Verbs of motion and their lexicalization patterns an english vietnamese comparative study from cognitive approach

VIETNAMESE 1.1 Verbs of motion and their classification1.2 The syntactic and semantic features of English motion verbs 1.3 The syntactic and semantic features of Vietnamese motion verbs

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND

INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES

MAI THỊ THU HÂN

VERBS OF MOTION AND THEIR LEXICALIZATION PATTERNS

AN ENGLISH-VIETNAMESE COMPARATIVE STUDY FROM

COGNITIVE APPROACH

(Động từ vận động và các mô hình từ vựng hoá của chúng Nghiên cứu so

sánh Anh Việt từ góc độ ngôn ngữ học tri nhận)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Linguistics

Code: 602215

Hanoi - 2010

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND

INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POSTGRADUATE STUDIES

MAI THỊ THU HÂN

VERBS OF MOTION AND THEIR LEXICALIZATION PATTERNS

AN ENGLISH-VIETNAMESE COMPARATIVE STUDY FROM

COGNITIVE APPROACH

(Động từ vận động và các mô hình từ vựng hoá của chúng Nghiên cứu so

sánh Anh Việt từ góc độ ngôn ngữ học tri nhận)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Linguistics Code: 602215

Supervisor: Assoc Prof Dr Trần Hữu Mạnh

Hanoi - 2010

DECLARATION

VIETNAMESE 1.1 Verbs of motion and their classification

1.2 The syntactic and semantic features of English motion verbs

1.3 The syntactic and semantic features of Vietnamese motion verbs

1.4 The similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese motion verbs

1.5 Summary

CHAPTER 2: COGNITIVE SEMANTICS AND THE THEORY OF

LEXICALIZATION PATTERNS

2.1 An overview of Cognitive Linguistics and Cognitive Semantics

2.1.1 Cognitive Linguistics and the key concepts

2.1.2 Cognitive semantics and its main tenets

2.1.3 Figure and Ground

2.2.1 What is lexicalization?

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CHAPTER 3: A COMPARISON OF LEXICALIZATION PATTERNS OF

ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE MOTION VERBS

3.2 Lexicalization patterns of English and Vietnamese motion verbs 18

CHAPTER 4: AN EMPIRICAL COMPARISON OF MOTION VERBS AND

THEIR LEXICALIZATION PATTERNS IN A SPECIFIC NOVEL TEXT–

APPLICATIONS FOR TRANSLATORS AND LANGUAGE TEACHERS

4.2 A comparative analysis on the motion verbs and lexicalization patterns of 34

motion verbs in the chapter ‘The Battle of Hogwarts’ and its Vietnamese version

Appendix 1: Beth Levin (1993)‘s classification of motion verbs in English and

the Vietnamese equivalents

Appendix 2: Motion verbs in English (Chapter 31: The Battle of Hogwarts) [iii] Appendix 3: Motion verbs in Vietnamese (Chương 31: Chiến trường

Hogwarts)

Appendix 4: Analysis of sample motion verbs in chapter 31: The Battle

of Hogwarts and the Vietnamese version

Appendix 5: A table of contrast between basic English and Vietnamese motion

verbs

Appendix 6: Chapter 31: The Battle of Hogwarts (Motion scene 2)

Appendix 7: Chương 31: Chiến trường Hogwarts

Object Direct Object Indirect Object Locative Object Particle(s) Object Predicative Subject

Satellite-framed languages

Serial verb constructions Verb

Verb-framed languages

LIST OF TABLES AND DIAGRAMS

Diagram 3.1: Co-event conflated in the Motion verb (adapted from Talmy, 2000b: 28)

Table 1.1: Path verbs and Directional complement verbs in Vietnamese

Table 4.1: Lexicalization patterns of English and Vietnamese

motion verbs in chapter 31 ‗The Battle of Hogwarts‘

PART 1: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

Motion verbs - ‗the verbs that describe movement are first learned, most frequently

used and conceptually dominant‘ (Miller & Johnson-Laird (1977:527) Cognitive semantics

classifies motion verbs based on the sort of semantic information which their verb rootscharacteristically encode In general, motion verbs, both transitive and intransitive, typicallyexpress only one of the three semantic entities route, manner, or shape, and the generaltendency for analysing motion verbs is to separate manner verbs from path verbs Talmy‘s(2000) work distinguishes two different types of languages, i.e., satellite-framed and verb-framed languages, according to the way the different elements of a motion scene are mappedonto linguistic elements English, as a satellite-framed language, expresses the core

component of motion, i.e., Path or the trajectory of motion, in satellites (e.g., up, down) or in prepositional phrases (e.g., into/out of the house), leaving the verb slot free to encode

Manner-of-motion

Relying on the basic assumption that languages vary typologically in terms of howthey map lexical syntactic elements onto semantic domains, Talmy (2000) deeply investigatedthe regular associations (lexicalization patterns) among meaning components and the verb,providing a cross-linguistic study of lexicalization patterns connected with the expression of

motion He was mainly interested in evidencing typologies, i.e small number of patterns exhibited by groups of languages, and universals, i.e single patterns shared cross-

linguistically According to Talmy, some languages lexicalize in the verb the manner or thecause of motion, other languages lexicalize the path, and finally in a few languages the figure

or object that moves is worth mentioning

This theoretical framework arises in me as to whether there are any similarities anddifferences between English and Vietnamese motion verbs, how lexicalization patterns arecross-linguistically applied to analyzing English and Vietnamese motion verbs, and whatmight be the lexicalization patterns of Vietnamese motion verbs These questions are thestrong motivations that inspire me to carry out this small research with a view to uncoveringthe notions of motion verbs and applications of lexicalization patterns in both English andVietnamese

2 Aims of the study: The paper aims to

(i) Examine, in some depths, the main concepts of cognitive semantics, its mainconcepts and tenets, the theory of lexicalization patterns with its typological and universalprinciples across languages

(ii) Provide an insight into the analysis of motion verbs in English and Vietnamese andset this as the basis for the English and Vietnamese comparison of lexicalization patterns ofmotion verbs.

(iii) Find out and compare the lexicalization patterns of motion verbs in English andVietnamese; based on which to discover some similarities and differences between English andVietnamese lexicalization patterns of motion verbs

(iv) Apply the theory of lexicalization patterns to analyzing motion verbs in anEnglish novelist text and its Vietnamese version with the aim to confirm the results of thepreceding parts

3 Scope of the study

This study essentially adop Leonard Talmy (2000)‘s theory of lexicalization patterns

of motion verbs and some notions proposed in Talmy-related studies by Slobin (1996, 2004,2006)

Furthermore, the study explores the meaning-surface relations between the semanticelements like Motion, Manner, Cause, Path, Figure… and the verbs of motion as the surfaceelement chosen The direction of the study will be to hold ‗verbs of motion‘ as constantselected surface entity and then observe which semantic entities namely Figure, Ground,Manner, Cause, Motion, Path are variously expressed in it

In addition, because of the limited scope, we mainly focus on the first threelexicalization patterns among Talmy‘s eight patterns as they are more representative For therest five patterns, we just do the job of recognition rather than go further into their details

‗Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows‘ and the Vietnamese version?

5 Contribution of the study

The study hopes to explore the main concepts of cognitive semantics andlexicalization patterns of verbs of motion with typological and universal principles embedded

in them It is hoped that the results of the study will partly contribute to the development ofcognitive semantics in general, and their lexicalization patterns of verbs of motions in

particular In addition, all the cognitive underpinnings of these patterns are expected to beuncovered, and the similarities and differences are hoped to be drawn The study, then, willbring in practical benefits to language teachers, translators and those who are in favour of it

6 Methodology of the study:

This study uses a combination of some different methods:

The strategic method chosen is the descriptive and analytical which seeks to describeand explain the phenomenon Contrastive Analysis is also used in this research Forcomparison, we will describe motion verbs and their lexicalization patterns in the twolanguages under the same theoretical framework and then find out the similarities anddifferences The data used for the study e.g examples or illustrations, are cited from thereliable resources provided by famous scholars or from real life situations It is hoped thatvaluable conclusions will be reached by deductive reasoning

Together with these methods, we also use the quantitative procedures that are based ondata, facts and features to examine motion verbs and their lexicalization patterns used in anovel and its translated version in the mother tongue Given this method of inductivereasoning, we expect to reach a confirmation for the conclusions drawn out Supportingtechniques such as reference to the publication, consultation with the supervisor, discussionwith colleagues, and personal observations are also of great significance

7 Design of the study: The study is divided into three main parts presented as follows:

Part 1: Introduction, which states the reasons, reveals the aims, narrows the scope,identifies the research questions and presents the significance, methodology as well as theorganization of the study

Part 2, including four chapters, reports on the main contents of the study Chapter 1 isconcerned with exploring the similarities and differences of motion verbs in English andVietnamese Chapter 2 is dedicated to examining some main concepts of cognitive semanticsand the theory of lexicalization patterns Chapter 3 deals with the comparative analysis ofTalmy‘s lexicalization patterns of English and Vietnamese motion verbs The last chapter istoward applying the typology of English and Vietnamese motion verbs in a specific novel text

to confirm the conclusions revealed Given the conclusions, this part indicates possibleimplications for language teaching and translation, hopefully providing an alternative method

of analyzing an aspect of language from a different point of view

Part 3, the last part of the study, is the conclusion which summarizes what has beendone, what has not been covered, accompanied by suggestions for further study There arealso appendixes where supplemental materials and list of reference books are provided

PART 2: DEVELOPMENTCHAPTER 1: VERBS OF MOTION IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE

1.1 What is a verb of motion?

Verbs are semantically defined, i.e., as ‗words that designate actions (kiss, run),processes (grow, change), experiences (know), or states of being (be, have)‘ (Delahunty,1994: 117) The semantic function of a verb is to describe a motion, an act, occurrence, ormode of being A verb of motion, as its name suggests, is simply a verb that will take agents

from one place to another (e.g go, walk, swim, run …) Van Valin (1997: 109) argues that

‗for motion verbs, we need to present the motion plus the change of location over time‘ The

English verbs of motion tend to incorporate certain specific kinds of semantic features orcomponents such as Manner (run, slide, fly), Cause (blow, pull, kick), or Path (enter, rise,follow)

1.2 Classification of English and Vietnamese motion verbs

English language enhances the different classifications of motion verbs from thedifferent points of view We are especially interested in the contributions of Beth Levin(1993)‘s classification With regard to transitive and intransitive motion verbs, Levin (1993:263-270) proposed the following seven verb classes (See Appendix 1):

a Inherently directed motion: arrive, come, … The meanings of these verbs include a

specification of the direction of motion E.g The convict escaped the police

b Leave verbs: abandon, desert, leave, etc These verbs do not specify Manner of

motion; they just indicate that motion away from a location has taken place E.g Weabandoned the area

c Manner of motion: including Roll verbs (bounce, float, move, ) and Run verbs

(bounce, float, jump, ) Roll verbs specify manners of motion characteristic of inanimateentities, and Run verbs describe manners in which animate entities can move

d Manner of motion using a vehicle: including Vehicle name verbs (bike, cycle, ), and

Verbs not associated with vehicle names (fly, row …) Verbs that are vehicle names mean

roughly ‗go using the vehicle named by the noun‘ E.g They skated along the canal/across the

lake Verbs that are not vehicle names denote motion using a vehicle but the vehicle name

does not coincide with the verb For instance, fly implies an aircraft.

e Waltz verbs: dance, foxtrot, tango, tapdance, waltz, etc These verbs mean

roughly ‗perform the dance‘ E.g They waltzed across/into/through the room.

f Accompany verbs: accompany, guide, lead, etc These verbs relate to one person

taking another from one place to another E.g Jackie accompanied Rose to the store

g Chase verbs: chase, follow, pursue, shadow, tail, track, trail, etc These verbs are

typically transitive, with the chaser as subject and the person being chased as object E.gJackie chased the thief

Some famous Vietnamese linguists such as Diệp Quang Ban (2003, 2004), NguyễnTài Cẩn (2004), Lý Toàn Thắng (2005), Đinh Văn Đức (1986), Nguyễn Lai (1990), NguyễnKim Thản (1977) who have done research into verbs and motion verbs all divide motion verbs

into two main types: verbs of movement such as chạy, bay, bò, leo, trượt, lướt … and directional verbs such as ra, vào, lên, xuống … However, these linguists tend to pay more

attention to the latter verb group because of its special syntactic and semantic characteristics

In this study, we will explore the similarities and differences of basic English and Vietnamesemotion verbs based on the seven motion-verb groups taken from Beth Levin‘s classificationand their Vietnamese equivalents

1.3 The syntactic and semantic features of English verbs of motion

Late traditional grammar classifies verbs into seven major semantic domains: activityverbs, communication verbs, mental verbs, causative verbs, occurrence verbs, existence verbsand aspectual verbs (Biber, 1999: 360) Verbs of motion, which primarily denote actions, fall

into the group of activity verbs Examples are come, go, leave, move, run, etc…

(1) They ran through a green paddy field.

Verbs of motion, are the head alone in the verb phrase or head of the verbal predicateand take a subject with the semantic role of Agent According to Biber (1999), every verb canoccur with specific patterns of clause elements which contain a subject and can also include

additional adverbials In the book ‗Longman grammar of spoken and written English‘, he

proposes five valency patterns for single-word lexical verbs: Intransitive, Monotransitive,Ditransitive, Complex transitive and Copular Generally speaking, motion verbs should begrouped into the following types:

 Intransitive: Intransitive motion verbs occur in the SV pattern with no object or predicative

complement For example:

However, this type can occur with optional adverbials (in the form of a prepositional phrase)

as in:

(3) They (S) went (V) to Holyhead and onto Dublin (A)

 Transitive: In terms of transitive verbs, motion verbs fall into the following types:

- Mono-transitive: Mono-transitive motion verbs occur with a single direct object in the

pattern SVOd (4) Then you (S) should move (V) any obstacles (Od) before

- Complex transitive: Complex transitive motion verbs occur with a direct noun phrase

followed by an obligatory adverbial in the pattern SVOdA (as in 5) or by an object predicativeSVOPo (in most cases adjective as in 6)

(5) He (S) led (V) me (O) to the storehouse (A-obligatory)

(6) He (S) hit (V) the cat (O) dead (Po)

Semantically, the English verbs tend to conflate certain specific kinds of semanticcomponents Manner and path are two important aspects of verb representation that aresystematically conflated in motion In this regard, manner-of-motion verbs refer to the way inwhich a figure carries out a motion; whereas path-of-motion verbs refer to the trajectory overwhich a figure moves, typically, with respect to another reference object English intransitivemanner verbs in general do not encode information about any specific direction of motion

unless they combine with an explicit directional phrase In the sentence ‗He walks across the

road’, walk is the motion verb, which goes with the preposition across which denotes the

transversal path In these cases, the verbs of motion appear to conflate the manner of motionand the prepositions or particles incorporate the path or direction of the verbs

However, English also has a handful of Path verbs, which denote the path of motion

such as descend, ascend, exit, leave … These verbs exist to a very limited extent as Latinate

borrowings They are mute about any specification of the manner in which the movement iscarried out; but they include a specification of direction of motion, even in the absence of an

overt directional complement, i.e He entered.

Traditionally, both English transitive and intransitive motion verbs need a

locative-Object as in He entered the house or He ran into the garden In addition, Tyler, A & Evans,

V (2003) state that English particles are spatial oriented; and these spatial particles havenumerous meanings associated with them People often assign spatial particles based on thegeometry of a visual scene In English, spatial orientation means the location of an object inrelation to another object from the point of view of the speaker, with respect to the orientation

of the object itself or with respect to the actual direction of the motion of the object TheEnglish particles which complement Path to the main motion verb are likely to encode some

semantic information like goal in (7), source in (8), via in (9) and direction in (10):

(7) He ran to the store

As understood, English particles can be either spatially-located (above, below, over, in, on,under, underneath, at) or directionally-oriented (to, toward, onto, into, by, over, past…)

1.4 The syntactic and semantic features of Vietnamese motion verbs

Our notion of motion verbs focuses mainly on the viewpoints proposed by Nguyễn Lai(1990), Diệp Quang Ban (2004), Nguyễn Tài Cẩn (2004), Nguyễn Kim Thản (1977) and someother studies on Vietnamese verbs by Nguyễn Đình Hoà (1979), Sophana Srichampa (1997)and Henry Beecher (2004) According to these grammarians, Vietnamese verbs directlyexpress motions of the entities, including actions and states Motion verbs (includingdirectional verbs) take an object or predicative complement In these cases, they are oftentransitive verbs with the subject taking the semantic roles of Agent As seen in Appendix 1,classified as transitive, Vietnamese motion verbs can be mono-transitive (with a direct object)

or complex transitive (with a direct noun phrase followed by an object complement) Forexample:

(11) Mono-transitive: Anh ấy (S) kéo (V) tôi (O) (He pulled me)

(12) Complex-transitive:Anh ta (S) dẫn (V) tôi (O) ra vườn (A-obligatory) He led me to

the garden

As intransitive verbs, Vietnamese motion verbs can occur without any object or verb

complement like in Tôi chạy or take an optional adverbial like ‗vào nhà‘ in Tôi chạy vào nhà

(I ran into the house)

Vietnamese motion verbs are mainly manner-of-motion verbs which go together with

another word which expresses ‗path‘ or the trajectory of Motion such as chạy, bay, bò, trèo,

lướt, thổi … The verbs are used to express the Manner i.e Hắn chạy rất nhanh and Cause of

the Motion i.e Gió thổi đổ cây All these associative elements associate with each other to

constitute a motion event

Interestingly, Vietnamese tends to appear in the form of serial verb constructions

With regard to this matter, in the study ‗Serial verb constructions in Vietnamese’, Srichampa,

S (1997) defines serial verb constructions (SVCs) as a sequence of verbs occurring togetherwith non-overt object and/or non-overt subject; the sentence with non-overt subject is claimed

to be an infinitival clause which is the adjunct of the main clause For example:

(13) Bà ngã lăn ra đất. (Grandma fell roll on the ground)

In (13), there are two verbs in the sentence: ‗ngã’ and ‗lăn’ The non-overt subject of

the infinitival clause (lăn ra đất) is controlled by the subject of the main clause, that is ‗Bà‘

Another linguist on Asian languages, Beecher, H (2004: 1) identifies three prominentvariety of SVCs:

(i) Activity-Goal: Tôi đi ăn cơm (I went to eat rice)

Tôi đến tìm em (I came to look for you)(ii) Resultative:Gió thổi đổ cây (The wind blew down the trees) Quân đội ta đánh thắng giặc Mỹ xâm lược (Our army has defeated the American invaders)

(iii) Motion-Path:Tôi rơi vào một cái lỗ (I fall into a hole)

As summarized by Trần Hữu Mạnh (2007:116), Vietnamese grammarians consider thefirst verb in a series the main verb, and other elements following the main verbs are post-modifiers In (i), (ii) and (iii), the second verb conveys the Purpose or goal, the Result and thePath of the main verb respectively

The Motion-Path SVCs often consist of a manner verb indicating movement and

change of location which can be combined with directional verbs ra, vào, lên, xuống, sang,

qua, về, lại, đi, đến as in chạy ra (run out), đi vào (come in/into), trèo lên (climb up), nhảy xuống (jump down)… At this point, Nguyễn Kim Thản (1977: 79) confirms that these

directional verbs are originally full verbs but when they are placed after another verb, theybleach their full meanings and grammatical features, and become functional words denotingdirectional meanings He states that this word group only acts as ‗grammatical tool‘ that addsdirectional meaning to the main verbs and calls them ‗phó động từ phương hướng‘ Đinh VănĐức (1986), Diệp Quang Ban (2004) agrees that these verbs are not full directional verbs anymore, but become ‗từ phụ‘ (complement word) encoding Path of the preceding motion verb.Nguyễn Lai (1990) considers these words ‗trạng-giới từ‘ (prepositional adverbs) whichconnect the main verb and its complement and confine in themselves two semantic meanings

of motion verbs: Motion and Direction

In our sense, these directional verbs take the role of a complement to the main verb and

act as the ‗directional complement verbs‘ In this regard, the information of motion in a sentence consists of three semantic elements: Motion, Manner and Direction For example:

(14) Xe đã chạy qua cầu Motion + Manner Direction

When placed after a manner verb, the directional complement verbs can not be leftout, as if they are omitted, the sentence is grammatically incorrect It is clear that (14) cannot

be transferred into ‗Xe đã chạy cầu’ These directional complement verbs, therefore, are

dependent to the main verbs

Interestingly, in Vietnamese, these directional complement verbs can function as themain verbs which encode path-of-motion verbs in themselves These path verbs carry twosemantic meanings and often require an Olocative: Motion and Direction of Motion:

Motion + Direction

cầu (The car ran across the bridge)

Regarding motion verbs, we present here a list of main path verbs which may function

as both full verbs and directional complement verbs conveying the meanings of prepositions

in Vietnamese:

Path verbs/ Directional

Full verbs (in English) Preposition

Table 1.1: Path verbs and directional complement verbs in Vietnamese

In Vietnamese, both path verbs and directional complement verbs in Vietnamese arecategorized according to spatial orientation The path-of-motion verbs and the motion verbs

which take path complement verbs may be followed by either the source (Lan bước ra khỏi nhà/ Lan ra khỏi nhà), or the direction (Thằng cu Bé chạy về nhà/Thằng cu Bé về nhà) or the destination of the action (Hắn đi tới nhà cụ Bá/ Hắn tới nhà cụ Bá) In addition, these verbs denote more semantic meanings in Vietnamese For example, ‗ra’ (go/come out) goes from a

narrow point and moves to a wider point It refers to direction, not personal relations Theschema for this verb may be diagrammed as follows:

rộng (wide)

These verbs in Vietnamese have wider usages especially when there is an implication

of geographic direction of movement Vietnam is divided into three regions: the North, theCentre and the South So, the direction from a ‗northern province‘ to a ‗southern province‘ is

example, a person in Hanoi (in the North) will say:

(16) Mai tớ sẽ đi vào Huế.

Mai tớ sẽ đi lên Sa Pa/ Lạng Sơn

Mai tớ sẽ đi sang Lào.

Mai tớ sẽ đi xuống Ninh Bình.

- I will go to Huế tomorrow.

- I will go to Lạng Sơn tomorrow.

- I will go to Laos tomorrow.

- I will go to Ninh Bình tomorrow.

As it can be seen, the directional complement verbs are much more specific indenoting Path in Vietnamese The English preposition ‗to‘ is used to replace its Vietnamesecounterparts ‗vào, lên, sang, đến, xuống‘ The diversity in geographic direction of movement

in (16) can be represented in the following schema:

Sapa

Lạng Sơn

Laos

Ninh Bình Huế

One more different thing lies in the semantic description of manner In English mannerverbs, manner category is encoded in the verbs themselves Not to run parallel with this,Vietnamese tends to use more neutral motion verbs plus an adjunct adding manner

information to the main motion verbs For example, English verbs amble, backpack, meander,

inch, limp, mince … express different ways of walking, and they are translated into

Vietnamese as đi nước kiệu, đi lang thang, đi lần lần, đi khập khiễng, đi õng ẹo, … (see

Appendix 1)

1.5 Similarities and differences between English and Vietnamese verbs of motion

Taking English and Vietnamese verbs of motion into comparison, the study finds outthe following main similarities and differences on valency patterns and verb meanings

3 Vietnamese motion verbs pattern with English equivalents in that many of them are

manner-of-motion verbs which couple with another word to express the path of motion

4 English and Vietnamese verbs of motion both have a group of verbs that incorporate the

path or direction of the verbs They are: cross, arrive, come, go, ascend, descend, enter, exit …

in English and vào, ra, lên, xuống, đến, đi, về, qua, lại … in Vietnamese.

5 English particles and Vietnamese counterparts are spatially oriented

 Differences

1 Besides the common SV pattern, Vietnamese motion verbs tend to encode a complexmotion event forming serial verb constructions There are three formations of SVCs: Activity-Goal, Resultative and Motion-Path SVCs These formations are hardly seen in English Thetypical formation of motion verbs in English is Verb-particle constructions

2 Vietnamese uses path complement verbs to encode the Path of Motion (Vmanner/cause +Directional Complement verbs) whereas in English, the path of motion is incorporated in theparticles (Vmanner/cause + particles)

3 In English, the Latin-derived path-incorporating verbs such as ascend, descend, enter, exit

… are only directional full verbs The Vietnamese counterparts of these words are categorized asboth full verbs encoding the Path of the motion, and ‗directional complement verbs‘ which standafter motion verbs and convey prepositional meanings

4 Both path verbs and directional complement verbs in Vietnamese are spatially oriented.Vietnamese path verbs encode Motion and Path, and at the same time, they convey the spatial

scope of the located object (vào- enter- goes from a wide point to a narrow point) In English, the

spatial meaning is often encoded in the spatial particles

5 Manner information is more often encoded in English motion verbs themselves and in adjuncts in Vietnamese

1.6 Summary

This chapter provides an interesting insight into English verbs of motion and a precisecomparison to Vietnamese equivalents In this chapter, the syntactic and semantic features ofmotion verbs are also explored and some similarities and differences between English andVietnamese verbs of motion have been drawn out as the basis for further comparison

CHAPTER 2COGNITIVE LINGUISTICS AND THE THEORY OF LEXICALIZATION PATTERNS

2.1 An overview of Cognitive Linguistics and Cognitive Semantics

2.1.1 Cognitive Linguistics and the key concepts

In the eighties, a new approach to the study of language began to develop: CognitiveLinguistics (CL) This school of linguistics was born as a reaction against formal approaches

to language, such as Noam Chomsky‘s Generative Grammar (e.g., 1957, 1965) The birth ofCognitive Linguistics is also rooted in the emergence of the second generation of CognitiveScience in the 1970s, which studies the human mind

Cognitive linguistics […] is an approach to language

that is based on our experience of the world and

the way we perceive and conceptualize it.

(Ungerer & Schmid, 1997: x)

CL emphasizes that the study of language is the study of language use (Fauconier,2000) because language is an integral part of cognition which reflects the interaction of social,cultural, psychological, communicative and functional cognitive development and mentalprocessing The followings are the key concepts in CLs:

 Conceptualization: Conceptualization refers to the ways people perceive things or

situations One thing or situation can be conceptualized in different ways, resulting in differentlinguistic expressions Langacker (1991:2) claims that ‗meaning is equated withconceptualization‘

 Embodiment: The meaning of language is embodied, that is, the speaker/writer‘s bodily

experience triggers the linguistic expressions People perceive things or event differently, andthus, language used by us is a description of human perception of reality

 Experience: Experience refers to the perception people hold of the world around them.

What we perceived from the world is stored in our mind and turned into knowledge Thisexperience is then expressed through languages The experience of each person may be different,resulting in different linguistic expressions, depending on the different interpretation of the event

or situation

 Construal: This term refers to the ways people perceive an event or situation in the reality,

which then become knowledge Cognitive Linguistics claims that one given situation or event inthe external world can be ‗construed‘ in many ways and those different ways of encoding asituation constitute different conceptualizations

 Frame: Charles J Fillmore (1982) develops a theory of frame semantics which argues that

speakers/readers would not understand words without accessing the entire knowledge relating tothat word In other words, a word activates a frame of semantic knowledge relating to specificconcept to which it refers

 Perspectives: Perspectives include ‗orientation‘, ‗vantage point‘, ‗directionality‘,

subjectivity‘, etc The external world (reality) is perceived differently by different people fromdifferent standpoints due to their differences in their perspective viewpoint Then, differentconcepts are produced in the perceivers, leading to different construals which result in differentlinguistic expressions

2.1.2 Cognitive semantics and its main tenets

Cognitive Semantics consider linguistic meaning as a manifestation of conceptualstructure, which emerges from bodily experience According to Gardenfors (1995), meaningscan not stand apart from the people who use and create them because all linguistic expressionsmust come from and be activated by our mind and brains Cognitive semanticists are guided

by four central assumptions or tenets as summarised by Evans & Green (2006: 157):

a Conceptual structure is embodied Our conceptual system arises from our bodily

experiences and is meaningful by virtue of its grounding in these experiences From thisassumption it follows that any theory of conceptual structure should be consonant with theways in which we experience the world around us

b Semantic structure is conceptual structure The meanings conventionally associated with

words and other linguistics units (bound morphemes, constructions, etc) can be equated withconcepts This is not to say that semantic structure and conceptual structure are identical:linguistic concepts are only a subset of the possible concepts in the mind of the speaker

c Meaning representation is encyclopaedic; words do not represent ‗neatly packaged

bundles of meaning […] but serve as points of access to vast repositories of knowledge‘(Evans & Green, 2006: 160) In order to understand the meaning of a given utterance, wedraw on our encyclopaedic knowledge relating to the specific situation depicted by theutterance to construct its meaning

d Meaning construction is conceptualisation Meaning is not fixed but a matter of construal

and conventionalisation ‗Meaning construction is […] a dynamic process whereby linguisticunits serve as prompts for an array of conceptual operations and the recruitment ofbackground knowledge It follows from this view that meaning is a process rather than adiscrete ‗thing‘ that can be ‗packaged‘ by language.‘ (Evans & Green, 2006: 162)

2.1.3 Figure and Ground

The terms ‗Figure‘ and ‗Ground‘ stemmed from Gestalt psychology, but it was Talmywho gave an easy-to-understand conceptualization of them in language In volume I of

Toward a Cognitive Semantics (2000), Talmy proposes that in language, there exist two

fundamental cognitive functions: Figure and Ground (2000: 311) This pair of concepts can

be of two objects relating to each other in space in an event of motion or location, andrepresented by nominals in a single clause; or of the two events relating to each other in atemporal, causal, or other type of situation, and represented by the main and subordinateclauses of a complex sentence Talmy (2000: 312) draws some specific characterizations ofFigure and Ground in linguistic usage:

The Figure is a moving or conceptually movable entity whose

path, site or orientation is conceived as a variable, the

particular value of which is the relevant issue.

The Ground is a reference entity, one that has a

stationary setting relative to a reference frame, with

respect to which the Figure’s path, site or orientation

is characterized.

With regard to the linguistic representation of Figure and Ground, Talmy (2000a: 334)

proposes an order of precedence regarding their occurrence in syntactic structures The

principle states:

‘In their basic form, the Figure has syntactic precedence

over the Ground’.

This precedence order is determined by the general human conceptualization of the

Figure and Ground in a motion event (Figure- the moving entity and Ground- the stationary

setting) Specifically, Talmy points out:

For nominals in a single clause, this precedence consists

of expression along a case hierarchy In a non-agentive

clause, the Figure is subject and the Ground is (oblique)

object In an agentive clause, where the Agent is

subject, the Figure is direct object and the Ground is

oblique object.

With regard to Figure and Ground in single sentences, Talmy (2000) presented a list of

‗definitional and associated characteristics‘ as under:

Figure’s unknowns.

 larger

 more dependent 

more independent

(Talmy, 2000:315)The Figure and Ground relation is most obviously seen in sentences with prepositional

phrases In the sentence ‗The pen rolled off the table’, the Figure is ‗the pen’, a movable object, the primary one and whose path and site set on the stationary ‗table’ - the Ground, a reference entity, the second object for ‗the pen’ to move It can be seen that the relevance of

cognitive-semantic categories shows up in relation to a semantic event of motion and location;that is, an event conceptualized as involving one physical object moving or located withrespect to another

2.2 The theory of lexicalization patterns

2.2.1 What is lexicalization?

Lexicalization is one of those terms which linguists do not use in the same way andLipka (1990: 95) argues that there is no single, correct definition of the term Lipka putslexicalization more succinctly:

…I would like to define lexicalization as the phenomenon

that a complex lexeme once coined tends to become a single complete lexical unit, a simple lexeme Through this process

it loses the character of a syntagma to a greater or lesser degree (c.f Lipka 1981b: 120).

(cited in Ogechi, 2006)

Leech (1974:226), Lipka (1977) and Lyons (1977:535) regard lexicalization as the result of the addition of semantic information and the result of the loss of semantic

information (cited in Bauer, 1983:56) For example, understand provides an instance of

lexicalization due to the loss of semantic information since in current English, it contains

none of the meaning of under and none of the meaning of stand.

In my understanding, new concepts that are given lexical form become part of thelexicon of a language and the process of establishing a new unit in any specific lexicon iscommonly referred to as lexicalization In other words, lexicalization is the process by whichconcepts are encoded in words

In volume II of Toward a Cognitive Semantics (2000), Leonard Talmy delves into

the exploration of the systematic relations in language between meaning and overt

linguistic forms, in other words, into the process of lexicalization (Talmy, 2000b: 24):

Lexicalization is involved where a particular meaning

component is found to be in regular association with a

particular morpheme.

Talmy‘s basic assumption is that we can isolate elements or components separatelywithin the domain of meaning and within the domain of linguistic expression As illustrated,

an English motion verb (surface element) can encode distinct types of semantic information:

Manner (e.g., hop), Cause (e.g., kick) and Path (e.g., exit, enter) On the other hand, the Path element may be encoded in English by verbs and by prepositions (e.g., out, into), that is, by

two different linguistic elements Talmy (2000b) claims that some characteristics oflexicalization is to associate a particular meaning component with a particular morpheme.Generally, there are three processes in a word‘s lexicalization: lexicalization, deletion (orzero), and interpretation

2.2.2 The Motion Event

So far, there have been some interesting cognitive approaches to motionconceptualization Fillmore (1985) developed a theory of Frame Semantics in which hespecifies the four basic components of the motion frame: some entity (Theme) starts out inone place (Source) and ends up in some other place (Goal), having covered some space

between the two (Path) For example:

(1) The policeman rushed away from the door, and toward the crowd

Langacker (1987) characterizes motion in terms of a sequenced transformation of

component states situated in time Specifically, motion is defined as a mover m’s successive occupation of location l1 at the time moment t1, occupying location l2 at the moment t2, location l3 at moment t3, and location ln at moment tn Langacker's framework relies on the

general concepts of mover (trajector), time (moment and sequence), and location, together with the conceptualizer (cf Langacker 1987: 145, 166-8)

According to Jackendoff (1990), the general conceptual structure of motion contains aset of abstract categories such as Thing, Event, State, Action, Place, and Path in anorganization that he calls ‗a function-argument‘ with basic 'conceptual functions' include GO,

STAY, FROM, TO, VIA, LET, CAUSE For example, the 'motion' sentence The train went

from NY to LA can be analyzed as follows (Jackendoff, 1996: 108):

[FROM ([NY])]

[Event GO ([Thing TRAIN], Path TO ( [LA] ) )]

The most fully specified treatment of motion, however, can be seen in ‗Motion Event‘

proposed by Talmy (2000) In volume II, 2000, Toward a cognitive semantics, Talmy

classifies motion into two types, based on the types of motion found in motion events:

translational motion and self-contained motion In Talmy‘s (2000b:35) words, ‗[i]n

translational motion, an object‘s basic location shifts from one point to another in space In

self-contained Motion, an object keeps its same, or ―average,‖ location Self-containedMotion generally consists of oscillation, rotation, dilation (expansion and contraction),wiggle, local wander, or rest‘ Let us consider examples:

(15) Ray entered the room = translational motion

(16) The butterfly hovered over the flower = self-contained motion

According to Talmy, an event is a portion of reality which has been delimited or

bounded by the human mind Moreover, an event can be conceptualised as having a particulartype of internal structure and degree of complexity Talmy considers a situation containing

motion and the continuation of a stationary location alike as a motion event He developed an

analysis of basic motion events with four basic semantic components: (i) Figure: the entity that is moving or located; (ii) Ground: the entity which acts as a spatial reference point for the motion/location of the figure; (iii) Path: the path of motion of the figure and (iv) Manner:

the manner of motion by which the figure moves along the path (Talmy, 2000b: 25)

In addition, Talmy proposes that he component of Motion (with capital M) refers to

the presence per se of motion or locatedness in the event […] In addition to these internal

components, a Motion event can be associated with an external Co-event that most often

bears the relation of Manner or of Cause to it Let us illustrate it with the following example:

(17) Potter walked quietly down the stairs

Potter is the Figure, the stairs is the Ground and down is the Path The verb, to walk

expresses simultaneously the fact of Motion (framing event) and the Manner of motion event)

(Co-With reference to Motion event, Slobin (2004) thinks that Talmy‘s semanticcomponents are too general He broke these elements into more fine-grained categories:

• Figure (the moving object):- Individual or group

end of path

• Ground (entity or entities that the Figure is moving in relation

to)

darkness, etc

• Path (the trajectory of the Figure): - Direction of movement:

forward, up, north, etc

of narrator

• Manner (the way in which motion is performed).

The manner-incorporating type expresses manner in the main verb An example of amanner-incorporating language, according to Talmy‘s typological classification, is English,

i.e He went into the house, The bottle floated into the cave Vietnamese also appears to be grouped into this type, i.e Nó chạy vào nhà In these examples, the manner is expressed by

the main verb (in boldface), and the path is expressed by an element other than a verb (in

italics), which Talmy calls a satellite of the main verb.

The path-incorporating type expresses path instead of manner in the main verb Many

Vietnamese motion verbs are of this type, like in Anh Êy và o nhà (He enters the house), or

Cô ấy đến hôm qua (She came yesterday) in which the path is expressed by the verbs (in

boldface)

The ground-incorporating type expresses salient properties of the ground in the mainverb such as shape and consistency An example of a ground-incorporating languageaccording to Talmy‘s typology is Atsugewi (Talmy 2000: 24), translated into English as:

‗Runny icky material [e.g guts] are lying on the ground.‘

2.2.3 Satellites

The path is expressed in English by a category which Talmy calls satellite According

to Talmy (2000b):

… the satellite to the verb or simply, the satellite,

is the grammatical category of any constituent other than a noun phrase or prepositional-phrase complement that is in a sister relation to the verb root It relates to the verb root

as a dependent to a head The satellite, which can be either

a bound affix or a free word, is thus intended to encompass all of the following grammatical forms, which traditionally have been largely treated independently of each other: English verb particles, German separable and inseparable verb prefixes, Latin or Russian verb prefixes, Chinese verb complements, Caddo incorporated nouns and Atsugewi polysynthetic affixes around the verb root.

(2000b: 102)

Talmy (2000b: 104) gives some English satellites such as in, up, along, out, down, around, on,

off, over, above, below, through, across … Talmy lists other path satellites that are not usually

recognized as such: loose, as in the bone pulled loose (from its socket); un-, as in the bolt must

have unscrewed (from the plate); over- as in the eaves of the roof overhung the garden.

2.2.4 A two-way typology of motion verbs

Besides the three-way typology of motion verbs; that is, motion verbs encode in themselves manner, path or figure, Talmy (2000b: 117) also postulates a two-way typology oflexicalization of motion verbs which looks at the morphosyntactic constituents encoding the Path component of a motion event In this regard, Talmy‘s (2000) work distinguishes two different types of languages, i.e., satellite-framed and verb-framed languages Verb-framed languages (S-languages) lexicalize the trajectory of motion, aspect, change of state, action

correlation and realization in the main verb (I blew out the candle - change of state), whereas

lexicalization is expressed by particles or satellites in the satellite languages (S-languages) The two types of conflations can be represented as follows:

Satellite-framed lexicalization:

Verb-framed lexicalization:

V (Path + Move) ( + adjunct Manner/Cause expression)

As regards Talmy‘s typology, English is characteristic of an S-language while Vietnamese is likely to bear the characteristics of both an S-language and a V-language

2.3 Summary

This chapter has dealt with the birth and main tenets of CLs and the theory of

lexicalization patterns with its typological and universal principles across languages It can be

seen that Talmy‘s work is the exploration of the systematic relations between meaning andlinguistic forms in order to find out whether languages exhibit a small number of patterns(i.e., a typology) or a single pattern (i.e., a universal) In his exploration of the domain ofmotion, he proposes the typology of path conflating, manner-conflating and figure-conflatinglanguages; by looking at which linguistic forms typically encode the Path of motion, thetypology of verb-framed and satellite-framed languages is put forward

CHAPTER 3: A COMPARISON OF LEXICALIZATION PATTERNS

OF MOTION VERBS IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE

3.1 Introduction

In the theory of lexicalization patterns, Talmy (2000b) proposes a three-way typology

of the verb root. Three typologically principal lexicalization types for verb roots are presented

by virtue of the verb root expressing either the Co-event (Manner or Cause), the Path, or theFigure in addition to the fact of Motion Other conflations or minor patterns may exist within

a language, though languages are categorised according to the most characteristiclexicalisation pattern they exhibit In most cases, a language uses only one of these types forthe verb in its most characteristic expression of Motion According to Talmy (2000b: 27),

‗characteristic means that (1) it is colloquial in style, rather than literary, stilted, and so on; (2) it is frequent in occurrence in speech, rather than only occasional; (3) it is pervasive, rather

than limited‘

In this chapter, we would like to make a comparison between lexicalization patterns ofEnglish and Vietnamese motion verbs The motion verbs used for analysis are taken from foursources: Talmy (2000)‘s examples, Levin (1993)‘s classification of motion verbs in Appendix

1 and their translations from The English-Vietnamese dictionary of Institute of Linguistics(2006) and real-life spoken language realized by the author

The method for comparison is to analyze the lexicalization patterns of motion verbs inthe two languages under Talmy‘s theory in order to find out how these patterns fit into thetwo languages as well as the similarities and differences

3.2 Lexicalization patterns of motion verbs

3.2.1 Lexicalization pattern 1: Motion + Co-event (Manner/Cause)

In one group of languages, the verb expresses both the fact of motion and its manner or itscause In these languages there are typically a set of frequently-used verbs that express motion

"occurring in various manners or by various causes" (Talmy, 2000b:27) In other words,

the verb typically expresses at once the Motion and a Co-event, usually either the Manner or

the Cause of the Motion English is the prototypical example of this group Its

semantic-to-surface relationship here can be represented as follows:

Motion + Co-event ( Manner/Cause) + (Path- Satellites + Ground)

Or in the accompanying diagram as under:

[Figure Motion Path Ground] Motion event  Relation [Event] Co-event

Enablement Cause Manner Concomitance Subsequence

V roots Diagram 3.1: Co-event conflated in the Motion verb (adapted from Talmy, 2000b: 28)

a The rock slid/rolled/bounced down the hill.

b The gate swung/creaked shut on its rusty hinges.

c The smoke swirled/squeezed through the opening.

d I slid/rolled/bounced the keg into the storeroom.

e I twisted/popped the cork out of the bottle.

f I ran/limped/jumped/stumbled/rushed/groped my way down the stairs.

g She wore a green dress to the party.

Move + Cause

Non-agentive

Agentive

h The napkin blew off the table.

i The bone pulled loose from its socket.

j The water boiled down to the midline of the pot.

k I pushed/threw/kicked the keg into the storeroom.

l I blew/flicked the ant off my plate.

m I chopped/sawed the tree down to the ground at the base.

n I knocked/pounded/ hammered the nail into the board with a mallet.

Let us illustrate the Motion + Co-event conflation in two of Talmy‘s examples above:

Figure Motion (Cause) Path Ground

In both cases, the subjects of the sentences ‗the rock’ and ‗the napkin’ plays the role

of the Figure and the objects ‗the hill’ and ‗the table’ play that of the Ground which in these

examples also expresses source of movement In the sense of this study, Figure is the moving

object while Ground is the entity that the Figure is moving in relation to The rock and the

napkin in these examples are the moveable objects while the hill and the table function as

fixed places The particles down and off function as the Path The verbs rolled and blew express the Motion components In addition, roll in (a) offers information about the Manner

of motion, that is the way in which Motion is performed; and blew in (j) about the Cause of

motion or what originates the Motion itself

At this point, it is necessary to describe in more details the semantic categories ofbasic components of a Motion event As discussed by Talmy (2000b:152), Manner refers to asubsidiary action or state that a Patient manifests concurrently with its main action or state It

is regularly incorporated in English verbs of motion as float in The balloon float into the

church, which means ‗move, floating in the process’ In order to cast more light on the

specific details encoded in verbs, some linguists such as Ibarretxe-Antuñano (2006a),Özçalişkan (2004), Slobin (2000, 2005) have subdivided Manner into different semanticcategories Our study adopts Ibarretxe-Antuñano (2006b)‘s summary list of fine-grainedmanner categories as the basis for the analysis of motion verbs:

running, jumping, swimming and flying

fling, churn

e.g drag, trudge

crawl, creep, sneak

motion; e.g stumble, trip

glide, slide

decreasing ); e.g., hurry, dash

limp, traipse, stroll, swagger

(Ibarretxe-Antuñano, 2006b: 6)Cause refers to the qualitatively different kinds of causing event such as can beexpressed by an English subordinate from- or by-clause Cause is regularly incorporated inthe verb roots of English languages expressing either motion or other actions For example,

the verb blow in (j) means ‗move from (due to) the air blowing on it’ Both Manner and

Cause are not indicated inflectionally

In comparison, Vietnamese also demonstrates the features of a satellite language inwhich Manner and Cause of motion can be conflated with Motion in the main verb of

a clause In this regard, we propose a list of Vietnamese equivalents of this conflation type

a‘ Quả bóng lăn xuống đường

b‘ Cái cửa bị thổi đóng lại

c‘ Khói cuộn lên mái

d‘ Tôi lăn cái thùng vào kho

e‘ Tôi nhấc cái bát trong nồi ra

f‘ Con mèo nhảy lên mái nhà

g‘ Cô ấy mặc một chiếc váy xanh tới bữa tiệc

h‘ Tờ giấy bị thổi bay ra khỏi bàn

i‘ Khoá bị kéo long ra khỏi ổj‘ Nước sôi xuống tận đáy xoong

k‘ Tôi đẩy cái thùng vào kho

l‘ Tôi thổi con kiến khỏi cái đĩa

m‘ Tôi chặt cái cây xuống tận gốc

n‘ Tôi treo bức tranh lên tường bằng một cái móc

Take a’ and h’ into consideration, the conflation of Manner and Cause are seen in the

Motion Event of Vietnamese motion verbs

Figure Motion (Cause) Path Ground

In (a‘), the semantic components of the Vietnamese sentence is similar to the English

counterparts However in (h‘), the motion verb blew is transferred into the Vietnamese passive SVC form bị thổi bay which mapped in itself Cause in thổi (the most salient form) and Manner

+ Ground in bay This example illustrates the difference in the constructions of English and

Vietnamese motion verbs, that is, Verb-particle constructions and SVCs It is observed that innot a few cases, the English particles are transferred into the second verbs in SVCs inVietnamese, i.e blow down - thổi ngã, thổi đổ, thổi gẫy, blow off - thổi bay, blow out - thổi tắt

… For this reason, Vietnamese equivalents of English motion verbs are more complex andencode more semantic components than the original ones

Searching through Levin‘s classification of motion verbs and its translation, we have

found that in Vietnamese, there exist no group verbs that are vehicle names such as balloon,

bicycle, bike, boat, bus, taxi … or Waltz verbs that are names of dances such as samba, tango

… Instead, Vietnamese language often uses some neutral verbs like đi, chạy, nhảy plus names

of vehicles or dances; for example: đi (bằng) ô tô, nhảy điệu samba… Therefore, it can be

concluded that in Vietnamese has no event that conflates Move with vehicle names or dancenames

As stated earlier, in English manner verbs, manner information is encoded in the verbsthemselves while Vietnamese tends to use more neutral motion verbs plus an adjunct adding

manner category to the main motion verbs For example, in Vietnamese, people often say: vội

vàng chạy, chạy nước kiệu, … with chạy as the neutral main verb plus vội vàng, nước kiệu as

adjuncts to provide more manner information to chạy In English, manner verbs appear to be more dynamic and people just say: hurry and canter These show that Vietnamese is likely to

omit the manner information in the main verbs, or in other words, seem to favour lessdynamic descriptions of manner In order to supply the same quantity and specificity ofinformation that is contained English motion + manner verbs, Vietnamese is prone to anelaborate phrase Accordingly, Vietnamese seems to need more linguistic material to expressthe Manner of a Motion event than English

In this lexicalization pattern, Path component is conflated in the satellites in both two

languages In English, it is the particles (in, out, along, away from, out of, down to) that provide path information to the verbs and in Vietnamese it is the directional complement verbs (ra, vào,

lên, xuống …) However, with the use of directional complement verbs after manner-of-motion

verbs, Vietnamese tends to choose and emphasize the whole trajectory of Motion, i.e from

outside to inside or from inside to outside … (Cô ấy chạy ra sân); whereas it is likely that in

English, the trajectory of Motion incorporate different ‗directions‘; i.e both outside and into

(She ran out into the garden) This can also be seen in the pair examples d and d‘, j and j‘, k

and k‘, m and m‘, and n and n‘

Moreover, directional complement verbs in Vietnamese and particles in English areboth spatially oriented Lý Toàn Thắng (2005: 247) asserts that this results from the cognitiveprocess in human minds in the interaction with the outside world He gives an example of thepreposition ‗out‘ in English and its equivalent: the directional complement verb ‗ra‘ inVietnamese In English, ‗out‘ is a preposition that specifies a Direction from a place toanother separated place, from Inside to Outside In Vietnamese, ‗ra‘ modifies a Directionfrom Inside to Outside, from a narrow, dark point to a larger and brighter point In view of

(c‘) Khói cuộn lên mái, the Vietnamese people often think of the smoke rolling from a kitchen

that is small, narrow and dark to the space that is open and much larger

Up to this point, we have discussed the relation between the Co-event and the motion.However, in the languages that have it, the pattern seen so far for Co-event conflationnormally applies far beyond the expressions of simple Motion Rather, it can bear a widerange of relations (Talmy, 2000b: 42-47):

∙ Precursion relation: the Co-event precedes the main motion event but does not cause or

assist its occurrence

(3) The glass splintered onto the floor

(3‘) Cái ly rơi vỡ trên sàn nhà (The glass fell splintered on the floor)

∙ Enablement relation: the Co-event directly precedes the main motion event and enables the

occurrence of an event that causes the Motion but does not itself cause this Motion All (d),(e), (k), (l), (m), (n) are examples of this relation Let‘s take (e) and (e‘) as examples:

(e) I twisted the cork out of the bottle

(e‘) Tôi nhấc cái bát trong nồi ra‘ (I took the bowl out of the saucepan)

In these examples, the cork and the bowl themselves can not move out of thebottle/saucepan Rather, that is the movement of our hand and arm, which are the events that

do cause the motion

∙ Causal relation: ‗the Co-event can precede the main Motion event in the case of onset causation, or it can co-occur with the main Motion event in the case of extended causation‘

(Talmy, 2000b: 44-45) It is construed as bringing about the occurrence of this motion and the

motion event would not take place if the Co-event did not occur Analyzing the Englishexamples, we can see that (k), (l), (m), (n) belong to the Onset causation, and (h), (i), (j)conflate extended causation:

(k) I pushed the keg into the storeroom

(j) The water boiled down to the midline of the pot

(4) Gió thổi chiếc mũ rơi xuống đất

(The wind blew the hat fall down to the ground.)

(5) Nước cuộn lên bờ đê (Water rolled onto the dyke‘s base)

∙ Concomitance relation: the Co-event co-occurs with the main motion event and is an

activity that the Figure of the motion event additionally exhibits The woman in She wore a

green dress to the party could wear a green dress whether she went to the party or not; and

without any effect on her path to the party Similarly, Vietnamese also has the same examples expressing concomitance relations like this:

(6) Hắn xách chai đến nhà Bá Kiến (Nam Cao: 17)

(He took the bottle came to Ba Kien‘s house.)

One more thing that is worthily noted is that Vietnamese does not conflate MOVE withconcomitant sounds emitted by a Figure during its moving as in English On the contrary, English

has a fair share of such conflations in motion verbs such as roar, wheeze, whistle, cry

… In I whistled past the graveyard, Talmy (2000b:46) argues that the Figure (I) Move while

emitting a whistle Contrastingly, Vietnamese is likely to use a separate adverbial clause/phrase

or a coordination with co-ordinators ‗vừa …vừa’; i.e Tôi vừa đi vào phòng vừa huýt sáo; Vừa đi

vào phòng tôi vừa huýt sáo; or Tôi huýt sáo khi đi vào phòng.

∙ Concurrent result: the Co-event results from or is caused by the main motion event, and would

not otherwise occur (b) and (b‘) are typical examples of this type: the gate/window shut as a result of and concurrently with the air‘s motion swinging blowing onto it

(b) The gate swung shut on its rusty hinges

(b‘) Cái cửa bị (gió) thổi đóng lại (The window is blown shut)

∙ Subsequence relation: the Co-event takes place directly after the main motion event, and is

enabled by, caused by, or is the purpose of that motion event Example (k) in English is

equivalent to (k‘) in Vietnamese:

(k) I kicked the keg into the storeroom

(k‘) Tôi đá cái thùng rỗng vào kho

In all examples depicting varying relations of Motion with the Co-event, the generalcontrast between English and Vietnamese is that Vietnamese encodes a complex motion event

in the form of a SVC which has two verbs (thổi rơi, thổi đóng, cuộn lên, rơi vỡ …) in a SVC

to express the MOVE In the English version, we only use 1 verb to encode the MOVE andthe satellite to express the path of Motion Vietnamese language uses directional complement

verbs: lên and xuống as satellites to denote the Path of Motion, whereas in English, the Path of

Motion is encoded in the prepositions

Beyond that, the expression of Path in English seems to be more complex than in

Vietnamese With the use of the prepositions like onto in 2, out of in e, down to in 3 or into in

k, English appears to focus on more than one path information, i.e into expresses both location

‗on‘ and direction/destination ‗to‘ of the Motion Vietnamese can not encode both this information in its preposition or complements Instead, it tends to relocate the position of Pathcomponent; from preposition in English to verb in Vietnamese In (2) the direction of motion

(encoded in preposition to in English) is mapped onto one of the serial verbs (i.e rơi).

Now that we have examined the semantic components which underpin theconceptualisation of the Motion Event and its varying relations with a Co-event, we see in the

first place the following similarities: (i) Lexicalization pattern 1 (Motion + Co-event) is

typical in English and it does exist in Vietnamese Vietnamese exhibits characteristics thathave been associated with satellite-framed language as English Vietnamese patterns withEnglish in that it uses a rich range of manner-of-motion verbs coupled with another word

which expresses ‗path‘ (ii) Vietnamese and English language both bear the varying relations

beyond the simple motion encoded with Manner and Cause They are Precursion,Enablement, Concomitance, Causal, Subsequence and Concurrent For these reasons, it canfirst be concluded that Vietnamese is a manner-conflating or an S-language

Some differences have been also worthily noted: (i) In English, the Path of Motion is

encoded in the prepositions; while in Vietnamese, it is incorporated in a number of directional

complement verbs including ra, vào, lên, xuống, sang, qua, lại, về, đi, đến, tới which convey

the same prepositional meanings (ii) One-verb construction is widely used in English

whereas Vietnamese tends to encode a complex motion event into multiple verbal components

forming serial verb constructions, which denote more semantic components in one Event (iii)

Manner information is often encoded in the motion verbs in English whereas it tends mainly

mapped onto manner adjuncts in Vietnamese (iv) English expression of Path in this

lexicalization pattern tends to be more complex than that in Vietnamese Different Englishprepositions and particles can be combined together after the main verbs to encode

different directions of Motion: out into, down to, in through, up towards … (v) Vietnamese

motion verbs do not conflate Move with sound emission and they also do not have verbs

using vehicle or dance names

3.2.2 Lexicalization pattern 2: Motion + Path

In the second typological pattern for the expression of motion, the verb conflates both

the fact of Motion and Path Romance languages are of this type In these languages, there are

a series of surface verbs which express motion along various paths The conflation pattern can

be represented schematically as follows:

Motion + Path + (Adjunct Manner/Cause expression + Ground)

According to Talmy (2000b), Spanish motion verbs are perfect examples of this type:

Spanish expressions of Motion with conflation of Path taken from Talmy (2000: 49-51) and

Vietnamese addition by translation

(7) Motion + Path (non-agentive and agentive)

Non-agentive

‗The bottle floated into the cave‘

Cái chai trôi vào trong hang.

The bottle MOVED -out from the cave (floating)

‗The bottle floated out of the cave‘.

Cái chai trôi ra ngoài động.

‗The bottle floated past the rock‘.

Cái chai trôi qua tảng đá.

the bottle moved-through through the pipe (fIoating)

Cái chai trôi qua ống thoát nước.

Agentive

I-A MOVED -in the keg to the storeroom rolling-it

‗I rolled the keg into the storeroom‘

Tôi kéo cái thùng vào kho.

I-A MOVED -out the cork from the bottle twisting-it

‗I twisted the cork out of the bottle‘

Tôi vặn cái nút chai ra (khỏi cái chai).

It can be seen from the examples in (7) that the Spanish verbs entró, salió, pasó,

barril, corcho incorporate the Motion and the Path component Furthermore, as the examples

(a-d) illustrate, if the Co-event (either Manner or Cause) is expressed in Spanish, it tends to be

in an independent element, usually adverbial adjuncts, as in (a), (b) for Manner and (c), (d)for Cause

English does not run parallel to this tendency From the added translations,Vietnamese appears to pattern with English in that both have a Motion verb complementedwith another element (particles in English and directional complement verbs in Vietnamese)

However, on the other hand, patterning with Spanish, Vietnamese also has directional

full verbs that incorporate the path or direction of the verbs vào, ra, lên, xuống, đến, đi, về,

sang, qua, lại, tới …, i.e : Bác vào nhà chơi; Bác lại nhà …

Taking Path components into consideration, Talmy (2000b: 53-55) presents three maincomponents: Vector, Conformation and Deictic Slobin (in press) proposed a fourth

component, Earth-based orientation This component relates direction of motion to

earth-based geometry: north-south-east-west, up-down, and other absolute coordinates (upstream,downstream)

The term ‘Vector’ refers refers to the dynamic phase property of the Figure's

movement with reference to the Ground on the route of the motion Talmy recognizes threebasic universal Vector components: Arrival (initial stage), Departure (ending stage) andTransversal (between initial and ending stage) of a Figure in relation to the Ground (Talmy,2000b: 53) Talmy also provides the prepositions that he used to show ‗Vectors‘ in theFigure-Ground Schema which can be summarized as follows:

(8) Arrival: The napkin blew onto the bed

(9) Departure: The napkin blew out of the box

(10) Transversal: The ball rolled across the field

In conceptualization, languages vary in the degree of specification of each of the threecomponents As in the given examples (8-10), English language is typical of using