Description
Book SynopsisThis book provides a systematic, contrastive analysis of the segmentation and representation of English and Chinese Translocative Motion Events (TMEs), which possess Macro-Event Property (MEP). It addresses all the issues critical to understanding TMEs in English and Chinese, from event segmentation, MEP principles and the conceptual structure of TMEs and their constituents, to the representation of Actant, Motion, Path and Ground. The book argues that the corpus-based alignment for the TME segmentation in both languages, the parameters of Actant, Motion, Path and Ground and their relevant statistical description are particularly important for understanding English and Chinese TMEs. The linguistic materialization of Actant, Ground, Path and Motion, together with a wealth of tables and figures, offers convincing evidence to support the typological classification of English and Chinese. The book’s suggestions regarding the Talmyan bipartite typology and Bohnemeyer’s MEP contribute to the advancement of TME studies and language typology, and help learners to understand motion events and English-Chinese typological similarities and differences.
Table of ContentsList of TablesList of FiguresList of Abbreviations
Chapter 1 Introduction: Events, Motion Events and Translocative Motion Events
1.1 Translocative Motion Events (TMEs) 1.1.1 Defining event1.1.2 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 Framework and Methodological Issues1.4 The Roadmap
Chapter 2 MEP Principles and the Segmentation and Representation of the TMES
2.0 Introduction 2.1 Theoretical Issues 2.1.1 Talmyan dichotomy typology and motion event studies by other scholars 2.1.1.1 Talmyan dichotomy typology 2.1.1.2 Dichotomy or trichotomy 2.1.2 Event segmentation 2.2 Principles of MEP 2.2.1 The biuniqueness constraint 2.2.2 The macro-event linking principle 2.2.3 The referential uniqueness constraint 2.2.4 The unique vector constraint 2.2.5 The loss of MEP 2.2.6 A brief summary of Section 2.2 2.3 The Segmentation of Complex Motion Events and the TME Constructions with MEP2.3.1 The conceptual structure and types of motion events 2.3.2 The segmentation of complex motion events 2.3.3 The TME constructions with MEP 2.4 The Components of TMEs and Parameter-setting 2.4.1 Figure and parameter-setting 2.4.2 Motion and parameter- setting 2.4.3 Path and parameter-setting 2.4.4 Ground and parameter-setting 2.5 Tertium Comparationis and the Hypothesis for This Study2.6 Summary
Chapter 3 Corpus Tagging and Statistical Work
3.0 Introduction 3.1 Research Design 3.1.1 The parallel translation corpus 3.1.2 Sentence selection and tagging 3.1.3 Variables 3.2 English and Chinese TME Constructions3.2.1 The MEP sentences in English and Chinese texts 3.2.2 The subevent constructions in English and Chinese texts 3.3 Representing English and Chinese TME Constructions3.3.1 Who is moving 3.3.2 How to move 3.3.3 Which road to follow 3.3.4 Where to go 3.4 Summary
Chapter 4 Contrasting the Representation of English and Chinese TMEs
4.0 Introduction 4.1 The Representation of English and Chinese TMEs 4.1.1 English TMEs in the original texts 4.1.2 English TMEs in the translated texts 4.2.1 Chinese TMEs in the original texts 4.2.2 Chinese TMEs in the translated texts 4.2.3 At hand or in the distance? Part I: English and Chinese TME constructions in comparison 4.3 The TMEs Between English and Chinese 4.3.1 From English to Chinese 4.3.2 From Chinese to English 4.4 The Representation of Motion Event Components 4.4.1 The representation of Actants4.4.2 The representation of Motion4.4.3 The representation of Paths4.4.5 At hand or in the distance? Part II: English and Chinese TME component representation in comparison4.5 Beyond Surface Representation4.6 Summary
Chapter 5 Conclusions
5.0 Introduction5.1 Major Findings5.2 Theoretical Implications5.3 Limitations and Future Study
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