2.1.2 Chinese in motion event typology

Very few studies have focused on a thorough investigation of the typological status of Chinese; however, several scholars do mention this language in passing in their discussion of motion event typology.Among them, Talmy （2000） clearly classes Chinese as a satellite-framed language, paralleling English and other Germanic languages, whereas Slobin （2004） and others （e.g.Chen 2005） propose that it should fall into a new category of equipollently-framed languages along with Thai and some western African languages.Some linguists （e.g.Tai 2003） even suggest that Chinese be taken as verb-framed language based on semantic criteria.

Talmy argues that “Chinese has Path satellites and constructions that are entirely homologous with those of English” （2000: 109）.It needs to be noted first of all that Talmy's definition of ‘satellite’ is rather vague^[3].It is defined as “any constituent other than a nominal complement that is in a sister relation” （2000: 222） to the verb root, and it encompasses a wide range of grammatical elements including not only free morphemes like English verb particles but also bound morphemes like Russian prefixes.Talmy seems to treat satellites as a grammatical category which can be morphologically distinguished from a verb root and syntactically identified by never standing alone as an independent verb/predicate.However, these criteria are virtually inapplicable in Chinese.Verbs in this language are not in any way morphologically marked and therefore it is impossible to differentiate a verb from its satellite on the basis of morphological criteria.Further, the syntactic status of a given grammatical element in Chinese is usually flexible.As example （8a）, below, illustrates, the verb shang4 （‘up’）, when used with a preceding Manner verb, might possibly be taken as a directional complement to the this verb, which may be dubiously classified as a satellite.However, when shang 4 is used alone in the context of motion, it is definitely a full verb as it can be immediately followed by the word lewhich signals a completed action （see example （8b））.In still other cases, when shang 4 is used to describe a static location, it is undoubtedly a satellite in the form of locative preposition （see example （8c））.

（8）a.Xiao 3mao 1 pa2-shang4shu4.

cat climb up tree

‘The cat climbed up the tree.’

b.Xiao 3mao 1shang4 le shu 4.

cat ascend ASP tree

‘The cat went up the tree.’

c.You 3 yi4 zhi1 xiao3mao 1 zai4 shu4

there be one CL cat at tree

shang4.

on

‘There is a cat on the tree.’

It is argued here that Talmy's categorization of path elements in a resultative verb compound （RVC） as satellites seems largely based on the analogy of English verb particles rather than on the specific structural and syntactic properties of these elements in Chinese.Talmy holds that both Chinese Path elements and English verb particles form a closed-class set of grammatical elements which are limited in number and encode a similar semantic content （2000: 109-119）.It is true that, to some extent, the two categories of elements seem similar in the way in which they combine with Manner verbs to express motion events.Specifically, the verb form often used in motion expressions in Chinese is an RVC, in which the first verb encodes Manner and the second one Path.The RVC is different, however, from true serial verbs, such as those in Thai, where the independent status of a motion verb （i.e.a Manner verb, a Path verb or a deictic verb） is always made unequivocal by the sandwiching of arguments between serial verbs.

In some sense, the Manner verb + Path verb combination in Chinese bears some morphological resemblance to English Manner verb + Path satellite in that the Path-encoding element immediately follows the Manner verb （i.e.there is usually no grammatical element which can be inserted in between） and adds additional semantic value to the motion event concerned.This observation, together with Talmy's implicit assumption that there can be only one lexical main verb in a single clause, most probably leads to his classification of Chinese as being satellite-framed.

Talmy （2000） also notices that path constituent（s） in Chinese RVCs have a different syntactic function from English particles in that they can readily stand as full verbs （e.g.Xiao 3mao 1 shang4/xia 4 le shu4 ‘The cat went up/down the tree’）.However, he claims that Chinese has undergone a typological shift from a Path-conflation pattern to a Manner/Cause-conflation pattern （see also Peyraube 2006）.In Classical Chinese, the full set of Path verbs are used as main verbs, while in the contemporary development of serial verb constructions, these Path verbs gradually lose their independent status and turn into Path satellites which follow the first Manner/Cause verb.As a result, in Modern Chinese, the use of these Path elements as main verbs, according to Talmy, becomes less colloquial or obsolete; and their independent verbal meaning is only partially or metaphorically related to the Path sense （2000: 119）.Talmy's arguments regarding the use of Path verbs alone in motion expressions in Chinese are not convincing, however.It is true that Path verbs in Classical Chinese have undergone a process of grammaticalization and that they are no longer exclusively used as full verbs; however, their appearance as independent verbs, both in speech and in writing, is much more frequent and widespread than Talmy has maintained.First, the use of these Path elements is far from “less colloquial or obsolete”, as claimed by Talmy.On the basis of his Frog story data, Slobin （2004） observes that speakers of different ages use Manner verb + Path verb combinations to encode a given motion scene.They also use very frequently Path verbs alone to express the same set of motion events, and this means of expression gives no sense of being obsolete or stilted at all.Example （9）, below, illustrates the current use of both devices:

（9）a.Fei 1-chu1-lai2 yi4 zhi1 mao1tou 2ying 1.

fly-exit-come one CL owl

‘An owl flies out towards us.’ （Manner verb + Path verb）

b.Chu 1-lai2 le yi4 zhi1 mao 1tou 2ying 1.

exit-come ASP one CL owl

‘An owl exited towards us.’ （Path verb alone）

It is important to highlight that the independent use of Path verbs in Chinese is quite different from the use of English words likeenter , exit , ascendand descend .These English Path verbs are Latinate in origin and are more formal than their compositional counterparts （e.g.come in/out/up/down ; go in/out/up /down ）.By contrast, Path verbs in Chinese incur “none of the stiltedness and level of formality that is sometimes associated with English verbs such as enterand exit” （Beavers et al. 2010: 344-345）.Rather, they are particularly frequently used with ‘changes-of-location’ scenarios such as boarding a vehicle.Example （10）, below, illustrates that the single use of Path verbs in Chinese （see （10a）） is just as natural as the combination of Path elements with Manner verbs （see （10b））, and is certainly far more natural than the single use of a Manner verb （Beavers et al. under review: 14）.

Furthermore, Talmy holds that when the Path constituent in an RVC is used as a full verb, its semantic value is bleached or altered.This argument is untenable.As mentioned earlier in this section, in Slobin's （2004） study, Chinese speakers across different age groups described the scene of an owl flying out of a tree hole, either through use of a Manner verb + Path verb combination or through use of a Path verb alone （see example （9））.In either context, the Path verb invariably specifies the trajectory of the owl's motion: its exit from the hole, its sudden appearance on the spot and the deixis of its movement （i.e.towards the speaker/listener）.This clearly undermines Talmy's assumption that the “independent verbal meaning of Path elements is only partially or metaphorically related to the Path sense”.

It seems to be more close to the truth that in the context of motion events, when Chinese Path elements are used as full verbs, their Path sense is kept entirely intact; it is when they are used in other contexts as full verbs that these Path elements may acquire an additional metaphorical sense.For example, in （11）, below, the Path verb shang 4 （‘ascend’） in the phrase shang 4 le yi2 ge4 tai2jie 1 （‘ascend one more step’） is metaphorically interpreted as ‘making greater progress’.

（11）Zhe 4 xue2qi1 wo3 zai4 xue2xi 2 fang1mian 4 you4 shang4

this term I at study aspect again ascend

le yi 2ge 4tai2jie 1.

ASP one CL step

‘This term I made greater progress in my study.’

On the basis of the above review, we contend that the specific properties of Chinese Path elements, especially their syntactically independent status and the maintenance of their directional meaning across different contexts, make them pattern more closely with Path verbs in serial verb languages like Thai （Zlatev and David 2004: 13-14） and less closely with ‘pure’ satellites like English verb particles and German verb prefixes.It is important to note that a majority of sinologists also treat Path constituents in an RVC as verbs rather than verb complements （see, for instance, Chen 2007, Kang 1999, Y.F.Li 1990, Li and Thompson 1981, Lu 1977, Zou 1994）, or at least as a distinctive grammatical category of ‘postverb’ intermediate between verb and particle （McDonald 1995）.It is in this light that Slobin （2004） proposes a new group of equipollently-framed languages, in which particular typological properties of serial verb languages like Chinese and Thai are adequately taken into account.

Perhaps the most thorough study thus far of the placement of Chinese in motion event typology was conducted by Chen （2005）.Following Slobin's （2004） research of the Frog story narratives, Chen investigates how the basic motion components of Manner, Path and Ground are expressed in Chinese and whether the characteristic way of encoding these elements brings out an overall narrative style of focusing on the ‘static setting’ of motion events or on the ‘dynamic movement’.His findings, based on motion event descriptions in both picture-elicited oral narratives （i.e.the Frog story） and fictional written discourses, suggest that “Chinese exhibits characteristics that have been associated with and/or expected from both satellite-framed languages such as English and verb-framed languages such as Spanish” （Chen 2005: 1）.On the basis of these findings, he concludes that the hybrid pattern of motion event descriptions in discourse supports the characterization of Chinese as an equipollently-framed language.

It is also worth mentioning that some scholars （e.g.Hsueh 1989, Tai 2003） working on Chinese resultative constructions not only endorse the idea that Path elements in RVCs should be classified as verbs rather than verb complements, but further suggest that within the verb compound, the Path verb, rather than the first Manner verb, is the main verb of the construction.Their analysis is based upon the semantic meaning of constituent verbs and the construction as a whole.According to Tai （2003）, for example, the semantic schema for the Chinese RVC is ‘action-result’, where the ‘result’ represents a separate primary semantic element in Chinese.This is a different pattern from English where accomplishment/achievement verbs necessarily imply an attainment of the goal; Chinese lacks such verbs and the relevant semantic concepts are instead expressed in the ‘result’ part of the verb compound, as illustrated below:

（12）a.I killed that man .

b.Wo 3 ba3 na4ge4 ren2 sha1-si3 le.

I BA that CL mankill-die ASP

‘I killed that man.’

In the English example, （12a）, the word kill not only encodes the intention and the act of killing but also the result of the action, namely, the man being dead.By contrast, in the Chinese sentence, （12b）, the Manner verb sha 1 （‘to kill’） in the verb compound only denotes the act or the intention of wanting somebody to die; the attainment or the non-fulfillment of such an intention is indicated by the second verb si3 （‘to die’）.Thus, the ‘result’ element （i.e.the Path element in an RVC in a motion expression） represents the main event and can be taken as the centre of the predication; the action verb （that is, the Manner element in an RVC in a motion expression）, on the other hand, only functions like a manner adverb and represents the subordinate event （Tai 2003: 306-308）.Tai （2003） furthermore argues that this observation is supported by the psycholinguistic evidence that Chinese speakers attend more to the result of an event, whereas their English counterparts attend more to the process of an event.Given that the Path verb is the main verb of predication in an action-result verb compound and that it represents the conflation pattern of Motion + Path, Tai （2003: 311） questioned Talmy's classification of Chinese as being satellite-framed and concluded that “it made more sense to view Chinese as primarily a verb-framed language”.

To summarize, there are conflicting claims concerning the typological status of Chinese as regards motion expressions.Talmy （1985, 2000） takes Chinese as satellite-framed and mainly grounds his argument on the analogy of Chinese Path elements to English verb particles.By contrast, others （e.g.Chen 2005, Slobin 2004） focus on the particular syntactic function of Path elements in Chinese and point out their resemblance to Path verbs in serial verb languages.As is evident from the above review, the controversy regarding Chinese as being satellite-framed versus equipollently-framed centers on the part of speech that encodes Path: are such elements verbs or satellites? It is argued here that such a focus is misplaced when attempting to determine the typological status of a non Indo-European language.First of all, Talmy's definition of ‘verb root’ and ‘satellite’ remains unclear.The ‘verb root’ in his conception still retains inflectional affixes but not derivational affixes, and the ‘satellite’ encompasses a wide range of grammatical elements which traditionally do not fall into the same class （e.g.bound verbal prefixes and free verb particles）.

Second, the application of the concept ‘satellite’ in Indo-European languages may not encounter great challenge as a main verb can always be morphologically differentiated from its supporting elements.However, in Chinese, where morphology is simply absent, it is hard to state unequivocally whether a particular element is a verb or a satellite.Even the syntactic criterion which determines a ‘satellite’ may not apply as Path elements in Chinese usually have flexible syntactic status: they either stand alone and realize the main verb function or are used in conjunction with other grammatical elements and possibly realize the satellite function.In this light, when simply examining verb-like and satellite-like elements, the decision as to whether Chinese is verb-framed or satellite-framed can be quite an arbitrary one.Therefore, the present study goes beyond the verbal and satellite elements and examines all possible means of spatial expression across the utterance.These means include the use of prepositions （e.g.up,down,into,across）, verbs （e.g.to climb,to hop,to cycle）, gerunds （e.g. running,swimming）, subordinated clauses （e.g.dragging a trunk behind him）, nouns （e.g. runner,skater） and other similar phrases.It is hoped that this method will help better reveal the ‘satellite-framedness’ and/or ‘verb-framedness’ of Chinese （and, most likely, other serial verb languages） in motion expressions.