A Contrastive Study on Paths in English and Chinese Caused Translocative Motion Events: The Case of Narrative

Taking Path of English and Chinese Caused Translocative Motion Events (CTMEs) as the tertium comparationis, we compare narrative Path expressions in English and Chinese CTMEs.Four parameters of Path are under discussion:Vector, Direction, Configuration and Boundedness.They are also analyzed in double object constructions, SVO constructions and disposal constructions.Chi-square tests are introduced for the analysis of those significant data.Differences are revealed between the two languages:1) English has more combinatorial patterns encoding Vectors, showing much more flexibility in expressing the principle of temporal sequence than Chinese; 2) English tends to employ absolute Earth-based directional expressions, while Chinese prefers relative refences; 3) English has higher lexical availability in expressing different geometric relations between Figure and Ground, preferring expressions of high specificity and lower disjunctives in conveying Configuration, while Chinese Configuration expressions are higher in disjunctives and lower in specificity; 4) In English, SVOs predominate CTMEs; while in Chinese, it is SVOs and disposal cases that dominate.Vector and Direction are expressed differently in terms of CTME types between English and Chinese.As for similarities, both languages exhibit a great tendency to express the Arrival of Paths, and implicitate the Traversals of Figure, and both languages express Path Boundedness, and show no noticeable discrepancy in conveying Configuration and Boundedness.This study proves that, in terms of the representation of motion event Path, Chinese is not a prototypical satellite-framed language.