A comparative study of the correlation between predicate(verb)temporality and syntactic-semantic dynamics in English and Chinese
Because temporal relations embody ways of conceptualizing events according to cognitive grammar,this paper adopts the temporality of predicates(verbs)as a theoretical tool and common point for comparison to account for the dynamics of syntactic and semantic features in English and Chinese.This represents the correlation of reality and cognition with language.The study shows that in English,changes in the temporality of predicate verbs primarily relate to their distributional capacity and syntactic constraints,whereas in Chinese,besides displaying similar distributional and syntactic constraints,changes in predicate temporality entail three unique differences:1)the varied realizations of predicates,constructional complementarity or semantic opposition and multi-interpretations;2)strong temporality opting for SVO word order;and 3)weak temporality favoring the topic-comment construction.This explains the dual typological features of Chinese.
万方数据
维普
