Lexicalization typology of motion events in Chinese: A critical survey

This paper presents a review of recent studies of lexicalization typology of motion events (Talmy 1985, 1991, 2000) in Chinese. The following trends have emerged: (1) discriminating between semantic head and syntactic head while clarifying the typology of Chinese; (2) considering lexicalization typology from both synchronic and diachronic perspectives; (3) taking into consideration from both language structure and language use/discourse structure, since lexicalization typology has both syntactic and pragmatic properties. It is found that languages grouped within the same pattern may show various syntactic behaviors.