Abstract:

This dissertation is concerned with how manner-of-motion verbs are distributed in conceptual space in English and Mandarin and how MANNER OF MOTION is syntactically and lexically encoded in Mandarin. It provides a conceptual analysis of manner-of-motion verbs, provides a description of the variability of motion event descriptions in Mandarin, and addresses methodological issues pertaining to the characterization of serializing verb languages in the typology of motion event descriptions. Its major contributions are as follows. First, this research provides the first comprehensive analysis of Mandarin manner-of-motion verbs. I propose that MANNER OF MOTION conceptual components fall into two groups: event -centered and figure -centered properties. Building on this distinction, I claim that English and Mandarin significantly differ in whether or not concomitant figure-centered properties are lexicalized in manner-of-motion verbs. The analysis further shows that high frequency manner-of-motion verbs tend to cluster together in semantic space across English and Mandarin. Second, I examine syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic differences between the various directional verb complexes in Mandarin. I argue that the Directional Verb Compound is a result -prominent construction, whereas the Serial Verb Construction is a manner -prominent construction. Third, contrary to what has been proposed (Talmy 2000; Slobin 2004; Tai 2003), I show based on corpus data that Mandarin displays a mixed typological profile. All three typological possibilities proposed by Talmy and Slobin, e.g. satellite-framed, verb-framed, and equipollently-framed encoding, coexist. In line with recent construction-based proposals by Beavers et al. (2006) and Sampaio et al. (2006), this thesis further discusses what factors might affect particular uses of a construction. Preliminary results suggest that the choice of

encoding alternative is affected by PATH type, whether MANNER is inferable from the context, and whether or not the speaker wishes to focus on MANNER OF MOTION.

Keyword(s): Manner-of-Motion Verbs, Mandarin Directional Verb Complexes, Motion Event Descriptions, Lexical Semantics, Cognitive Semantics