Author(s)

Lin Yu

Institute of Foreign Linguistics and Applied Linguistics, Henan University, Kaifeng, Henan, China.

This paper investigates the lexicalization patterns of action correlating events from the perspective of Talmy’s Macro-event theory and its revised event integration model. Based on the case study “V + Dào” construction in Mandarin, which is a rather pervasive structure in CCL corpus with high frequency, the event semantics, syntactic properties as well as the event integration patterns of “V + Dào” construction are fully explored by the means of correlation analysis and its visualization. The research results indicate that: 1) Both the internal and external event integration processes indicate the event integration hierarchy “V + Dào” construction in the domain of action corelating event. 2) In the process of the internal event integration, on the one hand, two or three conceptual primitives can be conflated in “V” and “Dào” respectively. On the other hand, both “V” and “Dào” share one common conceptual primitive of “act”, and others provide the elaboration sites with each other in the process of the external event integration. 3) Based on the core schema of “correlation” mainly encoded in the verb root of “V”, this paper claims that Mandarin Chinese, different from the motion event, exhibits the verb-framed language in the domain of the action correlating event. 4) Further, the semantic resonance and its (dis)appearance of “correlation” encoded in the different linguistic components simultaneously deserves further discussion. In a nutshell, these results support the event integration model hierarchically distributed in “V + Dào” construction with the conceptual primitives mapping in common and elaborating with each other between “V” and “Dào”. This study of the action correlating event, covering the term of “reciprocity” of human mutual acts, reflects and provides an insight into human social cognition from the perspective of linguistics.

Action Correlating Events, Typological Confusions, In/External Event Integration Model, Correlation Analysis, “V + Dào” Construction

Yu, L. (2021) An Event Integration Approach to Lexicalizations of Action Correlating Events— A Case Study of “V + Dào” Construction in Mandarin. Open Journal of Modern Linguistics, 11, 335-360. doi: 10.4236/ojml.2021.113027.