Vietnamese fictive motion constructions: a construction grammar approach

Abstract

Fictive motion is a term coined by Talmy to refer to a universal linguistic and cognitive salience phenomenon within his framework of lexicalization patterns and motion event typology. Since formulated by Talmy, numerous cognitive linguists used his lexicalization patterns and motion event typology as a criterion for exploring fictive motion in many languages. Fictive motion can be encoded and expressed differently in different languages, depending on the typological characteristics of each language and the cognitive culture of the native speakers of that language. However, the study of fictive motion in Vietnamese is limited. Therefore, this paper has three principal purposes: (i) Apply the typology of a motion event and fictive motion, as formulated by Talmy, combined with the constructionist approach, as developed in Construction Grammar of Goldberg, to establish a system of fictive motion construction types for Vietnamese; (ii) Describe some core semantic characteristics and constraints for each established construction type by analyzing every type within the framework of Construction Grammar, and (iii) Construct an interactive network of fictive motion types by relying on the level of subjectivity and abstraction for Vietnamese. The present paper on fictive motion construction types in Vietnamese is an initial effort to identify the typological characteristics of this language.

Keywords

• Abstraction
• constraint
• construction
• fictive motion
• motion event
• subjectivity