Extending the Talmyan typology: A case study of the macro-event as event integration and grammaticalization in Mandarin

Abstract

The two-way typology proposed by Leonard Talmy has been extremely influential in the past few decades, and has led to a large number of publications. But while the majority of the literature is devoted to the identification of the verb-framed or satellite-framed status of individual languages, relatively little (if any) research focuses on the foundation of this theory. This article addresses the nature of the macro-event, a fundamental concept for the Talmyan two-way typology, proposing a diachronic aspect of the macro-event, an aspect that seems to be under-appreciated or even neglected. It argues that a macro-event results from the integration of two simpler events through grammaticalization in Mandarin. This hypothesis is supported by the behavior of directional complements in Mandarin Chinese in that these directional complements in combination with the main verbs can express all the five types of the macro-events that Talmy has analyzed to establish his typology, and that these macro-events themselves represent an integration of two simpler events and exhibit various degrees of grammaticalization. This study brings together two seemingly unrelated areas of research, that is, the area of event structure and that of grammaticalization, thus providing a new perspective on the Talmyan typological paradigm. The result, though supported by the data in Mandarin Chinese, might have universal value and implications for other languages as well.

Event integration as a driving force of language change: evidence from Chinese 使-shǐ-make

“…There is a huge amount of literature concerning single-language and crosslinguistic studies on motion typology (Aske, 1989;Ji & Hohenstein, 2014a, 2014b, 2018Naidu et al, 2018;Slobin, 1996;Zlatev & Yangklang, 2004; among others), but only a few studies center on state change and realization (Du et al, 2020;Kou & Hohenstein, 2020, 2021Levin & Rappaport Hovav, 1991). It is worth noting that there has been relatively little investigation into the full range of macro-event.…”

“…Li (2018Li ( , 2019Li ( , 2020Li ( , 2023 and Li and Liu (2021) filled this gap by demonstrating how the Chinese language in the past and at present encodes the five types of macro-event with the full set of 11 simplex directional complements, and, more importantly, how event integration involved in the diachronic change of these directional complements. Li (2018) first argued that macro-event results from the integration of two simpler events through grammaticalization in Mandarin. Following this spirit, Li (2020Li ( , 2023 developed the Talmyan two-way typology and formulated The Macroevent Hypothesis.…”

“…Event typology has long been a major focus in cognitive typology (Batoréo & Ferrari, 2016;Feist & Duffy, 2020;Ji & Hohenstein, 2014a, 2014b, 2018Naidu et al, 2018;Slobin, 2004;Talmy, 1991Talmy, , 2000aTalmy, , 2000bamong others). One of the most renowned and influential typological models is the 'motion event typology' formulated by Talmy (1991Talmy ( , 2000aTalmy ( , 2000b, according to which all languages can either be verbframed (e.g., the Romance languages) or satellite-framed (e.g., the Germanic languages), based on their predominant means to express the semantic component 'path': either in the main verb or the satellite to the verb (typically a prefix or verbal particle).…”

“…Slobin, 2004;Croft et al, 2010;Li, 2018Li, , 2019Li, , 2020Li, , 2023Li & Liu, 2021;etc.). One key problem is that the two-way typology is built mostly on the basis of synchronic analysis, largely neglecting the diachronic aspect of language typology (Li, 2018). To fill in this gap, Li (2018) first applied Talmyan motion event typology to account for the grammaticalization of Chinese directional complements from Archaic Chinese (BCE 1600-24) to Modern Chinese (1912-present), and put forward The Macro-event Hypothesis:…”

An Event Integration Approach to Lexicalizations of Action Correlating Events— A Case Study of “V + Dào” Construction in Mandarin

“…However, not everything can be divided into black and white, that is, Talmy's influential typological dichotomy of verb-framed language and satellite-framed language. Moreover, different lexicallization patterns have further revealed the limitations of Talmy's typology across various languages (Acedo-Matellán, 2016;Aske, 1989;Beavers et al, 2010;Chu, 2004;Ibarretxe-Antunano, 2004;Ji, Hendriks, & Hickmann, 2011;Naidu et al, 2018;Li, 2018Pavlenko & Volynsk, 2015;Slobin, 1996Slobin, , 2004Slobin, , 2006Yu & Li, 2018;etc. ).…”