A study of pattern path expressions in Mandarin Chinese from the perspective of motion event typology

ABSTRACT: Given that pattern paths, one type of fictive motion, have been understudied so far, this paper examines pattern path expressions from the perspective of motion event typology. Through manually collecting Mandarin pattern path data from books and magazines, we first explored the semantic elements in pattern path expressions with a focus on the Figure and the Ground, and then investigated their lexicalization pattern by studying the grammatical slots encoding the Path, the semantic elements integrated in the verb, the expression of manner information, and the complexity of Ground information. The results showed that, in Mandarin pattern path expressions, typical semantic elements include the Figure, the Ground, the Motion, the Path, and the Cause, among which Figural entities are usually large-scale geographical or architectural entities, and the Ground is often left out linguistically; second, the Path is encoded in both the verb and the satellite, but more frequently in the verb; third, the number of manner verbs is low in both type and token while that of path verbs is high, and accordingly, alternative expressions of manner information usually modify path verbs rather than manner verbs. Our findings suggest that pattern path expressions are an economical way to express the state change of large-scale entities and that Mandarin Chinese behaves more like a V-language when expressing pattern paths. 摘要: 鉴于虚构运动中模式路径尚未得到足够关注，本研究从运动事件类型 学视角对其进行考察。从汉语出版物中收集了模式路径语料；分析了 其所涵盖的语义要素，并重点关注焦点和背景；从多方面考察了其词 汇化模式，包括路径信息编码位置、动词所编码的语义信息、方式信 息的表达特点以及背景信息的复杂度。结果发现，首先，模式路径中 的典型语义要素包括焦点、背景、运动、路径及原因，其中焦点多是 规模较大的地理或建筑实体，且背景常常不编码；其次，路径信息既 可用动词编码，也可用卫星词，且动词更多；第三，方式动词的形符 数和类符数均较低，而路径动词二者均较高，与之相关的是，非动词 编码的方式信息常常修饰路径动词而非方式动词。结果表明，模式路 径可以经济性地表达大规模实体的状态变化；汉语普通话在表达模式 路径时的特征与动词框架语言更相似。