Verbal Predicates in Chinese Fictive Motion Expressions

摘要

This article explores the verbal predicates employed in one type of Chinese fictive motion expressions, namely, coextension paths. Eight patterns were identified, encompassing compound verbs, verb-complement constructions, polysyllabic words, monosyllabic verbs, monosyllabic adverbial modifier + monosyllabic verb constructions, nouns of locality + monosyllabic verb constructions, Chinese idioms, and AAerB constructions. The results show that the verbal predicates adopted in fictive motion expressions in Modern Standard Chinese are similar to those in expressions encoding translational motion events in ancient Chinese.