharp contrast between English and Chinese. Among the 78 cases of the English PEs, 68 cases or 87.2% are in the form of PP, leaving only 10 cases or 12.8% in the form of Pv. In translated Chinese texts we even locate no case of Pv . The percentages are nearly balanced in Chinese, for of all the 81 cases, 47 cases or 58% are represented by way of Pv and the rest 33 cases or 40.7% are by PP. The comparison demonstrates pronouncedly that s in English are predominantly expressed in the form of PP, while in Chinese s are preferably expressed by means of Pv, PP being the secondary choice for users. Text type analysis offers further support for this finding. We find the PP majority in original English texts (83.6%) is replaced by Pv majority in translated Chinese texts (57.4%), and the Pv majority in original Chinese texts is sweepingly replaced by PP majority in translated English texts (100%). Table 4.19 sums up these findings. Similar to the Path types in DEs, AE Paths are also of two types and , which differ from each other in terms of the Actant’s relationship with the reference point. If the Actant has reached the reference point, the Path is named as ; if not and the Actant is just going in the direction of the reference point, the Path is named as . We tabulate the statistical results of and in Table 4.20. Table 4.19 Forms of PP

Pv

IDIOM

Subtotal

Original English

51

Translated English

17

10

0

61

0

0

English as a whole

68

17

10

0

78

English texts

Chinese texts Original Chinese

5

8

0

13

Translated Chinese

28

39

1

68

Chinese as a whole

33

47

1

81

98

4 General Statistical Description of English …

Table 4.20 s overwhelming s in amount English texts



Chinese texts

Original English

110

20

Original Chinese

59

10

Translated English

63

1

Translated Chinese

123

29

English as a whole

173

21

Chinese as a whole

182

39

This shows that, in both original texts and translated texts, the majority of English AEs (173 cases or 89.2%) and Chinese AEs (182 cases or 82.4%) adopt , leaving 21 (or 11%) English AEs and 39 (or 17.6%) Chinese AEs to . These statistical results bear out that, similar to DEs, English users and Chinese users conceptualize the road to their destination in the similar fashion. We next move from conceptual issues to practical ones, namely, their linguistic realization. Modeling on Table 4.18, we summarize the linguistic realizations of AE Paths in English and Chinese in Table 4.21. On the whole, AE Paths are most complicatedly realized. The colored grids above indicate that Pv and PP are the most regular forms that and take in either original texts or translated texts. Specifically, among all the 173 English cases of , 119 cases (or 68.8%) are realized by PP and 42 cases (or 24.3%) by Pvs, together accounting for 160 cases (or 92.5%). In Chinese Pv is the prevailing form taken by all the 182 Chinese cases of . has 171 cases, which account for 94.5% of all the Chinese cases of . As for PP, different from its commonness in English cases, it has only one case in translated Chinese texts. Therefore, the above analysis can be summarized as that English prefers PP in representing and Pv plays a minor role, while Chinese users nearly solely Table 4.21 and in form

English texts Original English Translated English English as a whole

Path types PvMv

Pv

PP

CoV CONJ ADV Subtotal





2 0 0 0 2 0

22 2 20 0 42 2

78 15 41 1 119 16

0 0 0 0 0 0

0 0 0 0 0 0

8 3 2 0 10 3

110 20 63 1 173 21





0 2 3 4 3 6

53 4 119 15 172 19

0 4 1 10 1 14

3 0 0 0 3 0

3 0 0 0 3 0

0 0 0 0 0 0

59 10 123 29 182 39

Chinese texts Original Chinese Translated Chinese Chinese as a whole

4.3 Linguistic Expressions in English …

99

Table 4.22 Pv- and PP- Paths English Paths

Pv

PP

Chinese Paths

0

128

Pv 10

PP 130

1

4

6

2

10

68

47

33

42

118

164

1

Total

2

16

55

334

Total

19

14

246

180

choose Pv as the form of . The situation for representation is not that polarized, for, though PP still has 16 cases (or 76.2%) of all the 21 English cases, Pv also has 2 cases (or 10%). In Chinese, Pv has 19 cases (or 48.7%) of all the 39 Chinese cases, and PP has 14 cases (35.9%). So the distance between PP and Pv in representing is narrowed in comparison with that of . Besides PP and Pv, there are also other forms employed in both English and Chinese to represent . From these we single out CONJ and ADV for a brief analysis. The use of CONJ for has only three original Chinese cases. ADV has 10 cases for English and three cases for English . These two minor AE forms illustrate that each language has its own resources for representing our conceptualization. So far we have delved into the Paths we follow in DEs, PEs, and AEs. The corpusbased discussion attests that generally English users and Chinese users conceptualize alike the Path they are following. This agreement between the two languages is evidenced clearly by the overwhelming of over and the overwhelming of over in both English and Chinese original and translated texts. The surface forms of Paths, however, do not always concur. Except for , on the whole, English Paths prefer the PP form more, while the Chinese Paths favor more the Pv form. This has been proved in the statistical work about English and Chinese s, s, s, and s. We conclude this as well as this section with Table 4.22.

4.3.4 Where to Go Ground is the final TME constituent that the present investigation focuses on. In Motion event, it serves as the reference point to attest the progress the Actant has made on the Path. In the present research, the constructions under analysis entail at least two location changes, thus resulting in at least two reference points or Grounds. These are sequentially , , , or located in DEs, PEs, and AEs. The Ground is or depending on which Path the Actant is following. If the Path is , which is bounded by the ending reference point, the Ground will be . In another way, if the Path is , which is not bounded by the

100

4 General Statistical Description of English …

reference point and designates the direction of the Motion, the Ground will be . (40) makes clear this difference. (40) 穿过Pv 大厅NP

a. 迪克NP 小跑着 Dick

xiaopao-zhe

chuanguo

Dick

small run-ASP

来

到Pv 罗斯玛丽

lai

dao

dating

cross

hall

房里NP。

Rosemary fangli.

come arrive

Rosemary room.

Dick jogged across the hall into her room. b. 旋即 xuanji

他NP 出了Pv 咖啡馆NP， ta

In a minute he

chuleASP

kafeiguan,

exit

coffee bar

朝PP 谬特NP 大步走Mv 去Pv…… chao

Muette

toward

Muette

dabu zou big step walk

qu. go.

In a minute he was out in the street marching along toward the Muette…

‘来到 (laidao came arriving)’ lexicalizes both Motion and the Path of arrival, hence the reference point ‘罗斯玛丽房里 (Rosemary fangli her room)’ constitutes for (40a). In (40b) ‘朝 (chao toward)’ indicates the direction of Motion as well as its incompletion, hence ‘谬特 (Muette)’, possible destination of the Actant, functions just as for (40b). We have discussed in Sect. 3.3.4 that Grounds, like Actants, are also usually realized in the form of NPs, but that is just one side of the story. Different from Actants, Grounds are also expressed in the forms of XPs. In what follows we will research statistically into the realization forms of , , , or . s mark where Actants move from or away from, therefore, cognitively s are points placed at the beginning of Path. As for s, in our conception, they are located as the intermediate points on the route of Actants translocating from s to s or toward s. Depending on the interrelation between Actants and

4.3 Linguistic Expressions in English …

101

s, Actants may move by, through, or along s. s or s mark where Paths end or Paths will extend to. In physical spaces these points should be entities like buildings, object; in mental spaces these might be a thought, a field, or a period of time. Either way these s, s, s or s are nominal by nature. Our investigations about the realization forms of them support the above argument. Tables 4.23, 4.24, 4.25, and 4.26 summarize our investigation findings Table 4.23 NP-majority in realizing s NP

ADV

Pv

Subtotal

Original English

77

2

0

79

Translated English

53

0

0

53

English as a whole

130

2

0

132

Original Chinese

60

0

2

62

Translated Chinese

94

0

0

94

Chinese as a whole

154

0

2

156

English texts

Chinese texts

Table 4.24 Bigger NP-majority in realizing s

NP

Pv

Subtotal

English texts Original English

60

1

61

Translated English

17

0

17

English as a whole

77

1

78

Original Chinese

13

0

13

Translated Chinese

67

1

68

Chinese as a whole

80

1

81

Chinese texts

Table 4.25 Forms of s ADJ

ADV

NP

Pv

Subtotal

English texts Original English

0

15

82

14

111

Translated English

2

16

39

6

63

English as a whole

2

31

121

20

174

Original Chinese

3

0

31

24

58

Translated Chinese

2

0

85

37

124

Chinese as a whole

5

0

116

61

182

Chinese texts

102

4 General Statistical Description of English …

Table 4.26 Forms of s ADV

NP

Pv

Subtotal

English texts Original English

2

17

0

19

Translated English

0

1

0

1

English as a whole

2

18

0

20

Chinese texts Original Chinese

0

11

0

11

Translated Chinese

0

26

2

28

Chinese as a whole

0

37

2

39

for these reference points, respectively. Table 4.23 demonstrates that, of the 134 English s, 130 cases (97%) are realized by NPs, only 4 otherwise; similarly, of the 156 Chinese s, 154 (98.7%) are realized by NPs, only two otherwise. This NP-majority can be seen in all types of texts under discussion. NPs take up a bigger majority in representing s in either English or Chinese, as summarized in Table 4.24. It is found that in either English or Chinese texts merely one (about 1%) is realized in the non-NP way, proving convincingly the NP-majority in representing s in languages. This holds also true for s (Table 4.26). 20 cases are found in English texts and 18 of them (90%) are in the form of NPs; in Chinese texts 39 cases are found and 36 of them (92.3%) are realized by NPs. The NP-majority continues into the representation of s (Table 4.25), but the majority is noticeably weakened. On the whole, 69% (120 cases) English s are realized by NPs, much decreased in percentage than they perform with s or s. The weakening is due mainly to the contributions by ADVs (18.4% or 32 cases) and Pvs (11.5% or 20 cases) in representing English s. Analogically, the Chinese NP s also reduce markedly in percentage in comparison with NP s or NP s. Of all the 182 cases of Chinese s, 63.7% (116 cases) are realized by NPs. Different from English s, the lowering percentage of Chinese NP s owes mostly to Pvs’ contribution: 33% or 60 cases. Taking the representation of Grounds as a whole, we conclude that NPs are the major surface means in either English or Chinese, particularly for s and s. ADVs and Pvs play different roles in English and Chinese when employed to represent Grounds. Take the realization of s and s for example. ADVs have altogether 34 cases of s and s, accounting for 17.5% and ranking the second among all the forms realizing English s and s, but they have not a case in Chinese s and s. As for Pvs, English has 20 cases, which account for about 10%; on the contrary, Pvs have 62 cases in Chinese to realize the s and s, accounting for 28.1% and ranking the second among all the forms realizing Chinese AE Grounds.

4.4 Summary

103

4.4 Summary Statistics speak aloud. The central issues for this chapter are (1) examining the conceptual structure of English and Chinese TMEs to compare their segmentation in both languages, (2) working out the constituent combinations for DEs, PEs, and AEs in English and Chinese, and (3) figuring out the realization forms for each Motion event constituent. Firstly, we investigate the segmentation of TMEs in both original texts and translated texts and arrive at the conclusion that English and Chinese TMEs segment alike (about 70%). From this investigation we move to the constituent combinations for subevents. English users and Chinese users conceptualize DEs and PEs alike. For DEs we find that (65 cases) and (64 cases), totaling together 129 or 96.3% of all the English DEs, are the top two English DE constructions. In Chinese texts the top two DE constructions are (133 cases) and (6 cases), totaling together 139 cases or 89.1%. And for PEs, both languages map the concept of passing a location mostly (87.2% in English and in Chinese it is 93.8%) onto two much similar constructions, viz., or and . The construction is shared across English and Chinese. English and Chinese users map the concept of AEs onto different constructions. The top two English constructions are and , and in Chinese the top two constructions are and . We also discover that all AE constructions in Chinese contain at least one Motion constituent, as is not the case in English. Due to this feature, the top AE construction in English, for example, even finds no realization in Chinese. The second is about the surface forms of the major constituents of a TME, namely, Actant, Motion, Path, and Ground. The investigation first bears out that in both English and Chinese it is usually (about 70%) the animate Actants that are moving and the rest 30% Actants are inanimate ones appearing mostly in fictive TME constructions. The investigations about Motion, Path, and Ground all follow a sequential order of DEs, PEs, and AEs. To represent Motion, we find that Pv is the favorite form in both English and Chinese. The contrasting aspects in encoding Motion between the two languages are firstly about 40% English DEs and AEs containing Motion, but only 7% of the Chinese DEs containing Motion; different from this, Chinese AEs demand complete Motion-encoding. Secondly, English users employ a single Motion verb to express Motion, but Chinese users employ quite a lot of SVCs to represent Motion. As for Path, we find that English users and Chinese users conceptualize alike the Path they are following, evidenced by the overwhelming of over and the overwhelming of over in both English and Chinese. The surface forms of Paths, especially of AE Paths, however, do not always parallel between English and Chinese. Generally, English AE Paths use more PP forms and the Chinese AE Paths favor more Pv forms. Lastly, we come to the representation forms of Ground. It is found that, particularly for s and s, NPs are the most frequent form in both English and Chinese. Furthermore, ADVs are occasionally (17.5%) employed by English users to represent s and s, but they

104

4 General Statistical Description of English …

have no case in Chinese. Chinese users prefer Pvs to express s and s more than English users. In our corpus, to represent s and s, English has 20 Pv cases, which account for about 10%; on the contrary, Chinese has 62 cases, accounting for 28.1% and ranking the second among all the forms realizing s and s. Text type analyses demonstrate that intra-linguistically subevents and constituents are realized similarly, but inter-linguistically there are both similarities and differences. Firstly, DEs and PEs are conceptualized alike in both original texts and their translations, but AEs are differently conceptualized due to the encoding of Motion in two languages. Secondly, Actants, Grounds, and Motion are realized on the whole similarly in English and Chinese, but Paths are differently represented. We find in both original and translated English texts Paths usually take the form of PPs, but in both translated and original Chinese texts Paths are mostly in the form of Pvs. So far we are able to answer the first half of the research questions posed in Sect. 3.2. Firstly, drawing on the conceptual structure analysis of English and Chinese TMEs, we contend that English and Chinese users segment TMEs alike. Furthermore, we contend that much conceptual structure is similar between English and Chinese DEs, and English and Chinese PEs. Different from DEs and PEs, AEs, however, are conceptualized differently in English and Chinese. In a word, English and Chinese TMEs resemble each other conceptually, but they display contrasting aspects in linguistic forms due to various reasons. This will be addressed in Chap. 5.

References in English Bohnemeyer, J., Enfield, N. J., Essegbey, J., Ibarretxe-Antuñano, I., Kita, S., Lüpke, F., & Ameka, F. K. (2007). Principles of event segmentation in language: The case of motion events. Language, 83(3), 495–532. Bohnemeyer, J., Enfield, N. J., Essegbey, J., & Kita, S. (2010). The macro-event property—The segmentation of causal chains. In J. Bohnemeyer & E. Pederson (Eds.), Event representation in language and cognition (pp. 43–67). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Chen, L. (2005). The acquisition and use of motion event expressions in Chinese. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Jackendoff, R. (1983). Semantics and cognition. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Rohde, A. (2001). Analyzing path: The interplay of verbs, prepositions and constructional semantics. Ph.D. dissertation, Rice University. Talmy, L. (1985). Lexicalization patterns. In T. Shopen (Ed.), Language typology and syntactic description (vol. 2): Grammatical categories and the lexicon (pp. 57–149). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Talmy, L. (1991). Path to realization: A typology of event conflation. In L. A. Sutton, C. Johnson, & R. Shields (Eds.), Proceedings of the Seventeenth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society (pp. 480–520). Berkeley: Berkeley Linguistics Society. Talmy, L. (2000). Toward a cognitive semantics (vol. II): Typology and process in concept structuring. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Chapter 5

Contrasting the Representation of TMEs in English and Chinese

5.1 Introduction While conceptualization lies deep, representation stays shallow. In Chapter 4 we investigate statistically the segmentation of TMEs and their conceptual representations in English and Chinese. To advance this investigation, the present chapter will surface further up to discuss their linguistic representation in English and Chinese. As a domain ubiquitous in human concept, Motion has its representations in each language. In the case of TMEs, they are universally conceptualized as having Actant, Grounds, Motion, Path, Manner, Cause and so on, but, owing to the specialties of each language, those Motion representations are usually languagespecific, even between typologically analogous languages. English and Chinese are two S-languages according to Talmy (1985, 1991, 2000b), but, for example, PPs are frequently employed to express the Goal Path in English, while in Chinese Pvs are more often utilized. In what follows we focus on 4 issues: (1) the representation of TMEs in English and Chinese as a whole, (2) rendition of TMEs between English and Chinese, (3) the representation of Motion event constituents in both English and Chinese, and (4) the reasons for such representations.

5.2 The Representation of English TMEs Motion is a domain universal to human conception, so is the translocative Motion. As a special kind of Motion events, TMEs are usually idealized as an Actant moving from Starting Point to Endpoint by way of midpoint. We hypothesize that this model is universal to human conception, and then the issue concerned is how to describe TMEs in different languages. In terms of the binary typology of Motion events by Talmy, world languages are classified as either verb-framing or satellite-framing considering where the core schema is expressed. To represent the same Motion event, French, © Shanghai Jiao Tong University Press 2021 G. Zheng, The Segmentation and Representation of Translocative Motion Events in English and Chinese Discourse, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-33-4037-4_5

105

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5 Contrasting the Representation of TMEs in English and Chinese

for example, a V-language, conflates Paths in verbs, while English, an S-language, typically expresses Paths in satellites; (41) instantiates this point. (41) a. Julie ran across the street. b. Julie traversa la rue en courant.

(41) represents the Motion event of Julie moving rapidly from one side of the street to the other side; what distinguishes (41a) from (41b) is the expression of Path. The Path that Julie follows in (41a) is realized by the satellite ‘across’, while in (41b) the Path is realized by the Motion verb ‘traversa’. Drawing on the statistical work in the previous chapter, the following two subsections are devoted to the analysis of the representation of English TMEs in original English texts and translated English texts to have a full view of the representation of English TMEs.

5.2.1 English TMEs in the Original Texts As summarized in Table 4.1, we have obtained 201 cases of English TME constructions and 224 cases of Chinese TME constructions from, respectively, two English novels and Chinese novels and their translations. Of those 201 English TME constructions 134 are from original English texts. And of those 134 cases 105 are factive and 29 are fictive. The percentages of the factive cases and the fictive ones in the original are, respectively, 78.4 and 21.6%. To be factive or fictive depends to a great extent on Actants. An animate Actant in a TME construction usually indicates its spontaneity and factivity, whereas an inanimate Actant regularly denotes its caused attributes and fictivity. As noted in the foregoing chapters, conceptually a TME contains a DE, a PE, and an AE, but, due to many reasons, in representation the TME constructions usually incorporate one or two subevents instead of three. This research concerns with constructions encoding at least two location changes, which is as a matter of fact an indicator of the amount of subevents encoded, therefore the constructions encoding merely one subevent are not within the scope of our analysis. Table 4.6 in Chapter 4 reveals that PEs constitute the least amount in comparison with AEs and DEs. The comparison shows that AEs and DEs are more attended to than PEs by language users in describing TMEs. In fact, the three subevents offer four possible compositions along the timeline, viz. DE + PE + AE, DE + PE, PE + AE and DE + AE.1 For the original English texts under investigation there are four cases of the DE + PE type, 75 of the DE + AE type and 55 of the PE + AE type, but no case is found of the DE + PE + AE or PE + PE type. Thus we may say that in original English texts DEs and AEs are more attended to, especially AEs. At the same time, of note in passing that some constructions may be of the form PE1 + PE2 + …PEn + AE, for example:

1 It is worthy

5.2 the Representation of English TMEs

107

however, PEs are relatively gapped. Additionally, finding no cases of the formulae DE + PE + AE and PE + PE does not entail their nonexistence in representation; it simply implies that these two formulae do not rank among the optimal modes of representation in original English texts. To describe DEs in original English texts, language users are found employing 12 forms, but mostly in the forms of PPNP (35 cases), PvPPNP (17 cases), MvPPNP (15 cases) and PvPPNP (three cases), as exemplified in (42): (42) a. Far below, the last excursion boatNP fromPP the Isles des LerinsNP

floatedMv

acrossPP

the

bayNP

like

a

Fourth-of-July balloon foot-loose in the heavens. b. …as if this were the exact moment when sheNP was comingPv fromPP a woodNP intoPP clear moonlightNP. c. SheNP dressed to an accompaniment of anxious heartbeats and ten minutes later steppedMv out ofPP the elevatorNP intoPP the dark lobbyNP. d. …but always when heNP turnedPv away fromPP herNP

intoPP himselfNP he left her holding Nothing in her hands and staring at it.

The tagging of these 4 constructions denotes that DEs here share the core structure PPNP, particularly the PPNP structure. As a matter of fact, over half of DEs in original English texts contain Motion, but as we have discussed beforehand, like an operator, Motion operates the whole event and is not a constituent belonging to certain specific subevent. In other words, Motion encoded in certain subevent implies nothing but the adjacency in representation between them. For example, all the Motion verbs in (42) can be displaced from the present subevent to another without inflicting much grammatical or semantic loss.2 What is more, to 下午的 光线NP 从PP 高大的 窗户NP 经过Pv xiawude guangxian cong gaodade chuanghu jingguo afternoon’s rays from tall windows pass 窗旁 雕花的 墙壁NP 斜射Mv 进 来Pv. chuangpang diaohuade qiangbi xieshe jin lai. window side embossed walls slant enter come. …the afternoon light… sloped through the embossed recesses of high windows.

Two passing subevents are segmentable herein, but as they contain also two types of subevents, we still classify such constructions as PE + AE. 2 Certainly, in terms of cognitive iconicity, the structure of language is an echo of the structure of the world; therefore, the structures of the constructions are not random and meaning is also not random.

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5 Contrasting the Representation of TMEs in English and Chinese

represent Path, satellites are as a rule called into play, proving the satellite-framing attribute of English held by Talmy (1985, 1991, 2000b, inter alia). For PEs we discover 7 representation forms in original English texts, among which the forms of PPNP (16 cases), MvPPNP (19 cases), PvNP (9 cases) and PvPPNP (8 cases) are most commonly seen. For the first form, (42a) serves as a good example, and (43a)–(43c) illustrate the rest 3 forms. (43) a. …her thoughtsNP, after resting a while on these things, had wanderedMv, byPP a concatenation of stages it might require some

subtlety to traceNP, to PP regions and objects charged with a more active appealNP. b. TheyNP wentPv together throughPP the vestibuleNP, toPP the door that opened on the courtNP; c. For her sake trainsNP …traversedPv the round belly of the continentNP toPP CaliforniaNP.

These tagged constructions show that the core structure in representing the PEs in original English texts is PPNP, and the Paths, similar to the Paths in DEs, are also represented mostly by satellites. Despite this similarity, there are 9 cases found lexicalizing Path in the Motion verb like (43c). Small though in amount, this arouses a valuable doubt about the status of English as a typical S-language. AEs, as we have shown in Chapter 3, boast of the largest amount and most various types. Altogether there are 130 cases of 19 representation forms found in original English texts. AEs are expressed mainly by means of PPNP (65 cases), Pv (14 cases), PPNP (13 cases), MvADV (7 cases), PvADV (7 cases), MvPPNP (4 cases), PvPPNP (4 cases) and This rings true generally, however, it usually does not cause significant damage to the construction to shift the representation sequence of the subevents in certain MEP constructions in English. Take (50c) for example, it may be rewritten as ‘She dressed to an accompaniment of anxious heartbeats and ten minutes later stepped into the dark lobby out of the elevator.’ The temporal sequence of the AE following the DE and PE is not violated because of the AE being represented before the DE. To note in passing, the effect of the rearrangement of the subevents in a MEP construction is not the same as that in the non-MEP constructions. Ungerer and Schmid (1996: 251) marks the following two constructions as ‘unacceptable’ because they breach the ‘iconic sequencing’: a. He poured himself a glass of wine and opened the bottle. b. He rode out into the sunset and jumped onto his horse. The two constructions here each contain two MEP clauses, hence different from what we are concerned with.

5.2 the Representation of English TMEs

109

PvPPNP (2 cases). (42b)–(42d), (43a), and (43b) instantiate well the form PPNP and (43c) the form PvPPNP (44) exemplifies the other 6 forms. (44) a. The old gentleman at the tea-tableNP, who had comePv fromPP AmericaNP thirty years before, b. …theyNP crossedPv the gardenNP towardPP the market umbrellaNP. c. Lord Warburton, whoNP had riddenMv overADV fromPP his own house, some ten miles distantNP, d. and when weNP camePv backADV fromPP LondonNP… e. Minute by minute the sweetnessNP drainedMv down intoPP herNP out ofPP the willow trees1NP, out of PP the dark world2NP. f. and since that time not a few patientsNP had comePv toPP himNP fromPP that stratum of Chicago and New YorkNP.

Dissimilar to DEs and PEs, the core structure of the AEs in original English texts is manifold. This dissimilarity can be accounted for from 3 aspects involving the AE Path types, the AE Ground types and the way Path and Grounds are represented. As for the first, in accordance with what we have discussed in Chapter 3, the AE Paths are of 2 types, namely and . In consistence with the AE Path types, the Grounds of AEs are categorized into two types, and . The third aspect is referred to due to the fact that both Paths and Grounds in AEs are represented through several means. In discussing the AE Paths above, we noted 27 cases are lexicalized in Motion verbs; in other words, Motion verbs become the conveyor of Paths, which are inherently nominal. 2 major AE forms (21 cases) express Path by Motion verbs, instead of satellites. This arouses again the doubt of classifying English as an Slanguage. The AE Grounds, which are also conceptually nominal, are found to be expressed by ADVs and Motion verbs. All these 3 factors complicate the issue of the core structure of AEs. Thus we believe the core structure of AEs should not be single as DEs and PEs. Structures like PPNP, Pv, PPNP, MvADV and PvADV can all be regarded as the core structures of AEs in original English texts. Taken as a whole, the English TMEs in the original texts are usually formed in the ways of DE + AE and PE + AE. To represent the

110

5 Contrasting the Representation of TMEs in English and Chinese

Table 5.1 The representation of TMEs in original English texts No.

DE + AE

Example

Amount

1.

PvPPNP + PPNP

(50b)

17

2.

MvPPNP + PPNP

(50c)

14

3.

PPNP + Pv

(52a)

13

4.

PPNP + MvADV

(52c)

6

5.

PPNP + PvADV

(52d)

6

No.

PE + AE

1.

MvPPNP + PPNP

(51a)

14

2.

PvPPNP + PPNP

(51b)

7

3.

PvNP + PPNP

(51c)

4

4.

PvNP + PPNP

(52b)

3

Amount

DE + AE structure, English users tend mostly to adopt the representation forms of PvPPNP + PPNP (16 cases), MvPPNP + PPNP (15 cases), PPNP + Pv (13 cases), and PPNP + MvADV (6 cases). To represent the PE+AE structure, the English users prefer the representation forms of MvPPNP + PPNP (14 cases), PvPPNP + PPNP (7 cases), PvNP + PPNP (4 cases) and PvNP + PPNP (3 cases). We tabulate this in Table 5.1 with examples noted in brackets.

5.2.2 English TMEs in the Translated Texts3 Table 4.1 displays that 67 cases of English TME constructions are found in the translated texts. Of these 47 are found to be factive ones and 20 fictive, hence the percentages between the factive cases and fictive ones in the translated texts are 70%:30%. In translated English texts, we find no case of the DE + PE + AE type, 2 of the DE + PE type, 52 of the DE + AE type, 12 of the PE + AE type and one of the PE + PE type. These figures demonstrate again the conclusion reached above that of the 3 subevents DE and AE, especially AE, receive more attention than PE in translated English texts. In describing DEs, translators make use of 6 forms, mainly PPNP (27 cases), PvPPNP (16 cases) and MvPPNP (8 cases). The core structure encoded in these DEs is therefore PPNP. To represent Path, only satellites are put to use. Comparing with the analysis above 3 For

this subsection we will not cite examples to illustrate the representing forms, as most of the forms to be listed can be interpreted by the examples in the previous subsection.

5.2 the Representation of English TMEs

111

about DEs in original English texts, we notice that the original texts and the translated texts are much overlapping in these aspects. In terms of PEs, we find 4 forms that translators adopt, viz. PPNP (7 cases), MvPPNP (5 cases), PvPPNP (3 cases) and FvPPNP (2 cases). Like PEs in original English texts, the core structure contained in these PEs is PPNP; dissimilar to PEs in original English texts, however, no case is found in the translated texts representing Path by Motion verbs, i.e., all the PE Paths here are represented by satellites. AEs are expressed in 12 forms and the major ones are PPNP (28 cases), PvADV (12 cases), PvPPNP (7 cases) and Pv (6 cases). Similar to AEs in original English texts, the core structure of the AEs here is also manifold. 3 of the above AE structures can be regarded as the core types, namely PPNP, PvADV and Pv, a subset of the AE core structures in original English texts. The reason for this manifoldness is that the constituents of AEs, namely Paths and Grounds here, have different realizations. Like what we have noted above, Path and Ground are conceptually nominal, but they are possibly to be incorporated in non-nominal categories. For the AE Paths here, based on Tables 4.20 and 4.21, three categories are made use of, viz., PPs, Pvs and ADVs. Of these only PPs are so-called satellites and quite a number of Paths (20 cases) are encoded in Motion verbs. This analysis casts again doubt on the validity of the Talmyan binary typology, by which English is a typical S-language. Grounds are realized in 4 ways: ADJs, ADVs, NPs and Pvs. Like in the original texts, ADVs also play much an important role in representing the translated AE Grounds. To sum up, identical to TMEs in original English texts, the translated TMEs are usually formed in the patterns of DE + AE and PE + AE too, though one case of the pattern DE + PE + AE is found. To represent the DE + AE structure, translators mostly seek to the forms of PvPPNP + PPNP (16 cases), PPNP + PvADV (10 cases), MvPPNP + PPNP (7 cases), PPNP + PvPPNP (6 cases) and PPNP + Pv (5 cases), relatively corresponding in amount to those summarized for the original texts. And since only 12 cases of the TMEs of the PE + AE structure are collected, it is risky to conclude upon such a basis that some structure(s) is/are the typical one(s). But we find that all the major representation forms of the PE + AE pattern in the original texts are also ones of relatively larger amount. For instance, the pattern MvPPNP + PPNP has 3 cases, and the patterns PvPPNP + PPNP and PPNP + PvADV have 2 cases. In comparison with Table 5.1, to represent the DE + AE pattern, the form PPNP + PvPPNP is more important in the translated texts than in the original texts; and to represent the PE + AE pattern, the form PPNP + PvADV seems more important in translated English texts. (45) instantiates these two forms.

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5 Contrasting the Representation of TMEs in English and Chinese

(45) a. FromPP itNP heNP could goPv on to

PP the establishment of a family and the setting up of a businessNP. b. He1NP broughtPv inADV his bedding2NP fromPP the doorwayNP.

We tabulate the findings in this subsection in Table 5.2. Combining Tables 5.1 and 5.2 we have Table 5.3, unveiling a relative panoramic view of the representation of TMEs in English. In brief, the human concept of an Actant moving from one place to Table 5.2 The representation of TMEs in translated English texts No.

DE + AE

Amount

1.

PvPPNP + PPNP

16 10

2.

PPNP + PvADV

3.

MvPPNP + PPNP

7

4.

PPNP + PvPPNP (53a)

6

5.

PPNP + Pv

No.

PE + AE

1.

MvPPNP + PPNP

5 Amount 3

2.

PvPPNP + PPNP

2

3.

PPNP + PvADV (53b)

2

For the examples of the forms not noted in this table refer to Table 5.1

Table 5.3 Major representations of TMEs in English texts No.

DE + AE

Amount

1.

PvPPNP + PPNP (50b)

33

2.

MvPPNP + PPNP (50c)

21

3.

PPNP + Pv (52a)

18 14

4.

PPNP + PvADV (52d)

5.

PPNP + MvADV (52c)

8

6.

PPNP + PvPPNP (53a)

7

7.

PPNP + MvPPNP (52e)

No.

PE + AE

Amount 17

4

1.

MvPPNP + PPNP (51a)

2.

PvPPNP + PPNP (51b)

9

3.

PvNP + PPNP (51c)

4

4.

PvNP + PPNP (52b)

3

5.

PPNP + PvADV (53b)

3

5.2 the Representation of English TMEs

113

another by way of certain reference point, either factive or fictive, is usually mapped onto the patterns of DE + AE and PE + AE by the English users. This mapping is evidenced in both original English texts and translated English texts as discussed above. To represent the DE + AE pattern, the English users usually select from the following ranking of the forms: PvPPNP + PPNP 4 MvPPNP + PPNP  PPNP + Pv  PPNP + PvADV  PPNP + PvPPNP PPNP + MvADV. And to represent the PE + AE pattern, English users select from the next ranking of the forms: MvPPNP + PPNP  PvPPNP + PPNP  PPNP + PvADV  PvNP + PPNP. The 2 rankings can be applied to both the factive TMEs and the fictive ones, which have fairly a close percentage (78.4%:21.6% and 70%:30%) in the original texts and in the translated texts. Paths encoded in DEs are always realized by satellites, but those contained in PEs and AEs, especially in AEs are not universally represented by satellites. Motion verbs also play an important role. Furthermore, the various representations of each subevent tend to share certain core structure in either the original texts or the translated texts, particularly DEs and PEs. For DEs it is PPNP and for PEs it is PPNP. The core structure of AEs tends to be manifold due to the types of Paths, the types of Grounds and their realization. Of them PPNP and PPNP are the prototypical ones. Two others types are also employed to represent TMEs in English, namely the DE + PE + AE type and the DE + PE type. As they are of very small amounts, we put them together here for analysis. The DE + PE + AE type has no case, demonstrating that the English users tend to avoid using such type of constructions. This, however, should not be interpreted as that an English TME construction cannot encode three subevents or three location-changes. (2) in Chapter 1 and (9a), (10a) etc. in Chapter 2 all attest the legitimacy of such constructions in English. For convenience we reproduce (9a) as (46a) here. The foregoing examples and the email survey show that this type usually takes the form MvPPNP + PPNP + PPNP, windowing (in the parlance of Talmy) each of the 3 subevents. In the English texts altogether 7 cases (4 in the original texts and 3 in the translated texts) of the DE + PE type are gathered. These cases are not of certain prototypical type, but all convey the sense of being unfinished (as exemplified in (46b)). Perhaps that is the reason why the DE + PE constructions are less favored. (46) a. Floyd went from Rochester via Batavia to Buffalo on the morning of June 8th. (Adapted from [Bohnemeyer et al. 2007]) b. Walking Mv south from PP the Xisi Arch NP through PP Xuanwumen Gate NP, the road stretched straight before him and he NP felt even more at a loss. 4 ‘>>’

reads as ‘preferable to’.

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5 Contrasting the Representation of TMEs in English and Chinese

5.3 The Representation of Chinese TMEs (41a) in Chinese is usually rendered as (47c): (47) a. Julie ran across the street. b. Julie traversa la rue en courant. c. 朱莉

跑着

穿过

马路。

Julie paozheASP chuanguo malu. Julie running

cross

street.

The difference between (47a) and (47c), similar to that between (47a) and (47b), lies in the way Path is represented. In (47a) it is by a satellite, but in (47c), like that in French, it is a Motion verb ‘穿过 (chunaguo cross)’. If this is understandable between English and French, as the latter is a typical V-language, it is confusing to be so between English and Chinese, two typical S-languages in the parlance of Talmy. Like Sect. 5.2, this section also has two subsections devoted respectively to the representation of Chinese TMEs in the original texts and in the translated texts on the basis of Chapter 3. In addition, besides comparing original Chinese texts and translated Chinese texts in representing TMEs, we also conduct a contrastive analysis between English and Chinese with the goal of uncovering the interlinguistic similarities and dissimilarities in representing TMEs.

5.3.1 Chinese TMEs in the Original Texts Table 4.1 indicates that 224 cases of Chinese TME constructions are collected from the original texts and translated texts, among which 71 are from the original and 153 are from the translated. Among the 71 original cases, 50 cases are factive TMEs and 21 cases are fictive. Thus the percentages of the factive and fictive ones here are, respectively, 70 and 30%, the same as that in translated English texts. As for the 4 possible compositions of the three subevents in original Chinese texts, we do not find the DE + PE + AE type case, but 2 cases of the DE + PE type, 60 cases of the DE + AE type, and 9 cases of the PE + AE type. These findings prove again, similar to that in the English texts, the predominance of DEs and AEs, especially AEs, over PEs. Moreover, these findings also reveal that among the 4 types, DE + AE and PE + AE, particularly DE + AE, are mostly preferred. DEs in original Chinese texts take 7 forms, far less than those in original English texts. 4 of these 7 forms represent 95% of all the DEs in original Chinese texts. These

5.3 the Representation of Chinese TMEs

115

are: PPNP (48 cases), PPADJ (4 cases), NP (3 cases) and PvNP (3 cases). (48) instantiates these forms. (48) a. 他1NP 从PP 西山NP ta

cong

He

from

拉Mv

the Western Hills

la

the Western Hills

pull

回Pv 三十匹

骆驼2NP！

hui

30piUNIT

luotuo

back

30

camels!

…

he1NP

had

ledPv

thirty

camels2NP

backADV fromPP the Western HillsNP. b. 刘四爷的

脸NP 由PP 红ADJ

Liu Siyede

lian

Liu No. 4 grandpa’s face

you

hong

from

red

而CONJ 白ADJ… er

bai.

CONJ

white.

The old man’s faceNP changedPv fromPP redNP toPP whiteNP. c. 院中NP 出 yuanzhong yard middle …an

old

chu

lai

老者NP……

geUNIT laozhe

exit come

manNP

yardNP.

来Pv 个

camePv

old man out

of

PP

the

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5 Contrasting the Representation of TMEs in English and Chinese

出Pv 门NP

d. 他NP 总是 ta

zongshi chu

he

always

men

exit

gate

就奔Pv 东城NP…… jiu ben

dongcheng…

run for

east city…

…he had always gone out the gate and toward the East City… e. 从PP 外面NP 又 cong

waimian

from

outside

一男一女

you

进 jin

again enter 两个

来Pv lai come 青年NP。

yinanyinv

lianggeUNIT

qingnian.

one man one woman

two

youngman.

A young man and a girl came in.

These tagged constructions demonstrate that, unlike the core structure in original English texts, here it seems rather unclear, as the form of PPNP is not encoded in other forms. A closer look reveals that over 80% of the DEs in original Chinese texts encode the form PPNP. Besides, Path, Motion and Grounds are variously represented in the original texts. Take Path for example, it has not only satellite representations, also Motion verb, CONJ and NP representations. All these forms, thus, compose a much more complex situation of the representation of DEs in original Chinese texts than that in original English texts, but with PPNP as the leading representation form. PEs in original Chinese texts are represented in 3 forms: PvNP (7 cases), PPNP (5 cases) and MvPvNP (one case) (49) illustrates these 3 forms:

5.3 the Representation of Chinese TMEs

(49) a.（我）NP 还是

117

绕Pv 西山NP

(wo)

haishi

rao

the Western Hills

(I)

still

circle

the Western Hills

回

来Pv 的……

hui

lai

de.

return come. I NP went the long way roundPP the Western HillsNP. b. 你NP……打PP 后院NP 跳Mv ni…

da

houyuan

tiao

You

from

backyard

jump

到Pv 王家NP

去Pv。

dao

qu.

wangjia

arrive

the Wangs’ yard

go.

(You) NP … jumpedMv overPP the back wall NP intoPP the Wangs’ yardNP. c. （祥子）NP

紧跟着

(Xiang Zi)

jingenzhe

(Xiang Zi)

closely following

墙头NP，跳Mv 了 qiangtou

tiao

wall top

jump

又

爬Mv 上Pv

you

pa

again climb 过

leASP guo pass

shang up

去Pv。 qu. go.

…heNP quickly climbedPv upADV on toPP the wallNP andCONJ jumpedMv downADV onPP the other sideNP.

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5 Contrasting the Representation of TMEs in English and Chinese

We notice that the two forms of PvNP and PPNP lay the basis for PE representation in original Chinese texts, hence the core structures. Furthermore, in PE representation Motion verbs and satellites are commonly employed to express Paths and seem to be of equal importance. As said in Chapter 4 and in the previous subsection, AEs are most numerous in amount and various in types. Altogether 22 types of representation are found expressing the 69 cases of the AEs here. Ten of these 22 types are more commonly utilized by Chinese users than the other ones, accounting for about 83%. These 10 types and their amount are summarized in Table 5.4. To illustrate these 10 types, (48a) and (49c) serves well for type one, (48c), (48e), and (49a) for type 3, (48d) for type 5, (49b) for type 7, and (48b) for type 10 (50) exemplifies the other 5 types. Table 5.4 10 major arrival types and amount of AEs in original Chinese texts No.

Arrival types

Amount

1.

MvPv

14

2.

PvNP

9

3.

Pv

9

4.

MvPvNP

7

5.

PvNP

4

6.

FvPvNP

4

7.

MvPv1 NPPv2

3

8.

CoVPvNP

3

9.

CoVNP

2

10.

CONJADJ

2

5.3 the Representation of Chinese TMEs

119

(50) a. 水

那点

凉气NP，由PP 口腔NP

shui nadian liangqi

you

water that

from

coolness

kouqiang mouth

到Pv 胃中NP…… dao

weizhong…

arrive

stomach.

TricklingFv

downPP

his

throatNP

toPP

his

stomachNP it NP made him shiver b.（祥子）NP 象

由PP 一个世界NP

(Xiang Zi)

xiang

you

yige shijie

(Xiang Zi)

like

from

one

跳Mv 到Pv 另一个 tiao

dao

jump

arrive

world

世界NP……

lingyige shijie… another

world…

…as if … heNP had jumpedMv fromPP one worldNP toPP anotherNP. c. 汗NP 从PP 头上NP 一直

流Fv

han

cong

toushang

yizhi

liu

Sweat

from

head top

always

follow

到Pv 脚后跟NP。 dao arrive

jiaohougen. heel.

The sweatNP poured Mv out of him fromPP his headNP to PP his heelsNP. d. (祥子) NP 由PP 买车NP 便想CoV (Xiang Zi)

you

maiche

bianxiang

(Xiang Zi)

from

buy vehicle

then think

到Pv 小福子NP。

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5 Contrasting the Representation of TMEs in English and Chinese

dao

Little Lucky One.

arrive

Little Lucky One.

…when he thought of buying the rickshaw he remembered Little Lucky One. e. 由PP 这身 you

zhe shen

From

this

自己 原来 ziji his

穿着的

破军衣NP，他NP 想起CoV pojunyi old uniform 白布

yuanlai chuanzhede baibu former wearing

ta

xiangqi

he 小褂 xiaogua

think of 与 yu

那套

阴丹士林蓝的

natao

yindanshilinlande

white cloth small jacket and that set

blue coat

夹裤褂NP…… jiakugua… trousers… Looking at these tattered clothes, he thought of the small white jacket and the blue coat and trousers he had originally been wearing…

It is evident that the core representation structure of the AEs here is manifold. Inspecting more closely these representations we find the reasons behind this manifoldness, which are the same as those giving rise to the manifoldness of the AE representation in original English texts. These are the AE Path types, the AE Ground types and the way by which Path and Ground are represented. Special attention should be paid to the representation of Paths. We have discovered that 27 cases of AE Paths are lexicalized in Motion verbs in original English texts and 20 in translated English texts and question the typology of classifying English as a typical S-language. More Chinese AE Paths cases are found. Based on our statistical work, we discover that among the 69 AEs in original Chinese texts, only 4 cases of Paths are represented by satellites and the Paths in the rest AEs are mostly expressed by Motion verbs. Suppose we agree with Talmy regarding Path as the core schema of a Motion event and its expression as the criteria judging the typology of certain language, the status of Chinese as an S-language is heavily doubted. While 2 core structures are ascertained for PEs, it seems a huge work to settle which is/are the core structure(s) of AEs in original Chinese texts. Checking again the representation types, however, we dig out 3 core structures underlying the intricacy. Type 3 is encoded in type one, type 2 is encoded in type 4, 6, 8 and even 7. Type 5, owing to its different Path types and Ground types, stands as one type. Thus we have the following 3 core representation

5.3 the Representation of Chinese TMEs

121

Table 5.5 The representation of TMEs in original Chinese texts No.

DE + AE

Amount

1.

PPNP + MvPv (48a)

10

2.

PPNP + MvPvNP (50b)

7

3.

PPNP + PvNP (50a)

7

4.

PPNP + FvPvNP (50c)

4

5.

PPNP + Pv (48e)

No.

PE + AE

1.

PPNP + MvPv (49b)

4 Amount 2

structures for AEs in original English texts: (Mv)Pv, (Verb)PvNP and PvNP. In brief, like English TMEs, TMEs in original Chinese texts are also usually formed in the ways of DE + AE and PE + AE. Chinese users favor the representation forms of PPNP + MvPv (10 cases), PPNP + MvPvNP (7 cases), PPNP + PvNP (7 cases), PPNP + FvPvNP (4 cases), and PPNP + Pv (4 cases). Together, as summarized in Table 5.5, they compose the ranking of TME forms of the DE + PE pattern for users to select. As said above, 9 cases of the PE + AE pattern are found. The representations of this pattern do not cluster in any type-the most numerous type has just 2 cases: PPNP + MvPv. We summarize these findings in Table 5.5 with examples noted in brackets.

5.3.2 Chinese TMEs in Translated Texts Table 4.1 indicates there are 153 cases of Chinese TME constructions in translated Chinese texts. Of those 123 are factive and 30 fictive, therefore the percentages of the factive and fictive is 80 and 20%. While this is a bit higher than that in original Chinese texts, it approximates that in original English texts. For the subevent composition type, we get 5 cases of the DE + PE + AE type, one being the DE + PE type, 89 being the DE + AE type, 58 being the PE + AE type, laying bare again that DEs and AEs are the foci of representation in TMEs. To represent the 95 DEs, 12 forms are made use of in translated Chinese texts. These are mainly PPNP (72 cases), PvNP (6 cases), NP (5 cases) and PvNP (3 cases), totaling about 91% of all the DEs here. Except for the form PvNP, the other three forms have been instantiated in Sect. 5.3.1; we repeat (37c) here as (51) to exemplify it.

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5 Contrasting the Representation of TMEs in English and Chinese

(51)他们NP 离开Pv 房子NP 朝PP tamen

likai

they

leave

fangzi house

chao toward

海堤NP 走Mv 去Pv。 haidi

zou

seawall

walk

TheyNP…

qu go.

bornePv

away

fromPP

the

houseNP

towardPP the seaside wallNP…

In terms of the core structures, though the form PPNP totals nearly 76% of all the DEs in translated Chinese texts, it, however, is not encoded in other forms. Therefore, the core structures of DEs in translated Chinese texts, like that in the original texts, become unclear. In English DEs, Paths are mostly expressed by satellites, but there are also quite many cases lexicalizing Paths in Motion verbs, NPs, ADJs, which resemble Paths in original Chinese texts. The 68 PE cases here are described by translators in 5 forms, but mainly 3, PvNP (37 cases), PPNP (27 cases) and MvPvNP (2 cases), as represented in (48a)–(48c). Identical to PEs in original Chinese texts, the 2 forms PvNP and PPNP constitute the core structures of PEs in translated Chinese texts. These, therefore, become the core structures of Chinese PEs. As for the representation of PE Paths, identical again to the original texts, both Motion verbs and satellites are constantly employed. This certainly differs from English PEs, which employ only satellites. These 9 forms account for about 89% of all the DEs here and types 1–6 are exemplified in order in (50a), (48c) and (49a), (50b), (48d), (49c), (51). The rest 3 are illustrated in (52).

5.3 the Representation of Chinese TMEs

123

(52) a. 他NP 经常

越过Pv 佣人NP，

ta

jingchang

yueguo

yongren,

He

often

surpass

servants

直接

照看 PvMv 孩子们NP。

zhijie zhaokan

haizimen.

directly look after

children.

He NP managed to reachPv themNP over PP the heads of employeesNP…

b. 海岸边NP 刮来的

一阵

haianbian

gualaide yizhen

seaside

blown

a gust

强劲的

北风NP

qiangjinde

beifeng

strong

north wind

扫Mv 向PP 埃斯特拉NP…… sao

xiang

the Esterel…

sweep

toward

the Esterel…

…and a few gusts of mistralNP fromPP downPP the coastPP seepedPvMv throughPP the EsterelNP … c. ……她NP 只是 …… ta …. she

决定CoV 从PP

zhishi jueding

cong

only decide

from

尤斯顿广场NP 步行Mv 返回Pv 旅馆NP。 Euston Square

buxing

fanhui

lvguan.

Euston Square

walk

return

hotel.

…sheNP chose simply to walkMv backADV fromPP Euston SquareNP toPP her hotelNP.

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5 Contrasting the Representation of TMEs in English and Chinese

It is evident that there is not one single type of core structure due to the reasons mentioned in Sects. 5.2 and 5.3.1. Table 5.6 denotes that, like in Table 5.4, inclusion relationships exist among the 9 types here: type one is encoded in type 3, type 2 in type 5, type 4 in type 9. From this we conclude 6 types of AE core structures in translated Chinese texts: (Mv)Pv, (Mv)PvNP, PPNPMvPv, (Mv)PvNP, PvMv5 and MvPPNP. The first 3 of these core structures overlap the 3 core structures in the original texts. The rest 3, which do not overlap, can also be found in our original Chinese corpus. For the representation of Paths, altogether 10 cases of the AE Paths are expressed by satellites, while the rest are all lexicalized in Motion verbs, which casts the doubt again on Chinese’s typological belonging. To summarize, TMEs in translated Chinese texts are also mostly formed in the patterns of DE + AE and PE + AE. 5 cases of the pattern DE + PE + AE are obtained here, a big number in comparison with those in other text types though, but it is still significantly small in amount. The patterns of DE + AE and PE + AE are generally represented by the major forms (at least 3 cases) as listed in Table 5.7: Table 5.6 9 major arrival types and the amount of AEs in translated Chinese texts

No.

Arrival types

Amount

1.

PvNP

57

2.

Pv

21

3.

MvPvNP

17

4.

PvNP

14

5.

MvPv

11

6.

PPNPMvPv

6

7.

PvMv

5

8.

MvPPNP

2

9.

MvPvNP

2

5 The structure PvMv refers a group of Motion verbs bearing both Path and Manner features,

e.g. ‘照看 (zhaokan look after)’, which not only lexicalizes a goal Path but the Manner of taking care.

5.3 the Representation of Chinese TMEs

125

Comparing Tables 4.5 and 4.7, we can see that the expression forms of the DE + AE pattern in translated Chinese texts constitute a subset of those in the original texts, only one form among the top 5 being different, viz. PPNP + FvPvNP. The PE + AE pattern in the translated texts claims far greater an amount (59 cases) than that in the original texts (10 cases), resulting in that the representation forms of the translated texts seem to cluster closer than those in the original texts, whose representation forms are of a subset of those in the translated texts. For the forms 1–4 of the PE + AE pattern, which have not been exemplified beforehand, we cite from the translated texts here and note in brackets in Table 5.7. Table 5.7 Major representations of TMEs in translated Chinese texts No.

DE + AE

Amount

1.

PPNP + PvNP

25

2.

PPNP + Pv

18

3.

PPNP + MvPvNP

4.

PPNP + MvPv

No.

PE + AE

Amount

1.

PvNP + PvNP (53a)

17

2.

PPNP + PvNP (53b)

3.

PvNP + Pv (53c)

3

4.

PA R>PPNP + PPNPMvPv (53d)

3

5.

PPNP + MvPv

3

9 4

7

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5 Contrasting the Representation of TMEs in English and Chinese

(53) 渡过Pv

a.一个人NP 苦苦 yigeren

kuku

duguo

One man

painfully swim across

大西洋NP 来到Pv 这儿NP…… daxiyang

laidao

zhe’er…

the Atlantic

come arrive

here…

…oneNP had crossed Pv that odious AtlanticNP… b. 她NP 沿着PP 高高的 ta

yanzheASP

She

following

楼梯NP

gaogaode louti tall

staircase

到了Pv 楼上NP。 daoleASP

loushang.

arrived

upstairs.

…she NP ascendedPv the high staircase NP which leads to the upper chambers . c. 他NP 才

远涉Pv 重洋NP

ta

cai yuanshe

chongyang

He

begin far cross

several oceans

跟踪

前来Pv。

genzong qianlai. follow

here come.

…he NP was followingPv her NP acrossPP the seaNP. d. 教廷

歌手的

声音NP 从PP 麇集

在

门口的

jiaoting geshoude shengyin

cong

qunji zai menkoude

Pope's

from

cluster at

人群

singers’ voices

gate

头上NP 向PP 他们NP 飘Mv 来Pv……

renqun toushang

xiang

tamen

piao

lai…

5.3 the Representation of Chinese TMEs

crowd

head up

toward

127

they

float

come…

The voices of the Pope's singersNP were borneCv toPP themNP overPP the heads of the large number of persons clustered outside the doorsNP…

Motion here is placed mostly in AEs and PEs, but very rarely in DEs. This placement of Motion is similar to that in original Chinese texts, but different from that in either original English texts or translated English texts. Furthermore, the two kinds of texts also overlap in terms of Path and Ground representations. Most of DE Paths and part of PE Paths are conflated in satellites, while most AE Paths and the rest of PE Paths are conflated in Motion verbs. As for Grounds, NPs, ADJs and Motion verbs are usually made use of. Therefore, we conclude that original Chinese texts and translated Chinese texts display similar tendency in representing TMEs as well as Motion event constituents. Combining Tables 5.5 and 5.7, we have Table 5.8 to present the ranking of TME representation forms in Chinese. Similar to English users, Chinese users also occasionally represent TMEs in the types of DE + PE + AE and DE + PE. 2 cases ((54)) are found in translated Chinese texts (no case in original Chinese texts) and represented in the forms of PPNP + MvPv and + PvNP PPNP + PvNP + PvNP. Comparing these with those of English TMEs, we find the biggest difference lies in the placement of Motion. While in English it is typically wedged in DEs, it is contained in PEs and AEs in Chinese in our corpus.6 Relative to this, SVCs are as Table 5.8 Major representations of TMEs in Chinese texts No.

DE + AE

Amount

1.

PPNP + PvNP (50a)

29

2.

PPNP + Pv (48e)

22

3.

PPNP + MvPvNP (50b)

16

4.

PPNP + MvPv (48a)

15

5.

PPNP + FvPvNP (50c)

No.

PE + AE

Amount

1.

PvNP + PvNP (53a)

17

2.

PPNP + PvNP (53b)

7

3.

PPNP + MvPv (49b)

5

4.

PvNP + Pv (53c)

4

5.

PPNP + PPNPMvPv (53d)

3

6.

PvNP + PvMvNP (52a)

3

6 But,

5

introspectively, we find it is also sound in Chinese to place the Motion in DEs. For example, factive constructions like 56b can be adapted as:

128

5 Contrasting the Representation of TMEs in English and Chinese

a rule employed in the Chinese DE + PE + AE constructions and thus PE and AE Paths are always lexicalized in Motion verbs. This again questions the Talmyan conclusion of categorizing Chinese as an S-language. (54) a. ……微弱的

光线NP 从PP 旅馆的

weiruode guangxian weak

rays

cong

lvguande

from

hotel’s

院子NP yuanzi yard

通过Pv 窗口NP 射Mv 进来Pv…… tongguo

chuangkou

through

window

she shoot

jinlai… enter come…

…a vague radianceNP sent Mv upADV through PP the window NP from PP the court of the hotelNP… b. 迪克NP……从PP 那里NP 抄Pv Dick

cong

Dick

from

nali there

chao take

近道NP 回Pv 诊所NP。 jindao

hui

zhensuo.

short way

return

clinic.

HeNP had turnedPv upPP a hill that made a short cut to the clinicNP…

The Chinese texts also provides 2 cases of DE + PE, one from the original texts (55a) and one from the translated texts (55b):

迪克NP 开车Mv 从PP 那里NP Dick kaiche cong nali Dick drive car from there 抄Pv 近道NP 回Pv 诊所NP. chao jindao hui zhensuo. take short way return clinic. DickNP had driven Mv from PP thereNP that made a short cut to the clinicNP…

5.3 the Representation of Chinese TMEs

129

(55) a. （祥子）

从PP 北辛庄NP，往PP 北NP，

(Xiang Zi) cong

Beixinzhuang

wang

(Xiang Zi) from

Beixinzhuang

toward

bei north

过Pv 魏家村NP…… guo

Weijiacun…

pass

Weijiacun…

…he’dNP better …headFv north ADV from

PP BeixinzhuangNP, throughPP Weijiazhuang NP… b. 最后一班

从PP 雷林群岛NP 返回的

zuihou yiban cong

the Isles des Lerins

Last flight from

the Isles des Lerins

fanhuide

游船NP youchuan

returned

yacht

划Mv 过Pv 海湾NP…… hua

guo

row

pass

haiwan… bay…

…the last excursion boat NP fromPP the Isles des LerinsNP floated Mv acrossPP the bayNP…

(55a) describes part of the route of Xianzi’s coming back to Beijing. Apparently, the route is not finished here. Like (53a), (55b) sets the scene of an excursion boat back from the Isles des Lerin floating across the bay. This description stands also merely a part of the boat’s voyage. The analysis here proves that, similar to English DE + PE constructions, a kind of incompletion gets expressed through such constructions.

5.3.3 English and Chinese TME Constructions: A Comparison Comparing Tables 5.1 and 5.5, we can summarize the major similarities and distinctions between English and Chinese representations of TMEs in the original texts. First of all, just one representation pattern of the 5 top patterns in each language is shared, namely PPNP + Pv. Furthermore, the only Motion verb is wedged in possibly any of the subevents in English, but in Chinese it seems that Motion verbs are most preferred in AEs. This results in that while Motion is encoded in some English AEs, it makes its appearance in every Chinese AEs. Besides, the representations of each Motion event constituent are also worthy of attention, especially that of Motion, Paths and Grounds. In English we find that

130

5 Contrasting the Representation of TMEs in English and Chinese

Motion is lexicalized regularly in one Motion verb, but in Chinese it is constantly expressed by SVCs. In English one subevent containing Motion verb as a rule implies the nonexistence of Motion verb in other subevent(s). It is not the case in Chinese, as SVCs can map Motion verbs onto any subevent and even 2 onto one subevent. In English, Paths are more expressed by satellites, particularly in DEs, and part of Paths in PEs and AEs are lexicalized in Motion verbs. Similar to English, Paths in Chinese DEs are also realized by satellites, but in Chinese PEs and AEs, Paths are commonly lexicalized in Motion verbs. Grounds are conceptually nominal, but their representations are not all nominal in English. They can also be verbal, adverbial or adjectival in English, especially adverbial. In Chinese, Grounds can also be verbal or adjectival, but it seems hard to be adverbial. For the representations of Motion event constituents we will discuss in detail in Sect. 5.5. The TME representation differences between translated English texts and translated Chinese texts are brought out through the comparison between Tables 5.2 and 5.7. We find that, the same as that indicated by the comparison between original English texts and original Chinese texts, only the form PPNP + Pv is shared between translated English and translated Chinese texts. Although this comparison can not fully justify that the English and Chinese users just have one way in common in expressing TMEs, it at least proves that TMEs are vastly different in representation in English and Chinese. In fact, we have aligned the representations of the 201 English TME constructions and those of the 224 Chinese TMEs to make sure how many representation forms overlap. The alignment shows that PPNP + Pv is the only major representation form that is shared between English users and Chinese users.7 In addition, the representations of Paths and Grounds are also different. The Paths of DEs and PEs in translated English TMEs are unanimously expressed by satellites. In translated Chinese texts, however, Paths are differently realized. The Paths of DEs are commonly by satellites, but the Paths of PEs are realized almost equally by satellites and Motion verbs. The AE Paths in translated English and Chinese texts are both expressed by satellites and Motion verbs, but they are of differing roles in each language. Of the 64 translated English AEs, 43 employ satellites to represent Path and 21 lexicalize it in Motion verbs. The situation gets totally reversed with the 152 translated Chinese AEs: only 11 have their Paths expressed by satellites and the rest are nearly all by Motion verbs. Grounds in translated English texts are found represented by NPs, Motion verbs, ADJs and ADVs. In Chinese translated texts, however, no case is found encoding Ground in ADVs. In all, the text types do not exert as great an influence as that by language types in representing conceptually similar TMEs. The foregoing analysis has demonstrated that both English users and Chinese users mostly adopt the DE + AE or PE + AE patterns to convey TMEs, but refrain from utilizing the patterns of DE + PE and DE + PE + AE. Another similarity between English and Chinese TMEs lies in the ratio between factive constructions and fictive ones. People think alike, but 7 This

conclusion is not intended to be final, for, in view of the size and style of our corpus, it may await further investigation on a larger scale.

5.3 the Representation of Chinese TMEs

131

they externalize differently. The original English overlap translated English texts in factivity-fictivity ratio, the core structures of subevents and the representations of Motion event constituents. Similar overlapping is noticed between original Chinese texts and the translated Chinese texts. But inter-linguistically, English and Chinese TMEs seem to have more dissimilarities than similarities in representation. Overall, only one major representation type is shared between English and Chinese in our corpus, namely PPNP + Pv. Due to the size and style limitations of our corpus, this conclusion awaits more justification, though, this at least gives evidence of the distinctions between English and Chinese TME constructions. In English TME constructions, the only Motion verb can be seen in possibly any subevent, but, as Chinese permitting SVCs, Motion verbs are firstly not only one in amount, and secondly can be placed in any subevent, especially AEs. Paths encoded in each subevent are also variously realized in English and Chinese, not as that unanimously as Talmy has claimed. In general, English and Chinese Paths in DEs are usually represented by satellites, but in PEs and AEs the two languages differ sharply. Over 87% of English PE Paths are realized by satellites, while the percent of Chinese PE Paths realized by satellites is about 41%. In terms of AEs, about 69% English Paths are expressed by satellites, while in Chinese it is only about 7%. Therefore, supposing the Talmyan claim that the Path realization is the critical yardstick categorizing the world languages holds water, English and Chinese can not be tugged into the same camp. The representations of Grounds are also a factor distinguishing English and Chinese. As a nominal concept Grounds are typically realized by NPs in either English or Chinese or perhaps any other world languages. This is particularly applicable to English and Chinese DE and PE Grounds. Such a general depiction, however, does not conceal everything. In the representation of AE Grounds, over 70% English AE Grounds are by NPs, over 17% by ADVs and about 10% by Motion verbs. The case of Chinese AEs is another way round. While NPs are still the main conveyor (53%), Motion verbs are the second, conveying over 28% of the AE Grounds and no case is found of ADVs, the second form in English. We also make efforts to investigate the core structures of the 3 subevents in English and Chinese, which are summarized in Table 5.9. Table 5.9 Core structures of the subevents in English and Chinese Subevents

English

Chinese

DE

PPNP

PPNP

PE

PPNP

PvNP; PPNP

AE

PPNP; PPNP (Mv)PvNP; (Mv)Pv; (Mv)PvNP; PPNPMvPv; PvMv; MvPPNP

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5 Contrasting the Representation of TMEs in English and Chinese

This demonstrates that, except for DEs, English and Chinese subevents possess different core structures in representation, especially AEs, no identical structure found between the two languages. This finding may imply a tendency of growing distance between the representations of TMEs in English and Chinese along the timeline.

5.4 Renditions of TMEs Between English and Chinese In Chapter 4, Table 4.1 offers the summary that 201 cases of English TME constructions and 224 cases of Chinese TME constructions are obtained in our corpus. The distance between them reflects that English and Chinese TME constructions are not always the natural counterparts for each other. Further investigations (Tables 4.2 and 4.3) also indicate that the TME constructions from original English texts or the TME constructions from original Chinese texts are not matched exactly with the TME constructions in TL. So are the TME constructions from translated texts. This asymmetry features mainly subevent loss, MEP loss or state change, which disqualify constructions to be studied. By subevent loss we mean that a TME construction originally encoding, for example two subevents, becomes a one-subevent construction. The construction still retains MEP, but as our investigation is concerned with constructions containing at least two location-changes, each symbolizing a subevent, the construction is thus disqualified. (56a) encodes two subevents of location-changes (脚底下 jiaodixia and 被筒 beitong) and has MEP, but when put into English as (56a ) by translator only one subevent of location-change (his blanket) is retained. By MEP loss we mean the construction under study violates the MEP requirements, for example the temporal scope or the vector constraint. Both (56b) and (56b ) encode two subevents of location-changes (干校 and 北京 in (56b), the cadre school and Beijing in (56b )). While the two subevents in (56b) are under the scope of the same temporal operator, the two in (56b ) are not, since they permit the conjunction ‘and’ to be inserted between them and thus give up MEP. By state change we mean that certain TMEs become non-TMEs in TL and hence are kicked out. (56c) depicts the process of ‘the fetid odors and the din’ drifting inside from without, profiling both the Starting Point (the small compound) and the Endpoint (the tiny room). Contrary to the location-change depicted in (56c), (56c ) blurs DE and AE into one and reports simply the result of the translocation, hence constituting a non-dynamic construction.

5.4 Renditions of TMEs Between English and Chinese

133

(56) a. 一股 凉风NP 从PP 脚底下NP yigu liangfeng

cong

jiaodixia

One cold gust

from

foot bottom

钻Mv 进Pv 被筒NP。 zuan

jin

beitong.

slip

enter

quilt.

b. （方文煊NP）从PP 干校NP Fang Wenxuan

cong

ganxiao

Fang Wenxuan

from

cardre’s school

回Pv 北京NP…… hui

Beijing…

return

Beijing…

c. … you forget the fetid odors and the dinNP comingPv into PP the tiny roomNP from PP the small compoundNP. a′. A cold breeze NP sweepsMv underPP his blanketNP. b′. When theyNP leftPv the cadre schoolNP andCONJ returnedPv toPP BeijingNP… c′. 人 ren

就会 忘记

这小屋、

小院里的

jiuhui wangji zhexiaowu, xiaoyuanlide

气味 和 嘈杂。 qiwei he caoza.

People will forget this small house, small yard’s odor and noise. … you forget the fetid odors and the dinNP comingPv into PP the tiny roomNP from PP the small compoundNP.

Based on Chapter 4, the constructions that do not strike tally are classified into 3 groups, those whose subevents have been reduced to only one in Chinese (Group 1 as G1), those that have the same amount of subevents but lose MEP in the process

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5 Contrasting the Representation of TMEs in English and Chinese

of translation (Group 2 as G2), and those that experience state change (Group 3 as G3). In accordance with such a categorization, the present section is devoted to uncovering the changes that TME constructions experience in these three aspects during the English-Chinese rendition.

5.4.1 From English Constructions to Chinese Constructions As Table 4.2 indicates, 134 cases of TME constructions are obtained in original English texts, but only 112 of them are translated as Chinese TME constructions, leaving 22 cases as disqualified constructions in Chinese. In another way, in translated English texts we collect 67 cases of TME constructions, but just 46 of them have corresponding MEP forms in original Chinese texts, implying that 21 cases are originally disqualified constructions in Chinese. We tabulate our findings in Table 5.10. Table 5.10 demonstrates that the most compelling reason for the imbalance between the English and Chinese TME constructions is the reduction of subevents to only one. In other words, the gapping (Talmy 1996, 2000a: Chap. 4) of certain subevent in the process of the language transition leads to the imbalance. This is shown in (57a), in which DE and AE are both profiled, but DE is relatively gapped in (57a ), leaving only a trace (在苏黎士看完电影 zai Zurich kanwan dianying after the movies in Zurich) functioning as the background of the Motion event. Like (57a ) most subevent reductions happen to DEs, and very few to PEs and AEs. Of the 20 cases losing subevents 13 are of the DE + AE pattern and 7 of the PE + AE pattern. After being translated, 12 of those constructions become single AE constructions, 5 single PE constructions and 3 single DE constructions. In other words, 10 DEs (77%) disappear, but for PEs and AEs there are, respectively, 2 (28%) and eight (40%), contrasting sharply with DEs. Table 5.10 TME constructions from English to Chinese

Original English texts

Translated English texts

Subtotal

G1

8

12

20

G2

13

2

15

G3

1

7

8

5.4 Renditions of TMEs Between English and Chinese

135

(57) a. a vivid shadow that she had fretted bitterly upon one night as theyNP were drivingMv

homeADV

fromPP

the

movies

in

ZurichNP. a′. (NP)可 那天

晚上

在 苏黎士

看完

电影

ke natian wanshang zai Zurich kanwan But that day night at

开车Mv

dianying kaiche

Zurich watch finish film

drive car

回Pv 家NP…… hui

jia…

return

home…

b. HenriettaNP declared, lookingMv fromPP IsabelNP toPP Lord WarburtonNP. b′. 亨利艾塔NP……看看Pv 伊莎贝尔NP1， Henrietta Henrietta

Kankan

Isabel

look look

Isabel

又 CONJ 看看Pv 沃伯顿勋爵NP2. you

kankan

Lord Warburton.

again

look look

Lord Warburton.

c. So the well-to-do AmericansNP pouredFv throughPP the stationNP ontoPP the platformsNP… c′. 有钱的

美国人NP 涌进Pv 了

youqiande meiguoren

yongjin

Rich

swarm enter

Americans

le ASP

车站NP，来到Pv 月台上NP…… chezhan

laidao

station

come arrive

yuetaishang… platform on…

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5 Contrasting the Representation of TMEs in English and Chinese

Next to reducing subevents to one is MEP loss in the process of transition from English constructions to Chinese constructions. 15 cases are found becoming nonMEP constructions, though the same amount of subevents is kept. As we have discussed in Chapter 2, by Bohnemeyer et al. (2007) altogether 4 constraints are in operation deciding whether a construction possesses MEP. These constraints are in essence derivations of the definition of MEP, at the heart of which is ‘The MEP is a property of constructions that describes how they ‘package’ information about events—namely, in such a way as to license only temporal operators that have scope over all subevents’ (ibid.). The fictive Motion event (57b) has MEP, since both the DE and the AE encoded are under the control of the identical temporal operator if there is (e.g., ‘then’). (57b ) introduces coordination between DE and AE and thus goes against the stipulations of MEP. Of those 15 cases we find 2 cases sacrificing MEP due to the introduction of coordination as exemplified in (57b ), and the rest 13 cases are all because of the introduction of a comma as (57c ). Originally, (57c) represents TME in a tightly packaged form of the PE + AE type, but in Chinese translation a comma is inserted between PE and AE, which makes it possible to place 2 temporal operators as in (57c ): (57c′′) 有钱的

美国人 11:05

youqiande meiguoren 11:05 Rich

进了

yong jin-le

车站， chezhan,

Americans 11:05 swarm enter-ASP station,

11:10 来到 11:10

涌

laidao

月台上…… yuetaishang…

11:10 come arrive platform on…

Apparently, the two temporal adverbs ‘11:05’ and ‘11:10’ operate different parts of the construction and hence breach the MEP principles. Comma, as a marker of pause, also has its syntactic usage. Lv (1984/2002) notes that generally SVCs permit

5.4 Renditions of TMEs Between English and Chinese

137

no comma between verbs, but between the chain predicates there should be commas. For example, (58) (a) 京剧

导演

(a) jingju

郭庆春

就

着

一碟

daoyan Guo Qingchun jiu-zheASP yidie

Bejing opera director Guo Qingchun

猪耳朵

喝 了

zhuerduo

he-le ASP

eatign a saucer pig’s ear

drank

二两

酒， (b) 咬 着

一条 顶花带刺的

erliang

jiu,

yitiao dinghuadacide huanggua

(b) yao-zheASP

two punces wine, (b) chewing 半斤 banjing

过了 guo-leASP

qianmen yan,

麻酱面，

(c) 叼

sesame noodles,

ate

着

(c) holding in his mouth

把

芭蕉扇， (e) 坐在

(d) nie-leASP

ba

bajiaoshan, (e) zuozai

Qianmen cigarette, (d) holding 竹躺椅上

乘凉。

zhutangyishang

chenglian.

bamboo deck-chair

chi-leASP

liangshuide majiangmian, (c) diao-zheASP

(d) 捏 了

烟，

吃了

flowery and thorny cucumber

凉水的

half a catty cold-watered 前门

a

黄瓜

a

palm-leaf fan, (e) sit on

阳台上的 yangtaishangde balcony’s

enjoy the coolness.

After drinking two ounces of wine with a saucer of stewed pig’s ears, Guo Qingchun, a Beijing opera director, ate up half a catty of noodles served with sesame paste and a cucumber. Then he lay back on a bamboo deck-chair, a Qianmen cigarette dangling from his lips, a palm-leaf fan in his hand, enjoying the cool air (Wang 2020: 240). (58) contains 5 predicates, separated by 4 commas. Of these predicates (a), (b), and (e) are SVCs and no comma could be inserted. Analyzed in this vein, (57c ), which has a comma between its two predicates, stands as an example of the chainpredicate construction. In another direction, we remove the comma between the two predicates in (57c ) as in (59a):

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5 Contrasting the Representation of TMEs in English and Chinese

(59) a.

有钱的

美国人

涌

进

车站

来到

月台上……

…the well-to-do Americans poured through the station onto the platforms… b.

有钱的

11：05

美国人

涌

进

…the well-to-do Americans at 11:05 poured 车站

来到

through

月台上……

the station onto the platforms… c?.

有钱的

美国人

11：05

涌

进

…the well-to-do Americans at 11:05 poured 车站 the station

through

11:10

来到

月台上……

at 11:10

onto

the platforms…

The sentence remains both grammatically and semantically sound and can easily accommodate one temporal adverbial ((59b)), but it seems very hard for the construction to permit the insertion of two temporal adverbials without a pause ((59c), cf (57c )). We thus conclude that the chain-predicate constructions, which require a comma between the predicates, are the underlying reason for MEP lifting off. The last reason we find for TME construction imbalance is state change. 7 cases of the TME constructions in translated English texts are found to be non-TME constructions in original Chinese texts. This is instantiated by (60a), (60a ), and (56c) and (56c ), repeated here as (60b ) and (60b). (60) a. ……香烟

熏得

Cigarette smoked

她

眯起了

眼睛。

she squint-ASP eye.

a′. Smoke NP fromPP his cigarettes NP get PvintoPP her eyesNP. b. 人

就会

忘记

这小屋、

小院里的

气味 和

People will forget this small house, small yard’s odor and

嘈杂。 noise.

b′. … you forget the fetid odors and the dinNP comingPv into PP the tiny roomNP from PP the small compoundNP.

5.4 Renditions of TMEs Between English and Chinese

139

Originally a resultative construction, (60a) encodes no Starting Point, the Passing Point, or the Endpoint; in its translation ((60a )) these constituents, however, are reconceptualized and represented as a TME. ‘smoke’ becomes the Actant, ‘his cigarettes’ the Starting Point and ‘her eyes’ the Endpoint. Motion and Path derive 起 from the figural Motion verb ‘熏 (xun smoke)’ and the manner verb ‘ (miqi squint)’. Similarly, (60b) is translated as (60b ) with the complete set of the constituents of a TME. If there is fictive Motion represented in (60a), the fictive Motion of ‘the fetid odors and the din’ entering the ‘the tiny room’ is not brought to the surface in Chinese. The translator reconceptualizes the event and employs the generic Path verb ‘come’ to represent Motion and indicate the direction of the Motion. The Path satellite ‘into’ is also resulted from this reconceptualization. Along this Path ‘the small compound’ is positioned as the Starting Point, ‘the tiny room’ the Endpoint, and ‘the fetid odors and the din’ become the Actant. The Paths in (60a ) and (60b ) are classified, respectively, as the Orientation Path and the Sensory Path according to Talmy (1996, 2000a: Chap. 2). Liu (2010) applies Talmy’s classification of Paths to the Chinese-English translation studies and arrives at the conclusion that translators tend to render the texts in a more fictive way. We agree to this conclusion, and believe that it is mostly due to this fictive tendency that many non-TME constructions become TME constructions in English.

5.4.2 From Chinese Constructions to English Constructions From Table 4.2 we know that 46 cases of the 71 TME constructions in original Chinese texts are translated into English as TME constructions and the rest 25 cases are turned into non-TME constructions. Furthermore, the examination of the 153 cases of TME constructions in translated Chinese texts shows that only 112 cases are originally TME constructions in original English texts, implying that about 41 cases are created during the translation process. In accordance with the previous grouping of the disqualified TME constructions, we tabulate the variance in the Chinese-to-English transition in Table 5.11. Similar to the English-to-Chinese transition, the reduction of subevents to only one also tops the 3 reasons causing the imbalance between the Chinese and English TME constructions. We exemplify this by (61a) and (61a ).

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5 Contrasting the Representation of TMEs in English and Chinese

Table 5.11 TME constructions from Chinese to English G1

Original Chinese texts

Translated Chinese texts

Subtotal

19

26

45

G2

2

6

8

G3

4

9

13

(61) a. 这

温热NP 一直

zhe wenre

yizhi

This warmth

从PP 他的 cong

耳朵NP

tade erduo

all the way from

his

ear

流Fv 到Pv 他的 心里NP。 liu

dao

flow

arrive

tade xinli his heart.

a′. The warmthNP goesPv straight toPP his heartNP. b.一个 年轻人NP 从PP 船舷边NP yige nianqingren

cong

one

from

youngman

chuanxianbian boatside

跃Mv 入Pv 海中NP…… yue

ru

haizhong…

jump

enter

sea middle…

b′. …one of the young menNP doveMv flat overPP the edgeNP.

It is apparent that the DE + AE representation pattern in (61a) is rendered into a single AE representation form in (61a ), the DE gapped during the translation process. Of the 19 cases reducing subevents to one in translated English texts 17 cases are of the DE + AE pattern and 2 are of the PE + AE pattern in original Chinese texts. In translated English texts these become single subevent constructions. 6 of them turn into single DE constructions, 3 single PE constructions, and 10 single AE constructions. Therefore, after the translation, 11 DEs (65%) and 9 AEs (47%) disappear, but for PEs there is one more case added. This prompts us to conclude that, like the transition from English to Chinese, the DEs are also more likely to be gapped in the Chinese-to-English transition. This conclusion, however, seems inappropriate if we analyze the issue from the perspective of translated Chinese texts. Of the 26 cases in translated Chinese texts 14 cases are represented in the DE + AE pattern and 12 in the PE + AE pattern. Aligning these 26 cases with their representation in original English texts, we find

5.4 Renditions of TMEs Between English and Chinese

141

that, differing from the above conclusion, 7 of them become single DE constructions, 15 single PE constructions, and 4 single AE constructions. In other words, 7 DEs (50%) and 22 AEs (85%) are nowhere to be seen in original English texts, but 3 more PEs are found. Such an analysis reveals that there are 2 tendencies underlying the Chinese-to-English rendition. When we put Chinese into English, DEs are most likely to be gapped, but PEs and AEs are mostly retained, even created. However, comparing the Chinese translations and their English originals, we find that most AEs and half of DEs disappear, but more PEs than in the translated texts are found. The latter case is illustrated by (61b) and (61b ). The translated construction (61b) is represented in the DE + AE pattern, but in the original English text it is a single PE construction. We next analyze the cases that are ridded of MEP and those no longer representing TMEs after the Chinese-to-English transition. As Table 5.11 shows, there are in all 8 cases collected losing MEP. Further investigations show that universally all these 8 cases introduce a conjunction of coordination when rendered into TL, which breaches the requirements of MEP in accordance with Bohnemeyer et al. (2007). (57b) and its translation (57b ) bear this out as analyzed above. Therefore, the loss of MEP in the Chinese-to-English process differs from that in the English-to-Chinese process in not employing SVCs. 13 cases are found no longer representing TMEs in English; their state seems to shift from dynamic to static, as shown in (58c) repeated as (62) below. (62) a. 汗NP 从PP 头上NP 一直

流Fv

han

cong

toushang

yizhi

liu

Sweat

from

head top

all the way flow

到Pv 脚后跟NP。 dao arrive

jiaohougen. heel.

The sweatNP poured Mv out of him fromPP his headNP to PP his heelsNP. b. These last days he had followed the retreating soldiers, bathed in sweat from head to foot.

As we have said in Sect. 5.4.1, it is the fictive tendency in representing TMEs in the English-to-Chinese transition that results in English TME constructions; but in (62) we find the originally TME construction—with ‘汗 (han sweat)’ as the Actant, ‘头上 (toushan head)’ as the Starting Point, ‘脚后跟 (jiaohougen heel)’ as the Endpoint, ‘流 (liu pour)’ as Motion, ‘从 (cong from)’ and ‘到 (dao to)’ as Path conveyors, is reconceptualized as an adverbial expression emphasizing the completeness of the sweat covering and thus becomes static. This comparison reveals the conceptual

142

5 Contrasting the Representation of TMEs in English and Chinese

distinction that motivates the imbalance of TME constructions in the process of language translation.

5.5 The Representation of Motion Event Constituents in English and Chinese Based on the statistic work in Chapter 4, we have discussed in the foregoing four sections the overall representation of TMEs from the perspectives of English, Chinese and language rendition. In this section, still on the basis of the statistic work in Chapter 4, we decompose TME constructions into its 4 major constituents, viz. Actant, Motion, Path and Ground, and look into their representations in both English and Chinese.

5.5.1 The Representation of Actants Subsection 4.3.1 concludes that, in both English and Chinese, the animate Actants predominate over the imamate Actants and, therefore, it is the animate Actants that are usually moving. Furthermore, besides these animate Actants, 30% of the Actants are inanimate, which are as a rule found in fictive TMEs. Our investigations also reveal that there is not always just one Actant in a TME. In our corpus we have 4 cases containing 2 Actants. The animate Actants, either in English or Chinese, or possibly any other world languages, are those entities able to set themselves in Motion, like students, birds, or bees. As ubiquitous as the animate ones, the inanimate Actants refer to the entities unable to move spontaneously, like computers, papers, or cars. But in representation these entities are usually expressed by NPs. As far as our corpus is concerned, no case makes exception, i.e., all the Actants are represented by NPs. The Actants in our corpus are largely of two kinds: human or non-human, and accordingly the human Actants are represented by the proper names of human beings (e.g., ‘Tom’) or personal pronouns of human beings (e.g., ‘he’ referring to Tom) and the non-human Actants by the common NPs (e.g., ‘camel’ or ‘pain’) or by the personal pronouns of non-human beings (e.g., ‘it’ referring to camel or pain). We find that, both in English and Chinese, the Actants are mainly human ones. We summarize these findings in Table 5.12. In terms of grammatical function, Actants are usually represented as subjects. The foregoing examples (61a) and (62a), for instance, can instantiate this. The association between Actants and subjects, however, are not always constant. 17 cases in the English texts and 16 cases in the Chinese texts are collected where Actants do not function as subjects. In the caused TMEs, Actants appear usually as objects ((63)). In terms of grammatical function, Actants are usually represented as subjects. The foregoing examples (61a) and (62a), for instance, can instantiate this. The association

5.5 The Representation of Motion Event Constituents in English and Chinese Table 5.12 Human and non-human actants

143

Text types

Human

Non-human

Original English

105

29

Translated English

38

28

English as a whole

143

57

Original Chinese

39

32

Translated Chinese

107

56

Chinese as a whole

146

88

between the Actants and the subjects, however, are not always constant. 17 cases in the English texts and 16 cases in the Chinese texts are collected where Actants do not function as the subjects. In the caused TMEs the Actants appear usually as the objects, for example, (63) a. …and Dick had liftedPv a two-hundred-pound manNP fromPP the boardNP ontoPP his shouldersNP … b. 迪克还从PP 滑板上NP 举起Pv Dick

haicong

Dick

also from

一个

重

huabanshang board

两百磅的

juqi lift up 男子NP 放Pv 在PP

yige zhong liangbaibangde

nanzi

fang

zai

one weigh

man

place

at

two hundured pounds

肩上NP…… jianshang… shoulder… …Dick had liftedPv a two-hundred-pound manNP fromPP the boardNP ontoPP his shouldersNP …

In the subject positions here are the agents of Motion event, i.e., ‘Dick’ and ‘ 迪克’; the Actants, ‘a two-hundred-pound man’ and ‘一个重两百磅的男子’, are placed in the patient positions and function as the object of the caused Motion.

144

5 Contrasting the Representation of TMEs in English and Chinese

5.5.2 The Representation of Motion Table 3.4 arrays the five types of VPs, namely Pv, Mv, Cv, CoV and Fv. In addition to these VPs, IDIOMs, DNs and even CONJUNCTIONs are sometimes also utilized to represent Motion. In Subsection 4.3.2 we have examined sequentially Motion encoded in DEs, PEs and AEs and reached the conclusion that, first, both English and Chinese employ most frequently Pvs to represent Motion. Second, it also shows that the other VPs, IDIOMs and DNs are also shared Motion representation forms across English and Chinese. Third, we have discovered in Subsection 4.3.2 that English DEs and AEs encode Motion at a similar rate of 40%, while Chinese DEs refrain from encoding Motion and AEs demand complete encoding. Tables 4.12, 4.14, and 4.16 summarize the Motion representing forms in DEs, PEs and AEs, from which we find that English Motion is represented in fewer forms than that in Chinese. Lastly, the English forms are of a subset of the Chinese Motion forms. Aided by these findings, the present section is committed to the analysis of different Motion representation forms in both English and Chinese. As is said above, Pvs constitute the most frequent means in expressing Motion, no matter which subevent it is encoded. (63a) and (63b) above instantiate this. In (63a), Motion, which is encoded in DE, gets expressed through ‘lift’, lexicalizing both Motion and Path; in (63b), the Chinese translation of (63a), Motion is encoded in two Pvs, namely ‘举起 (juqi lift)’ and ‘放 (fang place)’, and placed in DE and AE. This instance echoes also another aspect we have touched upon that, while English TME constructions typically express Motion in one Motion verb, quite a lot of Chinese TME constructions represent Motion in more than one Motion verb and hence form SVCs. This gives rise to a thorny issue: what does the second Motion verb, for example in (63b), function as? Individually speaking, the construction of (63b) is fine in informing readers what has happened to the Actant, but when associating it with (63a), we realize that the second Motion verb in (63b) performs part of the function of the goal Path satellite ‘onto’ in (63a). As a matter of fact, English disfavors repetition, but favors abstraction (Lian 1993: Chap. 10; Pan 2002: 349), so ‘lift’ is saved in the AE in (63b), leaving only the Path satellite ‘onto’ there to define the boundary of the subevents. This trait is evidenced by (63a) and rewriteable as follows: (63c) Dick had liftedPv a two-hundred-pound manNP fromPP the boardNP and Dick had liftedPv a two-hundred-pound manNP ontoPP his shouldersNP …

5.5 The Representation of Motion Event Constituents in English and Chinese

145

The Actants in (63a) and (63b) moved from the board upward, and then was placed onto the shoulders of Dick. (63a) abstracts the whole process by representing the DE Motion and omitting the Motion of the AE. Chinese, on the other hand, prefers repetition and concretization in comparison with English (ibid.). By employing two Motion verbs, Chinese constructions make up the gapped part of the Motion in the English representation and thus achieves concretization. Based on Chapter 4, the major representation types of the TMEs in English and Chinese are assembled in Tables 5.3 and 5.8, which manifest that English TMEs typically accommodate only one Motion verb, but Chinese TMEs can contain as many as 4 Motion verbs, even 3 Motion verbs in one subevent. For English TMEs containing more than one Motion verb we find few cases in our corpus, one case of which has been cited as (37a) in Chapter 4 and is repeated here as (6): (64) A

ballNP

comesPv

sailing

Mv

overADV

fromPP the basketball courtNP and CONJhitsMv Zheng Ziyun in the heelNP,

As has been analyzed in Subsection 4.3.2, the two Motion verbs ‘come’ and ‘sail’ provide, respectively, Path and Manner for the TME construction and each is cancelable to profile Path or Manner. Such kind of constructions contrast with Chinese SVCs. Take (63b) again for illustration. The cancelation of either ‘举起(juqi lift)’ or ‘放 (fang place)’ will lead to the ungrammaticality of the construction. Based on Tables 5.8 and 5.9, within subevents, Chinese SVCs usually follow the pattern of MvPv like ‘走进来 (zoujinlai walk enter come)’, ‘跑出去 (paochuqu run exit go)’. Across the subevents, Chinese SVCs usually take the form of PvMvPv or PvPv like in (62a) and (63b). A special Motion representation in Chinese involves the use of the conjunction ‘而 (er and then)’. Lv et al. (1999: 193) hold that ‘而’ regularly connects nominal categories and means the transition from one stage or state to another stage or state in constructions ‘由(从)…而… (you (cong)…er from…and then…)’.8 For example,

8 It is originally in Chinese: ‘由(从)…而…。 多连接名词性成分,表示从一个阶段(状态)过渡到另

一个阶段(状态)’.

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5 Contrasting the Representation of TMEs in English and Chinese

(65) a. 他的 脸NP 慢慢 tade lian His face

由PP 红ADJ

manman you slowly

from

hong red

而CONJ 白ADJ…… er

bai……

and then

white……

Slowly the color of his faceNP turnedPv from

PP redNP toPP whiteNP… b. 半年NP 来的，由PP 秋NP bannian

laide

you

qiu

half year

about

from

autumn

而CONJ 冬NP…… er

dong…

and then

winter…

So it was that he passed the four or five months of fall and early winter…

In both (65a) and (65b) ‘而 (er and then)’ joins the nominal categories and seems to be a pivot by which the former stage or state evolve into the latter stage or state. The Actants, literally ‘脸 (lian face)’ and ‘半年 (bannian half year)’ here, are in fact the color of face and time. The color here is envisaged to displace on the spectrum from red to white and hence have a translocative reading. To express the idea of the passage of time, Chinese users will say ‘随着时间的推移 (suizhe shijiande tuiyi as time goes by)’, apparently conceptualizing time as the Actant and the timeline as the Path. Therefore, as a slice of time, ‘半年’ here is endowed with locomotiveness and plays the role of Actant. And in view of the fact that Motion verbs are as a rule absent in such constructions, we contend that it is ‘而’ that functions as Motion conveyor.9

9 Irrelevant to the present section, but relevant to the present study, is that it seems that the conjunction

‘而 (er and then)’ does not cause the loss of MEP in such constructions, which is contrary to what Bohnemeyer et al. (2007) has claimed. Another example in Chinese contrary to their contention is ‘从天而降 (cong tian er jiang come down from heaven)’, where ‘天 (tian heaven)’ stands for the Starting Point and ‘降 (jiang come down)’ both the Motion and the Endpoint. The conjunction ‘ 而 (er and then)’ in this TME construction functions, like in (71), as a pivot between the Starting Point and the Endpoint, but does not lead to the loss of MEP.

5.5 The Representation of Motion Event Constituents in English and Chinese

147

5.5.3 The Representation of Path In accordance with Table 3.4, Paths are of five types, namely , , , and . To represent these types of Paths, similar to the representation of Motion, English and Chinese demonstrate similarities as well as dissimilarities. In terms of similarities, based on Tables 4.18, 4.19, and 4.21, we find that, for DE Paths, both languages represent s overwhelmingly by way of PPs. To represent the s in PEs, both English and Chinese employ PPs and Pvs. The AE Paths, as classified in Table 3.4, are of two types: and . To express s, the two languages both make use of PPs, Pvs and PvMvs. In terms of the dissimilarities, English employs ADVs to represent s, s and s, while Chinese utilizes Pvs and NPs to express s, CoVs and CONJs to express s. So far as our corpus is concerned, though both English and Chinese are found to represent by way of PPs, they function differently in the two languages. In English 118 cases of the 173 s are expressed by PPs, accounting for 68.2%, while in Chinese there is only one case of the 182 s expressed by PPs, accounting for merely 0.5%, next to naught. Furthermore, the representation of Paths as a whole, as summarized in Table 4.22, English, contrary to Chinese, favors PPs over Pvs. Our analysis starts with the representation of s. In both English and Chinese texts, PPs are the main form of s. In our corpus, satellites such as ‘from’, ‘out of’, ‘from down’, ‘from above and behind’, ‘from between’ and ‘from under’ are the main surface forms of English s. In Chinese texts, s are found represented by PP satellites ‘从 (cong from)’ and ‘由 (you from)’. Besides the 128 cases of s in the form of PPs, there is one case that is in the form of ADV in English texts ((66a)). In Chinese texts, besides the 130 cases of s that are in the form of PPs, there are 10 cases that are in the form of Pvs ((66b)) and eight cases that are in the form of NPs ((66c)). We illustrate this comparison in (66).10

10 The

examples here are for contrasting purpose, so we do not cite examples for s in the form of PPs in both English and Chinese.

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5 Contrasting the Representation of TMEs in English and Chinese

(66) a. whenceADV one June morning in 1925 a victoria1NP broughtPv a woman and her daughter2NP down toPP Gausse’s HotelNP. b. 她NP 正走Mv 出Pv 森林NP， ta

zhengzou

chu

senlin

She

just walk

exit

forest

来到Pv 月亮地儿里NP。 laidao

yueliang dierli.

come arrive

moon place.

b′. …as if this were the exact moment when sheNP was comingPv fromPP a woodNP intoPP clear moonlightNP. c. 台阶

上面，

门房的

taijie

shangmian, menfangde shenhou,

step

above

porter’s

过来Pv 一句 guolai

yiju

come c′.

身后NP，飘Mv

From

piao

behind,

fly

有气无力的

and

口音NP。

youqiwulide Groton kouyin.

one sentence feeble above

格罗顿

behindPP

the

Groton porterNP

accent. floatedMv

downADV a weary Groton voiceNP.

As indicated by its tagging, ‘whence’ in (66a) lexicalizes not only the Starting Point of DE but also its Path. This rings rather similar to (66c), in which ‘台阶上面, 门房的身后 (taijie shangmian, menfangde shenhou above and behind the porter)’ in fact means ‘从台阶上面,门房的身后 (from above and behind the porter)’, but their grammatical categories distinguish these English and Chinese expressions. ‘出 (chu exit)’ in (66b) integrates both Motion and Path of the Actant, but in the English translation (66b ) ‘出’ is rendered simply as ‘from’, denoting merely Path.

5.5 The Representation of Motion Event Constituents in English and Chinese

149

English and Chinese do not contrast so much in representing PE Paths, viz. , both mostly employing PPs and Pvs. In English, the PPs usually employed to express s are ‘through’, ‘after’, ‘at’, ‘by’, ‘from’, ‘over’, ‘down’, ‘across’, ‘along’, ‘up’, ‘by way of’ and ‘past’; in Chinese, the high-frequency PPs are ‘从 (cong from)’, ‘沿着 (yanzhe along)’, ‘(经)由 ((jing)you from)’, ‘打 (da from)’, ‘顺(着) ((shun) zhe following)’, ‘通过 (tongguo through)’ and ‘经过’ (jingguo via). The English Pvs representing s are ‘cross’, ‘follow’, ‘pass’, ‘traverse’ and ‘descend’; in Chinese we have ‘上 (shang go up)’, ‘穿过 (chuan guo go across)’, ‘横穿 (hengchuan go across)’, ‘冲破 (chongpo break through)’, ‘下 (xia go down)’, ‘越过 (yueguo go over)’, ‘透过 (touguo go through)’, ‘抄 (chao take to)’, ‘绕(过) (rao(guo) bypass)’, ‘过 (guo pass)’, ‘远涉 (yuanshe take a longway over)’, ‘渡过 (duguo swim across)’, ‘通过 (tongguo go through)’, ‘赴 (fu go to)’, ‘经过 (jingguo pass by)’ and ‘穿越 (chuanyue go over)’. Certain PPs and Pvs are found representing both DE Paths and PE Paths. ‘from’ in English is such a case in point. The preposition is used to denote the Starting Point in DE when it falls on the Actant’s Path like in (66b ) and (66c ). But there are also cases found where ‘from’ is used to mean a place that the Actant passes by. For example: (67) a.

…sheNP

camePv

outADV

fromPP

the

entranceNP. a′. 虎妞NP 由PP 车门里NP 出来Pv 了。 Huniu

you

Tigeress

from

chemenli

chulai

car door inside

leASP.

exit came.

b. He1NP broughtPv inADV his bedding2NP fromPP the doorwayNP. b′.（祥子NP1）从PP 门洞中NP Xiang Zi

cong

mendongzhong

Xiang Zi

from

door hole middle

把 PBA

铺盖NP2 搬Mv 进来Pv……

baPBA

pugai

ban

jinlai……

covers

carry

enter come…

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5 Contrasting the Representation of TMEs in English and Chinese

(67a) describes the scene that Tigress came out of the entrance when Xiang Zi arrived back at the Harmony Yard. Based on the knowledge of where Tigress was living as described in the novel, ‘entrance’ here should be the Passing Point rather than the Starting Point of TME, and ‘from’ in this way represents a PE Path. Similar to (67a), ‘from’ in (67b) expresses a PE Path too, for ‘the doorway’ is not the Starting Point of Xiang Zi’s bedding (the Actant), but where it went by. Similar accounts are for ‘从 (cong from)’ and ‘由 (you from)’ in Chinese, which also span both DE and PE Paths and are made clear in the translation of (67a) and (67b). As we have concluded previously, AEs demonstrate the most complicated situation in the analysis of TME constructions, and so does the representation of AE Paths. Both languages represent s by means of PvMvs and Pvs. PvMvs representing English s are ‘stare’ and ‘regard’ in our corpus. The reason for this classification is that both words imply how we look at something as well as the result of our observation: we catch sight of it. In Chinese, PvMvs expressing s are ‘看着 (kanzhe looking at)’, ‘注视着 (zhushizhe staring at)’ and ‘照看 (zhaokan look after)’ in our corpus. Comparing English and Chinese PvMvs, we may draw a conclusion that such Motion verbs are prototypically vision verbs and applied in fictive Motion events of ‘line of sight’ in the parlance of Talmy (2000a: 110). Pvs are abundantly utilized in both English and Chinese. Take (67a) and (67b) for instance ‘came’ and ‘brought’ convey both the sense of arriving at a destination and the way Actants have traveled so far. The same interpretation applies to ‘出来 (chulai exit come)’ and ‘进来 (jinlai enter come)’ in Chinese ((67a ), (67b )). In fact, according to Subsection 4.3.3, over 90% of Chinese s are represented by Pvs. To represent s, both languages make use of Pvs and PPs. Such Pvs, like ‘approach’ in (68a) and ‘去 (qu go)’ in (68b), entail the semantic sense of coming closer but not having arrived. In the meantime, they also contain the information of which road the Actants go along to reach the destination.

5.5 The Representation of Motion Event Constituents in English and Chinese

151

(68) a. The DiversNP approachedPv the Agiri FairNP throughPP a menagerie of mammoth steamrollers that made way for themNP. b. 迪克NP 正经过PP 她 前方的 Dick

zheng jingguo

ta

Dick

just

her

pass

qianfangde front

小路NP xiaolu small road

去Pv 工作间NP。 qu

gongzuojian.

go

workshop.

DickNP crossedPv the path ahead of herNP goingPv toPP his work houseNP.

In accordance with Jackendoff (1983: 165), ‘toward’ is typical of s of all the PPs in English. In our corpus the other PPs expressing s are ‘to’ and ‘for’. (69) exemplifies these PPs. (69) a. SheNP … wentPv … alongPP the continuous terraceNP towardPP the front doorNP… b. Dick NP crossedPv the path ahead of herNP goingPv toPP his work houseNP. c. LeavePv FlorenceNP 4th June forPP BellaggioNP, and take you if you have not other views.

‘toward’, ‘to’ and ‘for’ here all indicate the direction of Motion, and they also imply that the displacement of the Actant is not finished. In our corpus, the Chinese PPs representing s are ‘往 (wang toward)’, ‘在 (zai at)’, ‘向 (xiang to)’ and ‘ 朝 (chao to)’ as exemplified in (70):

152

5 Contrasting the Representation of TMEs in English and Chinese

(70) 从PP 热 被窝里NP

a. 少爷NP……又 shaoye

you

Young Master

cong

re beiwoli

again from

hot cover inside

往PP 外NP 抱Mv。 wang

wai

bao.

toward

outside

carry.

We had to lift him up out of his warm bedclothes…it b. 她NP……独自穿越Pv 欧洲NP， ta

duzi chuanyue

Europe

She

alone go over

Europe

去坐Mv 在PP 别的男人的床头NP。 Quzuo

zai

biede nanrende chuangtou.

go sit

at

other man’s bed top.

She ACT>NP should not travelMv< across PAR>PP Europe NP alone, to sit INFto Mv at PP the bedside of other men NP. c. 这啊字NP 从PP 最高音NP zhe “a” zi

cong

zuigaoyin

This “ah”

from

highest voice

滑Mv 向PP 最低ADJ。 hua

xiang

zuidi.

slip

toward

lowest.

‘AH-’ Tian’s voice slid down the scale. d. 迪克NP……穿过Pv 房间NP Dick

chuanguo

fangjian

Dick

go through

room

朝PP 她NP 走Mv 去Pv。 chao

ta

zou

qu

toward

she

walk

go.

5.5 The Representation of Motion Event Constituents in English and Chinese

DickNP

got

up

and

walkedMv

toPP

153

herNP

acrosspP the roomNP.

Similar to English PPs representing s, Chinese PPs here indicate both direction and Path that Actants will follow to reach the destination. These similarities aside, English and Chinese also display contrasting aspects in representing AE Paths. As summarized in Subsection 4.3.3, PPs are the first choice in representing English s, but in our Chinese corpus we gather just one case represented by Chinese PP. In Chinese, the first choice goes to Pvs, which have 166 cases, accounting for 91.2% of all the 182 Chinese s. Aligning the original texts and the translated texts reveals that many English PPs representing s are translated into Chinese Pvs or quite a lot of Chinese Pvs representing s are translated as English PPs, though there is a case where an English PP representing is translated into a Chinese PP (cf. (63a), (63b)) and several cases where Chinese Pvs representing s are translated as English Pvs (cf. (67)). For example: (71) a. Her thoughtsNP driftedMv back slowly throughPP the guardsmanNP toPP the two carabinieriNP… a′. 她的 思绪NP 又

渐渐

从PP

jianjian

cong

tede sixu

you

Her thoughts

again slowly

from

卫队军官NP

回到了Pv 眼前的

weidui junguan

huidao leASP

yanqiande liangge jingcha

guardsman

return arrive

eye front

两个 警察NP……

two police…

b. 你NP……打PP 后院NP 跳Mv ni

da

houyuan

tiao

You

from

backyard

jump

到Pv 王家NP 去Pv。 dao

wangjia

qu.

arrive

the Wang’s

go.

b′. (You) NP … jumpedMv overPP the back wall NP intoPP the Wangs’ yardNP.

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5 Contrasting the Representation of TMEs in English and Chinese

The AE Path in (71a) is expressed by the PP ‘to’, but it is translated as part of the Pv ‘回到 (huidao back to)’ in (71a ); the AE Path in (71b) is represented by the Pv ‘到 (dao arrive)’, but it is translated as the PP ‘into’ in (71b ). Based on our investigation in Chapter 4, 74 cases of the 78 PPs representing s in original English texts are translated into Chinese Pvs, accounting for about 95%. In another way, 27 cases of the 52 Pvs representing s in original Chinese texts are translated into English PPs, accounting for about 52%. As Table 4.21 has demonstrated, the reason for fewer Chinese Pvs translated into English PPs is possibly due to the fact that Pvs constitute the second choice in representing s, but in Chinese, PPs are almost negligible in representing s. We impute this to the lack of PPs in Chinese as Wang (1984: 241; 2002: 135) has argued that strictly speaking there is no true PP in modern Chinese and the so-called Chinese PPs commonly originate from verbs. Lian (1993: 18–19) also puts forward that English users prefer to employ PPs, but Chinese users employ fewer PPs. Due to this preference, on many occasions English PPs are often rendered into Chinese verbs. Another contrasting aspect between English and Chinese in the representation of AE Paths lies in the employment of ADVs. Based on Table 4.21, there are 10 cases of s and three cases of s found represented by ADVs in our English corpus, but no such case is found in the Chinese corpus. The English ADVs expressing AE Paths in our corpus are ‘down’, ‘home’, ‘over’, ‘up’, ‘homeward’, ‘in’ and ‘out’. Except for ‘homeward’ ((72c) and (72c )), all these ADVs are rendered into Chinese Pvs ((72a), (72a )) or are matched with Chinese Pvs ((72b), (72b )). For example:

5.5 The Representation of Motion Event Constituents in English and Chinese

155

(72) a. He NP had drivenMv overADV fromPP his own place NP… a′. 他NP 刚

从PP 家里NP

ta

gang cong

jiali

He

just

home

from

骑马

来到Pv……

qima

laidao…

ride horse come arrive… b. 圆圆 用 Yuanyuan

脚

从PP 桌子 下面NP

yong jiao cong

Yuanyuan use

zhuozi xiamian

foot from

table downside

勾Mv 出Pv 一个

矮凳NP……

gou

yige

aiding…

one

short stool…

chu

hook b′.

exit

She

slidMv

a

stoolNP

outADV

from

underPP the table NP with her foot… c. …heNP …walkedMv homewardADV, without knowing his way, throughPP the tortuous, tragic streets of RomeNP… c′. 他NP 往PP 回NP 走

去MvPv……

ta

wang

hui

zou qu

He

toward

back

walk go

穿

过Pv 弯曲

chuan

guo

cross

悲戚的 罗马

街道NP……

wanqu beiqide Rome jiedao… bent

sad

Rome street…

‘over’ in (72a) depicts the route between the Starting Point and the Endpoint that the Actant follows, but in (72a ) it is substituted by the Chinese Pv ‘来到 (laidao come arrive)’; ‘出 (chu exit)’ in (72b) defines Motion as well as the Path that the Actant (‘ 矮凳 (aideng short stool)’) follows, but in (72b ) it is translated as the English ADV ‘out’; ‘homeward’ in (72c) lexicalizes direction, Goal, and the Path to come back of the Actant, but in (72c ) it is decomposed into Path and direction represented by a Chinese PP and Goal represented by a Chinese Pv. In brief, no ADV representing the English AE Path is translated into Chinese ADVs, but mostly by Chinese Pvs. This

156

5 Contrasting the Representation of TMEs in English and Chinese

imbalance between English and Chinese, we believe, is due mostly to what Chinese ADVs essentially represent. Chinese ADVs usually represent degree, time, range, negation, modality and manner (Chao 1968: 339–350; Hu 1995: 329–330; Huang and Liao 2002: 24–27, inter alia) and contain no information of the Actant’s Path. Thus to represent such information Chinese users have to resort to other means. Pvs, which contain the information of Path and of large amount in Chinese, are made use of. Occasionally, PPs are also of use, but, as we have analyzed in the foregoing part, they totalize a much smaller amount and thus only offer very little aid. At the end of Subsection 5.5.2, we report that a special Motion representation in Chinese involves the use of the conjunction ‘而 (er and then)’ and cite (65) to testify. In (65a) and (65b) ‘而’ connects the two subevents and indicates the transition from DE to AE. Hence we believe that ‘而’ here delineates the Path of the change. Such a conjunction Path finds no counterpart in English and is rendered into a PP indicating . The renditions of (65) are as (73) in our corpus, and ‘而’ are matched with ‘turned…to’ ((73a)) and ‘changed…to’, conveying the information of both Motion and Path. (73) a. Slowly the color of his faceNP turnedPv fromPP redNP

toPP whiteNP, b. The old man’s faceNP changedPv fromPP redNP toPP whiteNP.

5.5.4 The Representation of Grounds Sequentially, we have four types of Grounds to represent in TME constructions as listed in Table 3.4, viz. , , or . Whether it is EP or GO depends on the AE Path that the Actant follows. Tables 4.23–4.26 demonstrate that on the whole Grounds are predominantly represented by NPs in both English and Chinese. Besides NPs, there are also other forms of Grounds, namely ADJs, ADVs and Pvs for s, Pvs for s, ADJs, ADVs and Pvs for s and ADJs, ADVs and Pvs for s. We next analyze these forms in the representation of Grounds in accordance with the timeline of subevents. Table 4.23 shows that English s are represented in the forms of NPs and ADVs. Chinese s are also represented in two forms: NPs and Pvs. Apparently, English and Chinese s share the form of NPs, but differ in the forms of ADVs and Pvs. Similar to Actants, the Grounds are also conceptually nominal, hence about 97% English s and about 98% Chinese s are represented by NPs in our corpus as concluded in Subsection 4.3.4. NPs, be it concrete or abstract, are all

5.5 The Representation of Motion Event Constituents in English and Chinese

157

possible candidates for Grounds. The examples we have cited, like (72a), (72b ) and (73), all instantiate this point. The English s are also represented by ADVs. (66a) in Subsection 5.5.3 exemplifies the ADV-s. We cite another here for explanation. (74) His voiceNP camePv toPP herNP fromPP far offADV…

(74) stands as a fictive TME construction of the sensory Path. The ‘voice’ traveled from somewhere ‘far off’, where it was produced, to the place where ‘she’ stayed and it was apprehended by her. The ADV ‘far off’ here thus consists of the Starting Point of the Actant ‘his voice’. But as we have discussed at the end of Subsection 5.5.3 that Chinese ADVs usually do not represent location,11 and the ADV-s are as a rule turned into other Chinese grammatical categories, rather than ADVs. Take (74) for example. Its translation in our corpus is他的声音仿佛是从很远的地方飘 过来 (His voice seems from a far place fly come), where the ADV- ‘far off’ is rendered as a NP- ‘很远的地方 (a distant place)’. Another unparalleled aspect between English and Chinese representation resides in that Chinese users occasionally represent s by way of Pvs, while that is not the case in English texts. For example: (75) 郑子云NP 今天

下班Pv

Zheng Ziyun

jintian xiaban

Zheng Ziyun

today

leave his work

回 来Pv…… huilai… return come… When ZhengNP returned Pvhome ADVfromPP workNP that afternoon…

The Pv ‘下班 (xiaban leave work)’ here lexicalizes not only the Motion and Path of DE, but also its Starting Point, where the Actant worked. Similar to ‘下 班’, Chinese also has, for example, ‘放学 (fangxue leave school)’, ‘出院 (chuyuan exit hospitle)’, ‘离岗 (ligang leave duty)’, ‘下车 (xiache exit car)’, all integrating Motion, Path and the Starting Point. Our investigation shows that, to put such constructions into English, translators usually adopt the construction of Pv + 11 According

to Chao (1968: 339–350) and Huang and Liao (2002: 24–27), there is a category of Chinese ADVs representing location, but these are usually unspecific locations like ‘ 处处 (chuchu everywhere)’, ‘到处daochu (daochu everywhere)’, ‘四处(sichu everywhere)’, ‘随 处(suichu everywhere)’, etc., which are very hard to enter TME constructions.

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5 Contrasting the Representation of TMEs in English and Chinese

PP + NP. (75), for example, is translated as When ZhengNP returned Pvhome ADVfromPP workNP that afternoon. The -encoding Chinese Pv ‘下班’ is rendered as ‘returned from work’; in other words, the English translation decomposes the source construction into its constituents: Motion, Path and Starting Point. According to Table 4.24, the representations of the English and Chinese s are consistent with each other: both realized predominantly by NPs and very rarely by Pvs. These NPs, similar to those representing Starting Points, are not particularly of certain category either, for any entity, concrete or abstract, is the possible Passing Point on an Actant’s Path. For instance, in (43a) the abstract NP ‘a concatenation of stages it might require some subtlety to trace’ falls on the fictive Path imagined between the Actant’s two ideas, while the concrete NP ‘弯曲悲戚的罗马街道 (the tortuous, tragic streets of Rome)’ in (72c ) becomes part of the Actant’s journey. As for the Pv-PaPs, we gather just one case, respectively, in English and Chinese: (76) a. Mr. Caspar GoodwoodNP had crossedPv toPP ParisNP. a′.戈德伍德NP 已 Goodwood

yi

Goodwood

渡

过Pv

du

guo

already ferry pass

海峡NP 去Pv 巴黎了NP。 haixia

qu

bali leASP

straits

go

Paris.

b. 她的

倩影NP 似乎

翻山越岭Pv

tade

qianying

sihu

fanshanyueling

Her

beautiful image

appear climb mountain surpass ridge

来到Pv 他的房间NP…… laidao

tade fangjian…

come arrive

his

room…

b′. …itNP camePv intoPP the roomNP, rustling ghostlike throughPP the curtainsNP. . . .

5.5 The Representation of Motion Event Constituents in English and Chinese

159

Besides Motion, the Passing Point and Path are also encoded in ‘crossed’ in (76a) and in ‘翻山越岭 (fanshanyueling climb mountain surpass ridge)’ in (76b). These highly lexicalized Pvs are disintegrated into their semantic constituents or reinterpreted when translated into TL. So ‘crossed’ is dissected into ‘渡过 (duguo ferry pass)’ for Motion and Path, and ‘海峡 (haixia straits)’ for the Passing Point in (76a ). Similarly, ‘翻山越岭’ in (76b) contains also the information of Motion, Path and the Passing Point, but it is hard to find an equivalent construction in English for this and can only be reinterpreted as in (76b ). Based on Table 4.25, to represent Endpoints, both English and Chinese users employ ADJs, NPs, and Pvs. Besides these three forms, English users are also found depending heavily on ADVs, while no such case is found in the Chinese corpus. And to represent Goals, both English and Chinese users make use of NPs, but the users disagree on employing ADVs and Pvs to express Goals. In our English corpus, two cases of the former are found, but no case is found in the Chinese corpus; while in the Chinese corpus two cases of the Pv-Goals are found and no such case is found in the English corpus. Similar to the representation of Starting Points and Passing Points, NPs are also the major means representing AE Grounds, including both Endpoints and Goals. Such NPs, be they concrete or abstract, animate or inanimate, are all possible to enter TME constructions as Endpoints. ‘white’ in (73), ‘her’ in (74), ‘Paris’ in (76a) and ‘他的房间 (tade fangjian his room)’ in (76b) are all examples of such NPs. Pvs Provide another device by which English and Chinese users represent Endpoints. Such Pvs found in the English corpus are ‘come’, ‘return’, ‘descend’, ‘arrive’, and ‘ascend’; in the Chinese corpus those Pvs include ‘来 (lai come)’, ‘回(来/去) (hui (lai/qu) return (come/go))’, ‘出(来) (chu (lai) exit (come))’, ‘(进)来 ((jin)lai (enter) come)’, ‘过来 (guolai come over)’, ‘下来 (xialai come down)’, ‘过去 (guoqu go over)’, ‘传来 (chuanlai come from)’ and ‘上来 (shanglai come up)’. Those Pvs, both in English and Chinese, convey the message of not only arriving at or going to arrive at the destination, but also where the destination lies. Thus they are usually decomposable into Motion, Endpoint and frequently Path. Take ‘回来 (return come)’ in (75) for example. The sentence has no nominal AE Ground. Reading it, readers will not feel at a loss as for where the Actant ‘郑子云 (Zheng Ziyun)’ was heading for, because ‘回来’ encodes the requisite information of Path, Motion and Endpoint, especially Endpoint (home here). English and Chinese users share another means in expressing Endpoints—ADJs. This kind of Endpoints have appeared in (73a), in

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5 Contrasting the Representation of TMEs in English and Chinese

which the ADJ ‘白’ is situated at the end of a fictive Path of change to terminate the process. ‘affectionate’ in (77) can also be analyzed in this manner: (77) The smile on the clerk’s face NP has changedPv from

PP fawningADJ to PP affectionate ADJ.

Between the clerk’s two expressions a Path is imagined, and ‘fawning’ and ‘affectionate’ situate at the two end of this Path. The changes in-between compose the Passing Point on this Path. The biggest difference between the representations of AE Grounds lies in the employment of ADVs. As demonstrated in Table 4.25 and 4.26, for English users ADVs rank the second in amount in representing AE Grounds. As no such case is found in the Chinese corpus, it seems that Chinese users do not favor this device. The English ADVs used to represent AE Grounds in our English corpus are ‘home’, ‘out’, ‘over’, ‘round’, ‘back’, ‘in’, ‘far’, ‘down’, ‘up’ and ‘homeward’. (72), which has been cited to illustrate the ADV-Paths, serves also well the present purpose. ‘over’ there indicates firstly the Path starting from where the Actant was living to the spot where now the Actant was. Furthermore, ‘over’ also signifies the completion of the Actant’s journey. As we have analyzed in Subsection 5.5.3, the Chinese ADVs of location are rarely able to enter TME constructions, thus to translate these Path and Ground encoding ADVs translators have to turn to other devices. We gather in all 33 English cases of the ADV-Endpoints or Goals, and they are put into four kinds of constructions. 28 of them (84.8%) are matched with Chinese Pvs, which lexicalize AE Grounds as well as Motion and Path ((78a )). Two of them are translated into Chinese NPs, which represent Grounds ((78b )), and another two into Chinese constructions of Pv (lexicalizing Motion and Path) + NP (lexicalizing Grounds) ((78c )). The last case is rendered into Chinese construction of PP (lexicalizing Path) + NP (lexicalizing Ground) ((78d )).

5.5 The Representation of Motion Event Constituents in English and Chinese

161

(78) a.

I'veNP

riddenMv

overADV

fromPP

LockleighNP; a′.我NP 是 从PP 洛克雷NP 骑马来的Pv…… wo

shi cong

Lockleigh

qima laide…

I

am from

Lockleigh

ride horse come…

b. …and Edmund Ludlow's wife, whoNP had comePv outADV fromPP New YorkNP to spend five months with her relativeNP. b′. 她NP 从PP 纽约NP 来

到Pv 这儿NP……

ta

cong

New York

lai

dao

zhe’er…

She

from

New York

come arrive

here…

c. Xiang Zi 1NP was pulling Pv Mr. Cao2NP backADV fromPP the West CityNP. c′.祥子1NP 拉着Mv 曹先生2NP Xiang Zi

la zheASP

Caoxiansheng

Xiang Zi

pulling

Mr. Cao

由PP 西城NP

回Pv 家NP。

you

the West City

hui

jia.

from

the West City

return

home.

d.

…heNP…walkedMv

homewardADV,

without

knowing his way, throughPP the tortuous, tragic streets of RomeNP… d′. 他NP 往PP 回NP 走

去MvPv……

ta

wang

hui

zou

He

toward

back

walk go

穿

过Pv 弯曲

chuan

guo

through pass

qu

悲戚的 罗马

街道NP……

wanqu beiqide Rome jiedao… bent

sad

Rome street…

From this comparison we can conclude that Chinese Pvs are the first choice when translating English ADV-Endpoints or Goals. These Pvs, as listed above, are all deictic path verbs (Talmy 1985, 2000b: Chap. 1, Lamarre 2007), which indicate that the Actants are moving to the destination. In fact, the other three forms can all be

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5 Contrasting the Representation of TMEs in English and Chinese

transformed to the Pv-type. Take (78b ) for example. It can be adapted as 她从纽约 来 (she came from New York), without incurring salient meaning shift.

5.5.5 English and Chinese TME Constituent Representation: A Comparison So far we have delved into the representations of the 4 TME constructions constituents in both English and Chinese on the basis of the statistical work in Chapter 4. Briefly, there are both similarities and dissimilarities. For similarities, both languages represent Actants by NPs, which are usually positioned in the subject slots in syntactic constructions. In representing Motion, both languages employ Pvs most. Our analysis of Path and Ground representation follows sequentially the order of the subevents. PPs are the main representation form of s in both English and Chinese. Those PPs in English are ‘from’, ‘out of’, ‘from down’, ‘from above and behind’, ‘from between’ and ‘from under’, and in Chinese they are merely ‘从 (cong from)’ and ‘由 (you from)’. English and Chinese users represent PE Paths on the whole identically by means of PPs and Pvs. It is also found that both in English and Chinese certain PPs and Pvs can be applied to represent DE Paths and PE Paths, for example ‘from’ in English and ‘由(you from)’ in Chinese. The two language users share the forms of PvMvs and Pvs in expressing s. By examining PvMvs, we find that they are mainly verbs of vision and applied in the fictive Motion events of line of sight. In English and Chinese, s are represented by Pvs and PPs. Pvs here convey information of coming closer but not arriving, like ‘approach’ and ‘去 (qu go)’; ‘toward’ is typical of such PPs in English; in Chinese it can be ‘往 (wang toward)’, ‘在 (zai at)’, ‘向 (xiang toward)’ and ‘朝 (chao toward)’. Being nominal by nature, Grounds in both English and Chinese TME constructions are represented predominantly by means of NPs, be they abstract or concrete, animate or inanimate. In terms of the specific Grounds, English and Chinese Passing Points also share the device of Pvs, like ‘cross’ in English and ‘翻山越岭 (fanshanyueling climb mountain surpass ridge)’ in Chinese. To represent Endpoints, English and Chinese users also share the devices of Pvs and ADJs. Pvs, like ‘come’ and ‘return’ in English, and ‘来 (lai come)’ and ‘回(来/ 去) (hui (lai/qu) return (come/go))’ in Chinese, are telic. The ADJ-Endpoints make appearance in fictive TME constructions, situating at the end of an imagined Path. English and Chinese also display inconsistent aspects in representing TME construction constituents. In representing Motion, English users typically express it through just one Motion verb, whereas Chinese users frequently convey Motion of a TME through a SVC, containing at least two Motion verbs. For another, to represent Motion Chinese users may put the conjunction ‘而 (er and then)’ into use, which fits into the construction of Pv + PP in English. The differences concerning DE Path representation between English and Chinese lie in ADVs and Pvs. English users occasionally make use of the former to represent DE Paths, but never use the latter. The Chinese users, on the contrary, make use of the latter instead of the former.

5.5 The Representation of Motion Event Constituents in English and Chinese

163

The AE Path representation is another factor distinguishing English from Chinese. It is found that, different from the English users employing mostly PPs for s, Chinese users typically represent s through Pvs. The use of ADVs in representing AE Paths constitutes another difference between the two languages. Our discussion reveals that ADVs are used in English for both s and and s, but no case is found in the Chinese corpus. Such s or s are usually translated into Chinese Pvs. Finally, the Chinese conjunction ‘而 (er and then)’ also seems to be a device expressing s in constructions like ‘由红而白 (you hong er bai from red to white)’. Such a device is never found in English, however. Like the representation of DE Paths, English and Chinese users also differ in the employment of ADVs and Pvs to represent Starting Points. ADVs, like ‘far off’, entails the location where a Motion has been initiated; whereas Chinese ADVs rarely lexicalize locations, especially the concrete ones. Thus to translate these English ADV-Starting Points, translators have to ‘nominalize’ theses ADVs. Another distinguishing aspect between English and Chinese Starting Points is that Chinese users also employ Pvs like ‘下班 (xiaban leave work)’, ‘出院 (chuyuan exit hospitle)’, ‘离岗 (ligang leave duty)’ to represent. English AE Grounds differ from Chinese AE Grounds mostly in the employing of ADVs. The English ADVs like ‘home’, ‘out’, ‘over’ and the like are quite frequently utilized to represent AE Grounds, but we have no such case in Chinese. To put the ADV-AE Grounds into Chinese, translators are found making use of constructions of Pvs, NPs, Pv + NP and PP + NP.

5.6 Beyond Surface Representation What we have dwelled on so far is in effect a two-layered matter of representation, namely syntactically how to represent TMEs and their subevents and lexically how to represent TME constituents. For the first we have reached the conclusion that English and Chinese users conceptually segment TMEs alike and represent mainly in the DE + AE pattern and PE + AE pattern. But the two languages are distanced from each other by surface representations. Of the major TME representation forms in English and Chinese we discover just one form that is shared between the two languages, namely PPNP + Pv of the DE + AE pattern. Three causes are derived to account for the discrepancy by comparing Tables 5.3 and 5.8. These are: the encoding of Motion, iconic motivation, and lexicalization patterns. To begin with, as having discussed in Subsection 4.3.2, in English constructions Motion is quite commonly encoded in DEs, but Chinese DEs very rarely accommodate Motion, which is usually contained in PEs or AEs, especially in the latter. If there are Motion verbs in Chinese DEs, mostly they are Mvs like ‘搭乘 (dacheng take)’ in (79a) or Pvs of the ‘away from’ type like ‘离开 (likai turn away from)’ in (79b). However, such two kinds of Motion verbs usually cannot represent Motion on their own in Chinese TME constructions; they have to cooperate with a directional verb. For example, if we take ‘前往 (qianwang leave for)’ away from the AE of (79a)

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5 Contrasting the Representation of TMEs in English and Chinese

or ‘重回 (chonghui return)’ away from the AE of (79b), the two constructions will become ungrammatical. (79) a. 她1NP……现在

从PP 首都NP

便

ta

xianzai bian

cong

shoudu

She

now

therefore from

capital

搭乘Mv 火车2NP，前往Pv dacheng take 靠近

huoche,

qianwang

train,

go to

花园山庄的 一个 车站NP。

kaojin Gardencourt near

yige

Gardencourt one

chezhan. station.

… it was fromPP that centreNP that she1NP tookMv the train2NP forPP the station nearest to GardencourtNP… b.可是一旦迪克NP 离开Pv keshi yidan Dick

likai

But once Dick

leave

她NP 重

回Pv 自我NP……

ta

chong hui

her

again return

ziwo… self…

…when heNP turnedPv away fromPP herNP intoPP himselfNP …

Such constructions, as evidenced by (79), are bound to give rise to SVCs, which are also rare in English. Following Motion-encoding is the iconic motivation. In Subsection 2.4.2, we have analyzed that English TME constructions representing 2 or less location changes are less sensitive to the iconicity principle in representation than Chinese TME constructions, and the breaching of the principle generally does not incur grave consequence either syntactically or semantically; but in Chinese this simply means something abnormal. English thus has higher flexibility in arranging the constructions, for example positioning Motion verb in DE, PE or AE, which simply means a different representation forms. Chinese is quite rigid in abiding by the principle, as the reshuffling of the subevent sequence will set forth both grammatical and semantic abnormality. Take (79b) for example. It is quite funny to rearrange it as ‘可是一旦

5.6 Beyond Surface Representation

165

迪克重回自我离开她 (keshi yidan Dick chonghui ziwo likai ta but once Dick retun to himself left her)’, but its English rendition ‘but always when he turned away from her into himself ’ (PvPPNP + PPNP) can be, for example, reorganized as “but always when he turned into himself away from her” (PPNP + PvPPNP). Nothing important seems to be lost but a superficially new construction. Lexicalization patterns are the third cause of the syntactic discrepancy between English and Chinese TME representations. At the same time, we believe it is also the top factor leading to the lexical representation difference concerning TME constituents. Based on the statistical work in Chapter 4 and the analyses in the previous sections in this chapter, we get to know the differences are mainly found in the representations of AE Paths and AE Grounds. To represent AE Paths, English users employ mainly satellite PPs, and occasionally Pvs and ADVs. On the contrary, Chinese users make more uses of Pvs. To represent AE Grounds, English users make use of ADVs, while Chinese users employ more Pvs. Our foregoing analyses prove that the main reason for this difference is that Chinese has less PPs, and secondly, ADVs in Chinese usually do not express concrete locations. On the other hand, English ADVs, like ‘home’, ‘back’, ‘over’, can lexicalize both Path and Ground in proper context. All these analyses pinpoint the very fact that lexicalization patterns result in TME constituent representation differences between English and Chinese and also provide routes to represent TME constituents.

5.7 Summary ‘Contrastive Linguistics may roughly be defined as a subdiscipline of linguistics concerned with the comparison of two or more languages or subsystems of languages in order to determine both the differences and similarities between them’ (Fisiak 1981: 1). In line with this concept, the present study carries out four main tasks in this chapter based on the statistical work in Chapter 4. The first task is a survey of the overall representation of TMEs in English. The investigation of original English texts and translated English texts shows that English users tend to map the conceptualizations of TMEs onto the constructions of DE + AE and PE + AE, which are applicable to factive events as well as fictive events. Besides these two leading constructions, there are also two minor constructions: DE + PE + AE and DE + PE. The subevents are found to have certain core structures. For DEs it is PPNP and for PEs it is PPNP. As the types of Paths, Grounds and their realization in AEs are fairly various, two core structures are found: PPNP and PPNP. Following the discussion of the overall representation of TMEs in English is the analysis of the overall representation of TMEs in Chinese. Our first conclusion is that Chinese users, identical to English users, also map TMEs onto the constructions of DE + AE and PE + AE. Another similarity between their overall representations is the ratio of the factive constructions and the fictive ones.

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5 Contrasting the Representation of TMEs in English and Chinese

But as we have noted that conceptualization and externalization are not the same issue. On the whole, only one representation type is shared between English and Chinese in our corpus, namely PPNP + Pv. Besides, the two languages also contrast in their core representations of subevents. Table 5.9 shows that only DEs in two languages posses the same core structure. Further variances are also discovered in the representation of Paths and Grounds. Our third task is to make clear the changes that TME constructions experience in these 2 aspects during the English-Chinese rendition. There are 3 types of this problem: the reduction of subevents, the loss of MEP and the change from dynamic to static. The final task is for the representation of constituents of TME constructions. As summarized in Subsection 5.5.5, NPs are the major device to represent Actants and Grounds in both English and Chinese. For Motion it is Pvs that usually come into use. In terms of Path representation, PPs and Pvs are quite frequently employed. There are, however, differing aspects between English and Chinese representations of constituents. A noticeable difference lies in Motion representation. English users typically employ one Motion verb to represent Motion, but in Chinese SVCs are quite frequently made use of. Still more, we find that ADVs are employed by English users to represent both Paths and Grounds, but in Chinese there is no such case. For Chinese users, besides PPs, Pvs are another convenient way to express Grounds, especially s. Obviously, this is also the answer to the second half of our research questions posed in Chapter 3. Conceptualizing alike but representing diversely is the apt epithet we attach to the English and Chinese representations of TME construction constituents. At the end of the present chapter we offer a brief analysis of the factors that motivate such discrepancy. These factors include Motion-encoding, iconic principle, and lexicalization patterns.

References in English Bohnemeyer, J., Enfield, N. J., Essegbey, J., Ibarretxe-Antuñano, I., Kita, S., Lüpke, F., et al. (2007). Principles of event segmentation in language: The case of motion events. Language, 83(3), 495–532. Fisiak, J. (Ed.). (1981). Contrastive linguistics and the language teacher. Oxford: Pergamon Press. Jackendoff, R. (1983). Semantics and cognition. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Lamarre, C. (2007). The linguistic encoding of motion events in Chinese: With reference to crossdialectal variation. In C. Lamarre & T. Ohori (Eds.), Typological studies of the linguistic expression of motion events (vol. 1): Perspectives from East and Southeast Asia (pp. 3–33). Tokyo: Center for Evolutionary Cognitive Sciences at the University of Tokyo. Talmy, L. (1985). Lexicalization patterns. In T. Shopen (Ed.), Language typology and syntactic description (vol. 2): Grammatical categories and the lexicon (pp. 57–149). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Talmy, L. (1991). Path to realization: A typology of event conflation. In L. A. Sutton, C. Johnson, & R. Shields (Eds.), Proceedings of the Seventeenth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society (pp. 480–520). Berkeley: Berkeley Linguistics Society.

References in English

167

Talmy, L. (1996). Fictive motion in language and “ception”. In P. Bloom, M. Peterson, L. Nadel, & M. Garrett (Eds.), Language and space (pp. 307–384). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Talmy, L. (2000a). Toward a cognitive semantics (vol. I): Concept structuring systems. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Talmy, L. (2000b). Toward a cognitive semantics (vol. II): Typology and process in concept structuring. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Ungerer, F., & Schmid, H. J. (1996). An introduction to cognitive linguistics. Harlow, Essex: Longman.

References in Chinese Chao, Y. (1968). A grammar of spoken Chinese. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Hu, Y. S. (1995). Contemporary Chinese. Shanghai: Shanghai Education Publishing House. Huang, B. R., & Liao, X. D. (2002). Xiandai Hanyu (3rd ed.). Beijing: Higher Education Press. Lian, S. N. (1993). Contrastive studies of English and Chinese. Beijing: Higher Education Press. Liu, H. W. (2010). The reconceptualization of fictivity in Chinese–English translation. Foreign Language and Literature Research, 1(1), 152–162. Lv, S. X. (2002). Multiverbs, multi-predicate and punctuation marks. In G. Huang (Ed.), Selected writings of Lv Shuxiang (pp. 672). Changchun: Northeast Normal University Press. Lv, S. X. et al. (1999). Xiandai hanyu babai ci. Beijing: The Commercial Press. Pan, W. G. (2002). Hanyingyu duibi gangyao. Beijing: Beijing Language and Culture University Press. Wang, L. (1984). Essays by Wang Li (Vol. 1). Jinan: Shandong Education Press. Wang, L. (2002). Selected writings of Wang Li. Changchun: Northeast Normal University Press. Wang, Z. Q. (2020). Wangfanhou de Gushi. Hangzhou: Zhejiang People’s Publishing House. English edition: Stories after supper. (1990). (S. Zhen, Trans.). Beijing: Chinese Literature Press.

Chapter 6

Conclusion

Two amazing facts usually inflict me when doing CA. The first is the ubiquity of some conceptual similarities between human languages, and the other is the linguistic representation diversity of those conceptual similarities. Analyzing the diversity has instilled in me a deep appreciation for human languages, not just as a vehicle of communication, but more as a portal that aids us to fathom the depths of human cognitive faculty. Adopting the MEP theory and the Talmyan binary typological classification of the world languages, this research has explored and contrasted the segmentation and representation of TMEs in English and Chinese by employing the corpus-based approach. In terms of the lexicalization patterns proposed in Talmy (1985, 2000: Chap. 1), Chapter 1 defined the construction and its constituents to be investigated. Chapter 2 reviewed the typological categorizations of world languages by Talmy, Slobin as well as other scholars, the MEP theory put forth in Bohnemeyer et al. (2007), the conceptual structure of events in Jackendoff (1983) and TCs in Xu (1988, 1992a, b, 2002). Starting from there, we set the parameters of each TME constituent and theorized the TC for the present analysis. In accordance with the theoretical preparations in Chapter 2 and prefaced by the brief introduction to the corpus-based approach, a series of statistical wok gets under way in Chapter 3, focusing on the constituent combinations and the representation of the constituents. Chapter 4 deepened the investigation and worked out the contrasting aspects between English and Chinese TME representation. As the conclusion, this chapter is to first summarize the major findings so far. And then we are to reevaluate the existing typological classifications of English and Chinese in terms of our findings. Finally, we will present the issues unresolved and the directions in which the future efforts will pursue. Two central tasks are supposed to be accomplished in this research, how English and Chinese users segment TMEs and how they represent TMEs. Our findings, therefore, lie essentially in these two aspects.

© Shanghai Jiao Tong University Press 2021 G. Zheng, The Segmentation and Representation of Translocative Motion Events in English and Chinese Discourse, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-33-4037-4_6

169

170

6 Conclusion

Drawing on the MEP theory by Bohnemeyer et al. (2007) and the conceptual structure by Jackendoff (1983), we compare and contrast the 201 English TME cases and 224 Chinese TME cases in our corpus. We find that about 70% of the English and Chinese TME cases are matched with MEP constructions in TL. From this discovery we derive the conclusion that conceptually English and Chinese TMEs segment alike. The conceptualizations of TMEs are mostly mapped onto the DE + AE construction and the PE + AE construction in both English and Chinese. Very rarely the two language users also map their TME conceptualizations onto the DE + PE construction and the DE + PE + AE construction. TMEs under investigation consist of at least two subevents. The analysis of the constituent combinations of subevent reveals that English and Chinese users conceptualize DEs and PEs alike. In both languages, DEs are mostly mapped onto the constituent combination of . For English DEs, there is, however, also another important form, . The prototypical PE constituent combination in both English and Chinese is . English and Chinese users conceptualize AEs differently. For English users the prototypical conceptual structure of an AE is or , but for Chinese users it is or . Subevents are built up by constituents; the findings next concern, therefore, logically with the conceptual identity of the four TME constituents, namely Actant, Motion, Path, and Ground. As for Actant our study bears it out that about 70% of the Actants are animate in both English and Chinese TMEs, and the rest 30% Actants are inanimate appearing mostly in fictive TMEs. Motion is encoded at a comparable rate of 40% in English DEs and AEs, and in PEs it is about 60%. In Chinese TMEs, Motion-encoding starts from 7% with DEs and rockets to nearly 100% with AEs. Usually Motion is mapped onto a single verb construction in English, but in Chinese it is quite frequently mapped onto SVCs. As for Path, we find English and Chinese users share a tendency in utilizing more over and more over . Grounds are conceptualized by English and Chinese users similarly as nominal. In brief, except for the few points mentioned here, the constituents of TMEs are conceptually similar in English and Chinese. These conceptual similarities get expressed in surface representation. The nominal conceptualization of Actants and Grounds is realized as NPs in the predominant representation of these two constituents. To represent Motion, Pvs are usually made use of. And to convey Path, the 2 language users usually seek to PPs and Pvs. However, there are also significant differences in representation between English and Chinese TMEs. Firstly, we rank the overall representation types of TMEs and discover only one representation type that is shared between the two languages, namely PPNP + Pv. And as for the representation of each subevent, we find certain core structures, but only the core structures of DEs have the same form between English and Chinese. Secondly, as we have summarized above, 70% of TMEs in our corpus are segmented alike in English and Chinese. The segmentation difference concerning the rest 30% is analyzed to be made by three factors: the reduction of subevents, the loss of MEP and the change from dynamic to static.

6 Conclusion

171

Thirdly, to represent Motion, typically one Motion verb is employed in an English TME construction, but in Chinese, SVCs are quite frequently used. This difference has a chain effect upon the representation of Path and Grounds, especially AE Paths and Grounds. In English TME constructions, AE Paths are mostly represented by PPs and secondarily by ADVs, but to represent Chinese AE Paths, Pvs are the most popular form-for the PP- there is even only one case found, and no ADV AE Paths are found. In addition to the ubiquitous NP-Grounds, English users are also found making use of ADVs to represent Grounds. Chinese AE Grounds do not take such a form. The motivations for such representation discrepancy between English and Chinese are found to be related with Motion-encoding, iconic principle, and different lexicalization patterns. In light of where Path is represented, Talmy (1985, 2000: Chap. 1) groups languages into S-languages and V-languages. By this classification, English and Chinese, two genetically as well as areally different languages display typological resemblance. Granting that Path representation is the proper measurement, our findings about Path realization seem to be denying the Talmyan dichotomy, for on the whole, as we have concluded in Table 3.2, the Chinese VP Paths (246) outnumber the PP Paths (180). Supposing world languages were truly either S-languages or Vlanguages, Chinese belongs undoubtedly more to V-languages as claimed by Tai (2003) and Wu (2008), instead of S-languages as categorized by Talmy (1985, 2000: Chap. 1). But as there is also a big number of PP Paths in languages like Chinese, Slobin (2004) adds E-language to make the typology a tripartite complex, labeling those permitting SVCs. This theoretical modification has been echoed in Chen (2005), Chen and Guo (2009), Zhuang (2007). Softening the rigid Talmyan binary classification, this trichotomy typology seems quite instrumental in packaging the languages typically neither S-framing nor V-framing. It, however, goes not without drawbacks. Take English for example. English is commonly taken as the representative of S-languages, and our DE Path analysis and PE Path analysis also rightly evidence this categorization, but our analysis indicates, at the same time, that 68.2% of English AE Paths are represented by PP satellites and over 30% of the English AE Paths are incorporated in Pvs or ADVs. We believe the belonging of English becomes rather problematic under such an analysis. Therefore, we hold that the dichotomic or trichotomic classification based on lexicalization patterns is not a cure-all in ascertaining a language’s typological belonging. Similar doubts in fact have been aroused in Pourcel (2006) and Kopecka (2006) about French, Wienold (1995) about Japanese and Korean, Pawley (2006) about Jaminjung and Kalam, Ibarretxe-Antuñano (2005) about Basque, Filipovi´c (2007) about Serbian/Croatian, and Hsiao (2009) about Chinese. Thus, while acknowledging the contribution made by Talmy, Slobin, and their associates to deepening our perception into the nature of human languages, we contend that it is not always appropriate to attach typological labels to world languages on the basis of one or two criteria. Following Hsiao (2009), we propose that a construction-based methodology is more preferable for describing languages, especially for languages like Chinese in which several distinct motion event description constructions co-exist.

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6 Conclusion

Secondly, in Subsection 5.5.2 and 5.5.3 we noted that the Chinese conjunction ‘ 而 (er and then)’ lexicalizes Motion and Path in fictive constructions like ‘由+ADJ +而+ ADJ (you + ADJ + er + ADJ)’ (e.g. ‘由红而白’ you hong er bai from red to white). By Bohnemeyer et al. (2007, 2010) the introduction of conjunction incurs the loss of MEP, but ‘而’ in the above constructions seems not to have such potentials. Again, as we have noted, ‘而’ in constructions like ‘从天而降 (cong tian er jiang come down from heaven)’ also makes exception to Bohnemeyer and his colleagues’ principle. Similar examples are found in English as well, for example: (80) a. I like the great country stretching away beyond the rivers and across the prairies, b.? I like the great country stretching away beyond the rivers and then across the prairies,

In this fictive event, ‘and’ here functions as the conjunction joining DE and PE, and it seems meaningless to insert a time adverbial (‘then’) around it, for the time adverbial in such a construction can not indicate any temporal span between the two subevents. Based on this analysis, we propose that, at least in fictive constructions, the introduction of conjunction dose not necessarily lift the MEP. Methodologically, the proposition of the MEP theory is based on the data collected by Bohnemeyer and quite a few of his colleagues specialized in 18 different languages. They carry out their research by means of lab work and thus guarantee the relative applicability of their findings in various linguistic studies. Our study is corpus-based,but it is based just on the written narratives. We believe its findings are suggestive for relevant studies, but when applying them in a broader domain, both the approach and the data sources should be revised. Furthermore, to conduct the statistical work, we adopt softwares like ICTCLAS for word segmentation and grammar category tagging, OFFICE EXCEL for data computation, but essentially the data is processed manually, for instance, data entering. Therefore, to increase the validity of this research, we have to better its automaticity. Theoretically, the MEP theory is still a fresh one for Chinese studies, and our research is just one of the few attempts adopting this model. Croft et al. (2010) have labeled this model as ‘opportunistic’, for it merely singles out a construction feature to reach a typological conclusion. Whether such criticism holds its ground awaits further investigations. We rank the representation forms of the TMEs in the order of their amount in both English and Chinese. Whether such rankings are applicable in other types of text is in need of further examination. Another problem unresolved is the co-occurrence of Pvs and Path satellites, especially in English, which possesses more PPs. Take the Pv ‘pass’ for instance: (81) Simultaneously the whole party NP …passing Pv from PP the heat NP to PP the cool NP with the gourmandise of a tingling curry eaten with chilled white wine.

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173

Here ‘pass’ co-exists with the satellite PP ‘from’, but both encoding Path. If both ‘pass’ and ‘from’ are Path-representing, does this expression commit repetition? We believe that solid analysis be offered to answer it. Form and function stay always at the center of linguistic investigations at various levels. The contrastive analysis of the segmentation and representation of TMEs are just one of such research and more systematic work is in need to enrich the studies in this regard.

References in English Bohnemeyer, J., Enfield, N. J., Essegbey, J., Ibarretxe-Antuñano, I., Kita, S., Lüpke, F., et al. (2007). Principles of event segmentation in language: The case of motion events. Language, 83(3), 495–532. Bohnemeyer, J., Enfield, N. J., Essegbey, J., & Kita, S. (2010). The macro-event property—The segmentation of causal chains. In J. Bohnemeyer & E. Pederson (Eds.), Event representation in language and cognition (pp. 43–67). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Chen, L. (2005). The acquisition and use of motion event expressions in Chinese. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Chen, L., & Guo, J. (2009). Motion events in Chinese novels: evidence for an equipollently-framed language. Journal of Pragmatics, 41(9), 1749–1766. Croft, W., Barddal, J., Hollmann, W. B., Sotirova, V., & Taoka, C. (2010). Revising Talmy’s typological classification of complex events. In H. C. Boas (Ed.), Contrastive construction grammar (pp. 201–236). Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Filipovi´c, L. (2007). Talking about motion: A cross-linguistic investigation of lexicalization patterns. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Hsiao, S. H.-C. (2009). Motion event descriptions and manner-of-motion verbs in mandarin. Ph.D. dissertation, The University at Buffalo, State University of New York. Ibarretxe-Antuñano, I. (2005). Leonard Talmy: A windowing to conceptual structure and language. Part 1: Lexicalisation and typology. Annual Review of Cognitive Linguistics, 3(1), 325–347. Jackendoff, R. (1983). Semantics and cognition. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Kopecka, A. (2006). The semantic structure of motion verbs in French: Typological perspectives. In M. Hickmann & S. Robert (Eds.), Space in languages: Linguistic systems and cognitive categories (pp. 83–101). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Pawley, A. (2006). Where have all the verbs gone? Remarks on the organization of languages with small, closed verb classes. In 11th Binnenial Rice University Linguistics Symposium. Pourcel, S. (2006). Relativism in the linguistic representation and cognitive conceptualisation of motion events across verb-framed and satellite-framed languages. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Durham. Slobin, D. I. (2004). The many ways to search for a frog: Linguistic typology and the expression of motion events. In S. Strömqvist & L. Verhoeven (Eds.), Relating events in narrative (vol. 2): Typological and contextual perspectives (pp. 219–257). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Tai, J. H.-Y. (2003). Cognitive relativism: Resultative construction in Chinese. Language and Linguistics, 4(2), 301–316. Talmy, L. (1985). Lexicalization patterns. In T. Shopen (Ed.), Language typology and syntactic description (vol. 2): Grammatical categories and the lexicon (pp. 57–149). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Talmy, L. (2000). Toward a cognitive semantics (vol. II): Typology and process in concept structuring. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

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6 Conclusion

Wu, J. (2008). Contrastive study of motion events in English and Chinese narratives: The syntaxsemantic interface. Ph.D. dissertation, Shanghai International Studies University. Wienold, G. (1995). Lexical and conceptual structures in expressions for movement and space: With reference to Japanese, Korean, Thai, and Indonesian as compared to English and German. In U. Egli, P. E. Pause, C. Schwarze, A. von Stechow, & G. Wienold (Eds.), Lexical knowledge in the organization of language (pp. 301–340). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

References in Chinese Xu, Y. L. (1988). On the tertium comparationis of contrastive analysis. Journal of Foreign Languages, 55(3), 28–33. Xu, Y. L. (1992a). The definition and typology of contrastive linguistics. Journal of Foreign Languages, 80(4), 12–17. Xu, Y. L. (1992b). An introduction to contrastive linguistics. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press. Xu, Y. L. (2002). Contrastive linguistics. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press. Zhuang, Y. (2007). Language and cognition: Investigating the possible difference between Chinese and English speakers in their perception of a motion event. M.A. dissertation, National Cheng Kung University Institute of Education.

Appendices

Appendix 1: Actant

© Shanghai Jiao Tong University Press 2021 G. Zheng, The Segmentation and Representation of Translocative Motion Events in English and Chinese Discourse, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-33-4037-4

175

+∈_

+

+

+

NP1∈NP2

NP

NP

NP

_

+

NP

_

_

→NP

→NP( NP∈)

_

NP

NP

+

NP

+

NP

+

_

NP

+→+

+

(NP)

=NP1→ NP2

_

NP

NP

+

_

NP

_→+(+∈_)

=NP1→ NP2(NP2∈ NP1)

→NP

Actants

Actants

NP

NP

NP

(NP)

→NP( NP∈)

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

=NP1→ NP2

NP

NP

NP

=NP1→ NP2

Tender

PR

Chen

+

+

+

+

_

_

_

+

+

+

_

+

+

+→+

+

+

+

_→+(+∈_)

PR

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

→NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP1&NP2( NP1∈NP2)

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

Actants

Xiang

+

+

_

_

+

_

+

+

+

+

_

+

+&_ (+∈_)

+

+

+

+

+

+

PR

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

(NP)

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP1&NP2( NP1∈NP2)

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

Actants

Portrait

(continued)

+

+

+

+

_

+

+

+

+

+

+

_

+

+&_ (+∈_)

+

+

+

+

+

PR

176 Appendices

Actants

+

_

+

+→+

+

+

_

+

_

_

_

+

_

_

+

_

_

+

+

_

+

+

+

Actants

NP

NP

NP

NP1→NP2

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

(NP)

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP1&NP2

Tender

PR

Chen

(continued)

_

_

+

_

_

+

+

+

+

_

_

+

+

+

+

+

_

+

+

+

+

+

+

PR

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

=→NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

→NP

NP

NP

NP

NP1&NP2

Actants

Xiang

+

+

+

+

+

+

_

+

_

_

_

+

+

+

_

+

+

+

_

+

+

+

+&+

PR

NP

NP

→NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

(NP)

NP

NP

(NP)

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

Actants

Portrait

(continued)

+

+

_

+

+

+

+

+

+

_

_

_

+

_

_

+

+

+

+

_

+

+

_

PR

Appendices 177

Actants

+

_

+

_

+

_

+

_

Actants

NP

NP

NP

→NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

+ _ + + + + _ + + + _ + +

→NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

+

+

+

+

+

+

_

PR

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

Tender

PR

Chen

(continued)

_ + +

NP NP

+→+

+

_

_

+

+

+

+

+

+

+

+

+

+

_

+

+

+

+

PR

NP

=NP1→ NP2

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

→NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

→NP

NP

()→NP

NP

NP

Actants

Xiang

NP

NP

NP1&NP2( NP1∈NP2)

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

Actants

Portrait

(continued)

+

_

+&_ (+∈_)

+

+

+

+

+

+

+

+

+

+

+

+

PR

178 Appendices

Actants

PR

_

+→+

+→+

_

+

_

_

_

_

_

_

+

_

_

+

_

+

Actants

NP

=NP1→NP2

=NP1→NP2

→NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

→NP

=→NP

NP

→NP

→NP

NP

NP

NP

PR

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

=/NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

=NP1/NP2

=< ACT>NP1/NP2

NP

Chi Bang

Actants

Goldblatt

Tender

Actants

PR

Chen

(continued)

+

_

+

_

+

+

+

+

+

_

_

+

_

+→+

+→+

_

PR

_ +

NP NP

NP

=NP1→NP2

=NP 1→NP 2

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

N P

NP

Actants

+

+→-

+→+

_

+

_

+

_

+

+

+

+

+

+

_

_

+

PR

+&_ (+∈_)

NP1&NP2( NP1∈NP2)

Shi

PR

Actants

Xiang PR

PR

+→_

_

+

_

+

_

_

+

+

_

+

+

+

_

+

_

+

(continued)

(=< ACT>NP1)→ NP2

N P

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

(NP)

(NP)

NP

NP

NP

NP

Actants

Xiang Zi

Actants

Portrait

Appendices 179

+

_

_

_

+

+

_

+

_

NP

→NP

NP

NP

NP

→NP

NP

NP

+

NP

NP

+

NP

+

+

NP

NP

_

NP

+

+

NP

+

_

NP

NP

+

NP

→NP

Actants

Actants

NP

< ACT>NP

NP

NP

CvNP

NP

< ACT>NP

NP

CvNP

NP

NP

NP

CvNP

Chi Bang

PR

Goldblatt

(continued)

_

_

_

_

+

+

+

_

_

+

+

+

+

PR

NP

NP1→NP2

NP

NP

NP

→NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

(NP)

=NP1→NP2

NP

NP

NP

NP

=NP1→NP2

Actants

Shi

_

-→+

_

_

+

_

+

_

+

+

_

+

+→+

+

+

+

+

+

PR

PR

+ +

(NP) NP

(continued)

_ _

(NP)

+

+

+

+

+

_

_

+

+

+

+

+→+

+

+

+

+

+

+→+

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

(NP)

NP

NP

NP

=NP1→ NP2

NP

NP

NP

NP

NP

(=NP1)→ NP2

Actants

Xiang Zi

180 Appendices

Chi Bang

Actants

Actants

PR

Goldblatt

(continued) PR

Actants

Shi PR

PR + _

Actants NP NP

Xiang Zi

Appendices 181

AT

1

1

1

Cv

Fv

DN

CoV

Pv

Fv

2

PvMv

Mv 1

5

PvPv

Mv

Pv

1

3

26

Fv

Pv

Mv

Pv

8

5

18

1

3

10

AT

Mv

7

1

Pv

AT

SUM:3

Fv

5 1

DE

PE

AE

53

1

IDIOM

SUM:7

1

1

2

2

Pv Mv

AT

AT

31 15

IDIOMPv Mv

PvMv

Cv

PvMv

Mv

Pv

DE

39

1

1

18

19

Motion in translated Chinese

SUM:4

Fv

IDIOM

Mv

Motion in translated English

40

2

Mv

SUM: 6

20

15

Pv

AT

IDIOM

MvPv

Pv

PE

SUM:2

MvPv

Pv

PE

DE

AE

Motion in original Chinese

AT

AT

DE

PE

Motion in original English

Appendix 2: Motion

1

3

37

AT

8

1

7

AT

PvMv

5

42

95

AT

(continued)

MvPv

Pv

AE

69

1

CoVMv Pv SUM:12

1 1

IDIOM

3 PvMv

3 CONJ

3

3

3

4

23

24

AT

CoV

CoVPv

Mv

MvPv Pv

FvPv

Pv

MvPv

AE

182 Appendices

SUM:3

10

28

SUM:4

33

16

1

CoV

SUM:5

1

MvPv

AT

SUM:4

1

DE

IDIOM

1

AT

DN

AE

Motion in translated Chinese

AT

AT

DE

PE

Motion in translated English

(continued)

SUM:3

PE

41

AT

AE

1 1 1

FvPv CoVPv

152

1

PvMv

SUM:9

1

PvPv

5

AT

PvFv

Mv

Appendices 183

AT

AE

SUM:3

62

17 2 1 1

IDIOM PP

20

Pv ADV

40

PP

2 1

ADJ

5

5

6

76

AT

PP

Pv

NP

Pv

PP

SUM:2

PP

Pv

PE

IDIOM

PP

Pv

PE

DE

PP

PE

AT

131

55

SUM:7

2

Pv

AT

61

2

PvMv

3

5

54

PP

SUM:2

3

ADV

NP

Pv

PP

DE

SUM:4

8

15

23

78

ADV

PP

Pv

PP

Path in translated Chinese

79

ADV

10

Path in translated English

1

1

Pv

Pv

51

4

PP

73

PP

AT

PP

AT

DE

AE

Path in original Chinese

AT

AT

DE

PE

Path in original English

Appendix 3: Path

1

28

39

AT

13

5

8

AT

(continued)

1 1

PvFv

4

5

10

15

113

AT

PP

PvMv

PvMv

PP

Pv

Pv

AE

73

1 SUM:8

1 IDIOM

2

3

3

4

4

55

AT

PvMv

PvMv

CONJ

CoV

PP

Pv

Pv

AE

184 Appendices

SUM:1

17

SUM:7

64

SUM:6

95

SUM:4

PE

55

AT

SUM:1

AT

DE

AE

Path in translated Chinese

AT

AT

DE

PE

Path in translated English

(continued)

68

AT SUM:7

Mv

AE

152

3

AT

Appendices 185

186

Appendices

Appendix 4: Ground Grounds Grounds in original English texts

Grounds in original Chinese texts

DE

AT

PE

AT

AE

NP

77

NP

60

NP

81

ADV

2

Pv

1

NP

17

ADV

16

Pv

15

ADV

2

SUM: 6

131

SUM: 2

79

SUM: 2 61

AT

Grounds in translated English texts

DE

AT

PE

AT

AE

AT

NP

60

NP

13

NP

31

Pv 23 Pv

SUM: 2

2

62

SUM: 1 13

NP

11

ADJ

3

IDIOM

1

SUM: 5

69

Grounds in translated Chinese texts

DE

AT

PE

AT

AE

AT

DE

AT

PE

AT

AE

NP

53

NP

17

NP

39

NP

94

NP

67

NP

85

ADV

16

Pv

1

IDIOM

1

Pv

37

Pv

6

NP

26

ADJ

2

ADJ

2

NP

1

Pv

2

SUM: 5

64

SUM: 5

152

SUM: 1

53

SUM: 1

17

SUM: 2

95

SUM: 2 68

AT

27

7

10

AT

1 1

4

6

10

12

30







AE

SUM:3

62

SUM:3

1 1

1

1

2

2

3

6

78

AT













PE

DE

PE



AT

130

3

AT

SUM:10

28

61

1

1

1

1

5

10

12

14



PE



SUM:4









4

55

AT

DE

79

SUM: 5

1

9

18



Events composition (Translated Chinese)

1



22

67

Events composition (Translated English)

1

3



36



DE



29

38

AT



AE

Events composition (Original Chinese)

AT

AT

DE

PE

Events composition (Original English)

Appendix 5: Event composition

1

1

2

27

37

AT

13

1

5

7

AT

2

2

3

7

11

14

21

23

62

AT

69

1

1

1

1

2

3

5

10

14

15

16

AT

(continued)









AE

SUM:11













AE

Appendices 187

SUM:2

17

SUM:7

64

SUM: 9

95

sum:5

PE

55

AT

SUM:2

AT

DE

AE

Events composition (Translated Chinese)

AT

AT

DE

PE

Events composition (Translated English)

(continued)

68

AT

1

SUM:15

152

1

1

1

1

2

AT

=





AE

188 Appendices

References in English

Buchler, J. (Ed.). (1940). The philosophy of Peirce: Selected writings. New York: Dover. Chao, Y. (1965a). A grammar of spoken Chinese. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Grimshaw, J. (1997). Projection, heads, and optimality. Linguistic Inquiry, 28(3), 373–422. Kager, R. (1999). Optimality theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. McCarthy, J., & Prince, A. (1993). Generalized alignment. In G. Booij & J. van Marle (Eds.), Yearbook of morphology (pp. 79–153). Dordrecht: Kluwer. Prince, A., & Smolensky, P. (2004). Optimality theory: Constraint interaction in generative grammar. Oxford: Blackwell. Slobin, D. I. (2000). Verbalized events: A dynamic approach to linguistic relativity and determinism. In S. Niemeier & R. Dirven (Eds.), Evidence for linguistic relativity (pp. 107–138). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Talmy, L. (2009). Main verb properties and equipollent framing. In J. Guo, E. Lieven, N. Budwig, S. Ervin-Tripp, K. Nakamura, & S. Ozcaliskan (Eds.), Crosslinguistic approaches to the psychology of language: Research in the tradition of Dan Isaac Slobin (pp. 389–402). London: Psychology Press. Talmy, L. (2011). Universals of semantics. In P. Hogan (Ed.), The Cambridge encyclopedia of the language sciences (pp. 754–756). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Zlatev, J. (2006). Semantics of spatial expressions. In E. K. Brown (Ed.), Encyclopedia of language and linguistics (2nd ed., pp. 173–180). Oxford: Elsevier.

References in Chinese Chao, Y. R. (1965). A grammar of spoken Chinese. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Chinese edition: Hanyu kouyu yufa. (1979). (Lv, S. X., Trans.). Beijing: The Commercial Press. Chen, P. (1996). A contrastive study of English and Chinese negative structures. In L. Ruihua (Ed.), English and Chinese contrastive studies in language and culture (pp. 253–291). Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press. Lao, S. (1999). Luotuo Xiang Zi. Beijing: People’s Literature Publishing House. Li, X. (2008). Variations of the lexicalization patterns of motion verbs in English and Chinese and its influence on translation. Foreign Language Research, 145(6), 109–112.

© Shanghai Jiao Tong University Press 2021 G. Zheng, The Segmentation and Representation of Translocative Motion Events in English and Chinese Discourse, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-33-4037-4

189

190

References in English

Wang, Z. Q. (2020). Wangfanhou de Gushi. Hangzhou: Zhejiang People’s Publishing House. English edition: Stories after supper. (1990). (Zhen, S., Trans.). Beijing: Chinese Literature Press. Yan, C. S. (1998). The lexicalization patterns of verbs of motion: An English and Chinese contrastive study. Journal of PLA University of Foreign Languages, 97(6), 8–12. Zheng, G. F., & Wu, J. W. (2013). The macro-event property and the segmentation and representation. Journal of East China University of Science and Technology (Social Sciences), 28(4), 97–104.