Motion Constructions in Singapore Mandarin Chinese: A Typological Perspective

Research on Singapore Mandarin Chinese has shown that it is influenced, to a certain degree, by dialects such as Min (e.g. Hokkien) and Cantonese. This has resulted in many differences between Mainland China Mandarin Chinese and Singapore Mandarin Chinese. This paper examines one such difference: the expression of self-agentive motion constructions. This study finds that Singapore Mandarin Chinese lies somewhere in between dialects and modern Mandarin Chinese with respect to lexicalization of motion events. The findings suggest that rather than the categorical patterns that have been proposed in many previous studies, the lexicalization patterns in different languages may form a continuum.