Xiaotong Xu, Mitian Chen
In English, a single sentence can be formed with only one core verb, while in Chinese, a serial verb construction is required to encode elements that are semantically equivalent to the English core verb. In English, verbs that involve no horizontal/vertical path, such as swirl, or even verbs that lack the concept of motion, such as roar, can directly enter a sentence when coupled with an element denoting the path. Yet in Chinese, the complement from a main movement verb is required. For example, verbs like xuánzhuǎn ‘swirl’ and hūxiào ‘roar’ can only function as additional elements to modify main movement verbs like fēi ‘fly’ or shǐ ‘drive’. Building on this observation, the present research investigates autonomous motion event sentences in Chinese and English, proposing that in both languages, characterizing an autonomous motion event requires the semantic conflation of its motion and path to express a concept of translational movement. The differences in semantic conflation patterns between Chinese and English can be attributed to the greater number and variety of prepositions in English. Some English prepositions, such as across, encode a directional path, while others, such as in, do not. Prepositions expressing a directional path could compensate for the absence of directional motion in non-horizontal/vertical movement verbs. However, Chinese has far fewer prepositions, and none encode a directional path, making movement verbs or directional path verbs indispensable. This study concludes that when a complement for movement is needed to characterize an autonomous motion event, prepositions expressing path perform this function in English, whereas in Chinese, the role is fulfilled by verbs.
