Abstract:

Drawing on the theoretical framework of macro-events in Cognitive Semantics, this study conducts a corpus-based diachronic investigation into the event-semantic types encoded by Mandarin verb-complement constructions with simple directional complements 来lái ‘come’, 进 jìn ‘enter’, 出 chū ‘exit’, 过 guò ‘through’, and 起 qǐ ‘rise’. Unlike traditional studies, which are often based on small-scale qualitative data and reduce the semantics of directional complements to three categories——directional, resultative, and stative——this study demonstrates that Mandarin directional constructions encode at least ten distinct macro-event types, including motion, purpose, causation, state change, temporal contouring, result, degree, fictive motion, concessive, and action-correlation. On this basis, the paper proposes the Macro-event Image Schema Hypothesis, which argues that their underlying image-schematic structures constrain the diachronic evolution of macro-events, and that grammaticalization can be understood as the semantic adjustments of linguistic forms under such constraints. This study not only refines the semantic classification of Mandarin directional constructions but also reveals the cognitive motivations behind their semantic expansion, thereby providing a new theoretical perspective on grammaticalization in Chinese and enriching cross-linguistic research on macro-events.

Key words: Macro-event Image Schema Hypothesis, grammaticalization, Macro-event, simple directional complement, event type