A Contrastive Study on the Lexicalization of Direct-Manipulative Caused-Motion Events between English and Chinese

Direct-manipulative causation is usually believed to be expressed by compact forms, but this contrastive study of the lexicalization of direct-manipulative caused-motion (DMCM) events between English and Chinese shows that both languages adopt varying forms to express such events, including compact forms and more loose forms. Furthermore, it is found that Chinese is quite different from English, for it possesses more forms covering more semantic configurations, thus enabling it to bring more light to typology. At last, the findings of the contrastive study yield a new approach to the semantic-formal correlations of causation in typological studies, i.e. the causative forms can be related to the foregrounded semantic element involved in the causative situation.