Variation and Change in Describing Motion Events in Chinese: A Case Study of Wenzhou

In describing motion events, Chinese underwent a change from a dominantly verb-framed language in its earlier stages to a dominantly satellite-framed language as shown in present-day Putonghua. Taking the Wenzhou Wu dialect as a case study, this talk introduces the unique features in the dialect, and from both diachronic and cross-dialectal perspectives, shows that Wenzhou has developed much faster than Putonghua and other Chinese dialects in developing into a satellite-framed language. The case of Wenzhou may suggest what kinds of lexicalization and typological shifts are possible in languages.

Bio:

Dr. Lin Jingxia is associate professor of Chinese linguistics at NTU. She received her PhD in Chinese linguistics from Stanford University. Prior to joining NTU Singapore, she was a postdoctoral fellow at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Her research interests include syntax-semantics interface, language variation and change, and typology. She mainly works on Putonghua, Singapore Mandarin, and the Wenzhou Wu dialect.