Abstract
Talmy (1985. 2000b) classifies languages into verb-framed and satellite-framed languages based 0n whether path is expressed in the main verb or in the satellite. This study shows that Cantonese makes use of both directional verbs and directional complements to express path, exhibiting characteristics of both types of languages. Scholars suggest that Classical Chinese has undergone a typological shift from a verb-framed language to a satellite-framed language. It is obseived that Cantonese differs from Mandarin in two aspects. First, the use of a directional verb to encode agentive motion events is found in Cantonese but not in Mandarin. Second, the degree of fusion between the verb and the directional complement in Cantonese is not as high as Mandarin. This study suggests that the differences can be best construed as various stages of typological transformation and grammaticalization the two dialects have undergone.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 511-569 |
| Number of pages | 59 |
| Journal | Language and Linguistics |
| Volume | 14 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| Publication status | Published - 2013 |
Keywords
- Cantonese
- Directional verbs
- Grammaticalization
- Typology of motion events