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

PUBLIC INTEREST STATEMENT

This paper examines fictive motion constructions in Vietnamese. These are constructions that ascribe physical motion, an inherent characteristic of humans and animals, to nonhuman or motionless objects and to mental states or abstract concepts that cannot move through physical space. Fictive motion constructions show how people use figurative language to represent their cognitive and emotional worlds. Through this usage, fictive motion constructions also reveal both universals and unique characteristics of language, culture, and cognition.

The paper also examines the interaction network of Vietnamese fictive motion constructions based on a lower-to-higher distribution of subjectivity and abstraction. This network is associated with the cognitive capacities of imagination, mental scanning, and enactive perception. Through this interactive network, we see how humans arrange and organize knowledge and how they interpret and conceptualize the world.

1. Introduction

Observe the expressions in (1) and (2) below:

(1) a. The fence goes from the plateau down into the valley (Talmy, 2017, p. 10).

b. That mountain range goes from Mexico to Canada (Langacker, 1999, p. 82).

c. The palm trees clustered together around the oasis (Fauconnier & Turner, 2002, p. 379).

d. The highway passes through a tunnel (Matsumoto, 1996a, p. 204).

(2) a. Con đường xuyên qua 20 tỉnh từ Bắc vào Nam; chạy qua nước bạn Lào và Campuchia; vắt từ Đông Trường Sơn sang Tây Trường Sơn, từ Tây Nguyên xuyên xuống miền Đông, miền Tây Nam Bộ (Phúc Vinh).

(The road passes through 20 provinces from north to south, running through Laos and Cambodia from East Truong Son to West Truong Son, and from the Central Highlands to the east and southwest.)

b. Lưng còng đổ bóng xuống sân ga (Nguyễn Bính).

(The bent back casts a shadow on the platform.)

c. Mùi thơm của gỗ bay lên cao và tỏa ra khắp mười phương (TG Minh Thanh).

(The scent of wood rose high and spread throughout ten directions.)

d. Ánh nắng mặt trời chiếu xuyên qua ô cửa kính, rọi sáng cả căn phòng (Tuyết Anh Sương Hồn).

(Sunlight streamed through the glass window, illuminating the room.)

We find that both English expressions in (1) and Vietnamese ones in (2) used motion verbs to denote static entities.

The examples in (1) and (2) above are considered a unique linguistic phenomenon, referred to as fictive motion. Fictive motion (henceforth: FM)¹ is a term coined by Talmy (1996) to refer to a universal linguistic and cognitive salience phenomenon within his framework of lexicalization patterns and motion event typology. This phenomenon consists of figurative expressions of motion attributed to immobile material objects, states, or abstract concepts where motion verbs semantically extend their meanings to express relations that neither involve movement nor state change (Talmy, 1996). In other words, FM is usually defined as the metaphorical motion of an object or abstraction through space, i.e., a stationary situation represented as moving.

Since formulated by Talmy, numerous cognitive linguists accepted his framework of lexicalization patterns and motion event typology as a criterion for exploring FM in specific languages. These languages include English and Spanish (Rojo & Valenzuela, 2003; Slobin, 1996), Basque (Ibarretxe-Antuñano, 2004), Khasi (Wahlang & Koshy, 2018), Persian (Afrashi & Rahmani, 2014), Chinese (Ma, 2016), Estonian (Taremaa, 2013), English and Japanese (Matsumoto, 1996a, 1996b), Swedish, French, and Thai (Blomberg, 2014, 2015; Zlatev & Yangklang, 2004), Caac (Cauchard, 2018), Finnish (Huumo, 1999, 2005), Hindi (Mishra & Singh, 2010), Thai and Telugu (Naidu et al., 2018; Takahashi, 2000), Swedish, French, Thai, and Telugu (Zlatev et al., 2021), French and Serbian (Stosic & Sarda, 2009), French, Italian, German, Serbian, English, and Polish (Stosic et al., 2015), and even biblical Hebrew (Medill, 2021) and American Sign Language (Liddell, 2003). FM can be encoded and expressed differently in languages, depending on the typological characteristics of the language and the cognitive culture of the native speakers of that language.

Previous studies on motions in Vietnamese linguistics mainly concerned actual (physical) motions. Most of these studies focused on explaining the syntactic and semantic attitudes of the Vietnamese motion verb group when it combines directly with words indicating direction and goal. This problem can be summarized as follows.

(a) About meaning of direction:

In Vietnamese, the meaning of direction is given in the lexical semantics of the verbs themselves, such as verbs đi (go), ra (out), lên (up), xuống (down), nâng (lift), đạp (kick), rơi (fall), rắc (sprinkle), and đổ (pour) when these verbs are the main verbs, as in (3), or directional adverbs, as in (4):

(3) a. Nó ra Hà Nội. (He goes to Hanoi.)

b. Tôi xuống Sài Gòn. (I went to Saigon.)

(4) a. Bố cởi áo ra. (Dad took off his shirt.)

b. Nó giơ tay lên. (He hands it up.)

(b) About the meaning of goal:

In Vietnamese, how can words, such as ra (out), vào (in), lên (up), xuống (down), về (come), lại (back), sang (cross), qua (pass), đi (go), tới (arrive), and đến (come), when they precede the goal nouns, be explained? Consider (5).

(5) a. Nước lũ đang xuống. (Floodwater is falling.)

b. Nước lũ đang rút xuống. (Floodwater is withdrawing.)

Most authors consider xuống in (5a) to be a directional verb because xuống can be combined with modal words such as có, không, đã, sẽ, đang, hãy, and đừng. This is the case in (5a). In (5b), xuống has the function of a directional adverb (according to some authors) because here it can no longer be modalized by the modal words, có and không.

In Biên (2016a), the above word group is viewed as a preposition because it satisfies the conditions of a prepositional structure. We can divide this word group into two subgroups:

(i) The verbs đi, ra, lên, and xuống, when used as directional adverbs for the main verb, may not have a goal, in contrast to vào, lại, về, sang, đến and tới. Consider the following:

(6) Nam tháo ổ đĩa cứng ra, lau xong rồi lại lắp vào.

(Nam removed the hard drive, cleaned it, and then put it back in.)

We see after ra that there is no goal at all, but after vào, there is very obviously a zero goal: it indicates a computer. This issue has been demonstrated clearly in Biên (2016a). From Ký (1883) to Clark (1978), all authors consider lên (up), xuống (down), ra (out), vào (in), etc., to have the propositional function of goal, and Thản (1977) and Lai (1977, 1989, 1990, 1994) consider it a directional word. The former authors analyzed sentences with motions, such as chạy ra đồng (run to the field), as chạy + (ra đồng), while the latter authors analyzed them as (chạy ra) + đồng.

(ii) When preceding a noun, these words are genuine prepositions; however, the meanings denoted by these prepositions are very delicate and flexible, depending on the lexical semantics of the predicate and on what Givón (1984) called the perspective of the speaker.

The above different syntactic attitudes of the subgroups in question are related to their formation mechanism. We support the opinion of Hạo (1998, pp. 394–395) that, in Vietnamese, most prepositions are content words that when grammaticalized usually become transitive verbs (đi (go), đến (come), tới (arrive), ra (out), lên (up), xuống (down), sang (cross), qua (pass)) or nouns (trên (above), dưới (below), trong (inside), ngoài (outside), bên (side), giữa (middle), trước (front), sau (back)). One of the outstanding features of Vietnamese grammar is that the grammaticalization of verbs into prepositions does not accompany the process by which the parts of speech change so that verbs definitively become prepositions. These two functions exist side-by-side, so one might wonder whether these are two homonyms or only one word used in two different syntactic roles.

The study of FM in Vietnamese from the perspective of Cognitive Linguistics has attracted a few researchers in recent years. In a doctoral dissertation, for example, Toan (2019a) performed a cognitive study of lexical expressions denoting motion in English and Vietnamese. And from the perspective of Cognitive Linguistics, Toan (2019b) examined Vietnamese lexical words of path motion. Earlier, Han (2011) surveyed motion verbs and their lexicalization patterns in English and Vietnamese from the perspective of cognitive semantics, and Pace (2009) focused on a facet of the typology of motion verbs in Northern Vietnamese.

However, it is fair to say that the research on Vietnamese FM is still too meager.

Therefore, this paper has three principal purposes: (i) Apply the typology of a motion event and FM, as formulated by Talmy, in combination with the constructionist approach, as developed in Construction Grammar of Goldberg (1995, 2006) to establish a system of FM construction types for Vietnamese; (ii) Describe core semantic characteristics and constraints of the FM construction types found by analyzing constructions of each type within the framework of Construction Grammar; and (iii) From there, build an interactive network of the FM construction types by relying on the level of subjectivity and abstraction of Vietnamese.

Is the Vietnamese language a verb-framed, satellite-framed, or equipollently-framed language? To answer this question satisfactorily, we need a comprehensive, long-term study of Vietnamese, including all FM construction types. Fagard et al. (2013, p. 337) have presented the following recommendations and challenges for motion event-based linguistic typology:

(i) Should the notion of language types (concerning motion typology or in general) be abandoned and languages be described as conglomerates of constructions and strategies with complex overlaps? Fagard et al. (2013, p. 337) pointed out that “different patterns for MANNER, PATH, and DEIXIS are consistent with proposals that motion event typology should be performed on the basis of separate constructions or strategies, rather than on language as a whole. However, this should not be interpreted as meaning that ‘there are no language types’; after all, constructions are not ‘atoms’ that a language can pick or leave at will.”

(ii) “With the advent of enhanced usage-based methods such as corpus analysis and elicitation, the tendency to answer the latter two questions in the direction of continua and (even individual) strategies rather than types has increased” (Fagard et al., 2013, p. 365).

(iii) A question concerns conceptual issues, “such as what exactly should be regarded as MOTION, PATH, and MANNER, since the way in which these concepts are defined, both theoretically and operationally, will inevitably affect the results from empirical investigations” (Fagard et al., 2013, p. 365).

In terms of applications, the studies of Khatin-Zadeh et al. (2022) on the role of motion-based metaphors in enhancing mathematical thought from the perspective of embodiment theories of cognition and the studies of Banaruee et al. (2019) on metaphoric language from a cognitive perspective showed that the problems Fagard et al. (2013) posed were entirely grounded.

Therefore, this paper can be considered an initial attempt to study FM typology within the scope of inquiry of FM constructions and their interaction network in Vietnamese. This problem has not received much attention. This study aims to illuminate the problem of Vietnamese typology based on the motion event, which is the significance of this paper.

To achieve the above three principal purposes, the paper is laid out as follows: in addition to the introduction (Section 1) and conclusion (Section 6), we introduce some necessary theoretical background to the research content of the paper, such as problems of construction, subjectivity, and abstraction, in Section 2. Section 3 is devoted to establishing a system of FM construction types in Vietnamese. Section 4 briefly describes some core semantic characteristics and constraints for each FM construction type by analyzing constructions representing each type within the framework of Construction Grammar. Section 5 builds an interactive network of the FM construction types.

2. Theoretical background

As noted in the introduction, one of the three principal purposes of this paper is to apply the typology of Talmy to motion events and to examine FM construction types in the Vietnamese language with the constructionist approach developed in the Construction Grammar model of Goldberg.² Therefore, in this section, we will briefly present the following theoretical background as the research grounds for this paper:

(i) The Talmian typology of a motion event,

(ii) Goldberg’s Construction Grammar model and some relevant concepts,

(iii) Research procedures, and

(iv) Corpus source.

2.1. The Talmian typology of a motion event

Talmy (2000b) proposed that a motion event has six core semantic components: Figure, Ground, Path, Motion, Manner, and Cause. The first four elements of these six constitute internal components, which may be defined as follows:

Figure: The object that is moving or located.

Ground: The object that functions as a spatial reference point for the motion/location of the figure.

Talmy (2000a, p. 312) defined the ground as “a reference entity, one that has a stationary setting relative to a reference frame, with respect to which the Figure’s path, site, or orientation is characterized.”

Path: The motion path of the figure.

Motion: The fact that some object changes its location.

And the last two components constitute external co-event components.

Manner: The manner of motion by which the figure moves along the path.

Cause: The cause from which motion arises.

Talmy (1985, p. 61) illustrated these components with the following commonly cited examples:

(7) The pencil rolled off the table.

[Figure] [Motion + Manner] [Path] [Ground]

(8) The pencil blew off the table.

[Figure] [Motion + Cause] [Path] [Ground]

In both examples, the pencil and the table function as the Figure and the Ground, respectively. And the particle off acts as the path. As for the motion part, in (7), the manner component is conflated with the motion component, and the verb rolled specifies the manner of motion, which we can interpret as a movement by rolling. In (8), the cause component conflates with the motion component and the verb blew as the moving cause of the pencil, which is the Figure object.

2.2. On the construction grammar model of Goldberg and some relevant notions

2.2.1. On the construction grammar model of Goldberg

Construction Grammar is a theory of Cognitive Construction Grammar (CxG)³ established by Goldberg (1995). It has its roots in the CxG theory formulated by Fillmore, Kay, and their collaborators. It is also influenced by the work of Lakoff (1987). It is also influenced by the work of Lakoff (1987). In her model, Goldberg (1995) extended her model from “irregular” idiomatic expressions to “regular” constructions. To do this, she concentrated on verb argument constructions. In other words, Goldberg examined “ordinary” sentences, such as ones with transitive or ditransitive structures. From that, she built a CxG theory to explain the argument structure patterns she found in those structures. One of her outstanding achievements was to apply received ideas from cognitive semantics, such as metaphor and polysemy, and integrate them into a new CxG theory. Thus, her approach shows that grammar reveals the same phenomenon types as other linguistic units, such as words. Therefore, her CxG posited a lexicon-grammar continuum, which is called construction.

Besides establishing syntactical-semantic links, another cornerstone of Construction Grammar is the notion that fundamental human experiences correspond to central senses in construction argument structure. Goldberg (1995, p. 39) defined this as the Scene Encoding Hypothesis and established a schema for the lower-to-higher spectrum of subjectivity and abstraction. Languages are wished to be based on a finite set of possible event types, such as that of someone causing something, experiencing something, possessing something, or something moving, being in a state, causing and changing a change of state or location, and something having an effect on someone.

Another aspect of Constructive Grammar is the interest in unusual or idiosyncratic, low-frequency constructions that can be detected when acquiring more general patterns. These constructions are often disregarded in generative approaches because Universal Grammar cannot account for cross-linguistic anomalies. Indeed, one strength of the input-based, non-native view is that idiosyncratic constructions are expected cross-linguistically and support the notion that we can learn the language without innate hard-wiring. Goldberg (2003) cited the covariational-conditional construction (the X-er, the Y-er; The more you think about it, the less you understand) as a case of unusual, low-frequency construction. The word the (which is etymologically distinct from the definite article) is not attached to a head noun, and there is no conjunction combining the two phrases (which might indeed be verbless: The more the merrier). Thus, the covariational-conditional is considered a unique construction because of its unusual form. However, the construction is learnable, offering higher-frequency, cross-linguistically attested constructions, and should be at least as easy or even easier to learn on an input-based, non-nativist account (Goldberg, 2006).

Her model also emphasized the function of particular constructions and their formal properties. These also vary in their generality. They rank from words to idioms to more abstract patterns, such as argument structure constructions, topicalizations, and passive forms. There is also no division between semantics and pragmatics, as constructions encode all aspects of convention within themselves. Thus, they can include information about information structure, register, or genre. Her model is also a usage-based model. Such models recognize that we retain much item-specific knowledge. An important desideratum of her model is that it interfaces naturally with what we know about language change, acquisition, and typology. To obtain generalizations within a given language, we must put constructions into their reciprocal relationship via an inheritance hierarchy in which more abstract, productive types are directly related to their idiomatic instantiations or tokens. The functions of concrete constructions appear to capture cross-linguistically valid typological generalizations.

2.2.2. Some relevant notions

2.2.2.1. The notion of construction

This term refers to the mental inventory of constructions in Goldberg’s theory of Construction Grammar. Goldberg (1995, p. 4) defined this notion as follows: “C is a CONSTRUCTION iff_def C is a form-meaning pair <Fi, Si> such that some aspect of Fi, or some aspect of Si, is not strictly predictable from C’s component parts or from other previously established constructions.”⁴

Construction is a central theoretical construct and a language unit in the Construction Grammar of Goldberg. This unit forms a conventional unit of form-meaning pairing. Typically, the form involves a particular phonological chain or a series conventionally of sound segments in a specific language, e.g., /mɛw²/ (mèo) in Vietnamese. And the meaning is related to a mental representation, namely, a lexical notion, conventionally associated with a form. Therefore, /mɛw²/ is conventionally associated with the idea of a kind of animal commonly considered domesticated in many regions of the world. Thus, the linguistic unit mèo constitutes a construction. This construction is composed of a conventional form-meaning pairing.

Apart from whole words, constructions may be a meaningful subpart of a word, or morpheme, as anti- in antidisestablish, a word string of words that belong together as in an idiom (such as He kicked the bucket), or syntactic constructions that have a more schematic meaning associated with them. For instance, the ditransitive construction has the following syntax: NP₁ VERB NP₂ NP₃, and its schematic meaning is X causes Y to receive Z.

The constructions, like the ditransitive construction above, are not filled lexically. They represent a grammatical schema that we can instantiate by particular words, as in the utterance: Tom gave Jerry the flowers.

In this paper, we assume that any FM construction has its gestalt, or whole meaning, independently of its components. The Vietnamese FM construction is characterized linguistically by employing motion verbs in the role of predicate (PRED) to represent physical objects in space lacking observable motion. Figure Figure 1 below is the model for a Vietnamese FM construction.

Figure 1. The model for Vietnamese FM construction.

In this model, V is a motion verb, and OBL/OBJ denotes an obligatory object expressed as a directional phrase and the first object represented as a noun phrase. In this model, verbs cannot be responsible independently for the FM semantics because if the subject is not objectively stationary, the construction represents actual motion. Besides, motion verbs do not license static subjects licensed by the whole structure. Additionally, in isolation, prepositions cannot code the FM semantic construe. A core issue with ascribing the FM semantics to prepositions is that there may be no prepositions, or many prepositions may code a locative construe. For instance, construction (9) has no prepositions, and in (10), the preposition tại (at/in) indicates a locative construe rather than a directional construe. Thus, it is plausible to ascribe the FM construe to the construction rather than to verbs or prepositions.

(9) Từng cung đường đèo Hải Vân uốn lượn, quanh co như dòng suối chảy mềm mại (TTXVN).

(Each road of Hai Van Pass is winding and crooked like a softly flowing stream.)

(10) Tại thành phố Hồ Chí Minh có một tuyến đường vượt sông Sài Gòn rất đặc biệt (Vietfuntravel.com.vn).

(There is a route crossing the Saigon River at Ho Chi Minh City.)

2.2.2.2. The notion of abstraction

As one of the cognitive approaches to grammar, Goldberg’s Construction Grammar also adopted the usage-based thesis as a guiding principle (Biên, 2017b). The usage-based thesis holds that abstraction of symbolic units from situated instances of language use, such as an utterance, forms the mental grammar of language users, i.e., their knowledge of the language. A crucial consequence of complying with the usage-based thesis is that there is no principal distinction between language knowledge and language use since language knowledge is the knowledge of how to use language.

In a usage-based language model, abstraction⁵ is the process whereby construction appears as the generalization of patterns across cases of language use. For example, a speaker acquiring Vietnamese, due to frequent exposure, will find recurring words, phrases, or sentences in the utterances (s)he hears, together with the spectrum of meanings associated with those units.

2.2.2.3. The notion of subjectivity

Subjectivity is a much-discussed topic in linguistics. Lyons (1977, p. 739) defined subjectivity as “devices whereby the speaker, in making an utterance, simultaneously comments upon that utterance and expresses his attitude to what he is saying.” Elsewhere, Lyons (1995, p. 337) added that subjectivity “denotes the property (or set of properties) of being either a subject of consciousness (i.e., of cognition, feeling, and perception) or a subject of action (an agent).” What the linguist is interested in, more specifically, is locutionary subjectivity: the subjectivity of speech.

In his Cognitive Grammar, Langacker investigated subjectivity⁶ from the synchronic perspective and the perspective of the existence of the speaker.

From the synchronic perspective, concerned with construal, Langacker set optimal and egocentric viewing arrangements. Langacker (1987, p. 129) maintained that in optimal cases, the objective scene coincides with the region of maximal acuity. Optimal perception requires that the attention of S (the subject) be focused solely on O (the object) to the extent that S loses all awareness of his role as an observer. Otherwise phrased, what S observes is O. When these conditions are satisfied, the asymmetry in the S and O roles, as observer and object of observation, is maximized. In the perceptual relationship, the S role, then, is said to be subjective maximally and that of O objective maximally.

From the existent perspective of the speaker, if the existence of the speaker is more inconspicuous, an expression is more subjective. In short, subjectivity is relevant to the speaker, which is thus subjective. Therefore, a subjective construal is a construal form in which there is implicit dependence on the ground, i.e., the context of the utterance, including participants, time of the speech event, and so on, is not explicitly mentioned. For example, we habitually construe the speaker and hearer subjectively or “off stage.” When they are profiled linguistically by expressions such as I or you, we only construe them objectively or “on stage.” This phenomenon is called objective construe (Biên, 2021b; Evans, 2007).

Moreover, we also have subjective experience (also termed introspective experience). In nature, this kind of experience is subjectivity (or internality). It contains emotions, consciousness, and time experiences, such as awareness of duration (including protracted time and temporal compression), simultaneity, and so on (Evans, 2007). One of the most crucial characteristics of our conceptualizing is the structure domains or concepts concerning introspective experience based on ideas that originate from sensory experience. The most obvious evidence is in the phenomenon of conceptual metaphor. Sensory experience is the other experience type. Therefore, in any FM construction, there is often a lower-to-higher distribution of subjectivity and abstraction. We can consider this distribution to be like a spectrum in which subjectivity and abstraction form two poles. From one pole to the other, the properties of one pole decrease while the properties of the other pole increase. This means that if subjectivity is high, then abstraction is low, and vice versa. We can illustrate this, as shown in Figure Figure 2.

Figure 2. A schema for the lower-higher spectrum of subjectivity and abstraction.

2.3. Research procedures

This paper is a descriptive-analytic study. Thus, it uses two main research procedures: analytical and descriptive.

2.3.1. Analytical procedure

The analytical procedure is applied mainly to FM corpus processing.

The corpus processing is conducted by systematically applying analytical techniques, such as determining the corpus scope, modularizing the corpus structure, condensing the corpus frequency and representation, and illustrating the corpus through tables and figures.

Analytical techniques allow us to make fundamental inferences from the corpus by eliminating unnecessary exceptions created by its rest. Corpus building is an ongoing process; this makes corpus analysis a continuously iterative process where collecting and performing the corpus analysis are simultaneous. Ensuring corpus integrity is one of the essential requirements of corpus analysis.

2.3.2. Descriptive procedure

The descriptive procedure helps elucidate the principles concerned with describing conceptualized FM types and other properties of their construction patterns. As Mitchell and Jolley (2010, p. 205) pointed out, this procedure enables “the researcher to test hypotheses and answer the questions.”

Generally, descriptive researchers often focus on answering the “What”-questions about a single variable, such as What semantic and spatial elements are composed in the motion-manner-verbs? And then expand to “How”-questions, such as How are these elements lexicalized? For example, to answer the question: How are the semantic and spatial elements conflated into the motion-manner-verbs? The construe of characteristics of Cognitive Linguistics is desirable. From the viewpoint of Cognitive Linguistics, we can conceptualize a move in two observable ways. The motion covers a wide range of situations involving changes in spatial configurations. Therefore, we conceptualize it as a position change of an object concerning others consecutively from one point to another along a spatial extent during time through spatial cognition. Talmy (2000b, pp. 25–26) named this type of motion translation motion, as in (11a), and another type is self-contained motion, which exhibits dynamic spatial properties in the entity itself without displacement of its whole body, as in (11b).

(11) a. Một bộ phận không khí lạnh đang di chuyển từ phía Bắc xuống phía Nam (TTXVN).

(Part of the cold air is flowing from the North to the South.)

b. Lá cờ Tổ Quốc lại hiên ngang phấp phới tung bay trên cột cờ Dinh Thống Nhất (Hòa Bình).

(The national flag was once again fluttering proudly on the flagpole of the Reunification Palace.)

2.4. Corpus source

The Vietnamese corpus of FM constructions analyzed and described in this paper is collected primarily from textbooks, literary texts, newspapers, and miscellaneous articles published online in the Vietnamese language and written by Vietnamese people. For each illustrative example, we identify the author(s).

Here, also note that the notion of “FM construction” is meant by us as a clause or sentence that uses dynamic linguistic forms, such as a motion verb, a directional preposition, or both, to represent a static physical entity or scene, as illustrated in (12) from Talmy (2000a, p. 104).

(12) That mountain range goes from Canada to Mexico.

Construction (12) describes the configuration of a mountain range and its position between Canada and Mexico. The perceived situation is that the relationship between the mountain range and Canada and Mexico is static and that in reality there is no motion of the mountain range. In other words, construction (12) concerns the distinction between the literal meaning of the construction and what we believe to be the actual situation. Its literal meaning gives the mountain range an animate trait, which is contrary to our belief that mountain ranges, in reality, are static. But linguistically, this static situation is conceptualized in terms of a dynamic movement. And this static situation is indicated by the employment of the motion verb go in combination with a from-to directional prepositional phrase. This construction is a typical example of the “FM construction” notion.

3. Establish FM construction types

Talmy (2000a, pp. 100–101) explained the cognitive pattern of fictivity as follows: within the cognition of a single individual, there is a discrepancy cognitively between two representations of the same entity, as two opposite poles of the same dimension: (i) a “factive” representation, assessed by the individual as more veridical, and (ii) a “fictive” representation, assessed by the individual as less veridical, as can be seen in example (1a) The fence goes from the plateau down into the valley. The representation of factive stationariness from our general knowledge about fences. And the representation of fictive motion from the literal meanings of certain morphemes and the construction. The parameter or factive/fictive applies mainly to entities/properties arrayed physically over a spatial extent. They lead to fictive motion and factive stationariness (Biên, 2021a, p. 6). From this perspective, Talmy (2000a, p. 101) assumed that FM in language concerns the linguistic pattern in which the literal meaning of a sentence that describes a motion is a referent that one often considers stationary. However, this general condition includes relatively different FM categories. Talmy classified FM into six categories: emanation paths, pattern paths, frame-relative motion, advent paths, access paths, and co-extension paths [see, Table 1 in Biên (2021a, pp. 6–7)].

Table 1. Categories of Vietnamese fictive motion

A. Emanation paths:	“A fictive entity emerges from a factive source object, moves in a straight path through space (and impinges on a distal factive object)” (Talmy, 2017, p. 9). (13) Ánh sáng mặt trời chiếu vào trong lòng hang tạo nên sắc màu kỳ ảo (moitruongdulich.vn). (Sunlight shining into the cave creates magical colors.) [Cf. The sun is shining into the cave/onto the back wall of the cave (Talmy, 2000a, p. 112)].
	1.Orientation paths	“The fictive entity is a continuous line emerging steadily from the front of the source object” [Talmy (2017, p. 9)].
		a. Prospect paths	“The source object has a planar front from which the fictive line emerges perpendicularly.” For example: (14) Đây là một ngọn núi đá vôi được thiên nhiên tạo nên hình một người phụ nữ đang quay mặt về phía biển Đông (saoviettravel.com.vn) (This mountain is a limestone mountain created by nature in the shape of a woman facing the East Sea.) [Cf. The cliff wall faces toward/past/away from the island (Talmy, 2017, p. 9)].
		b. Demonstrative paths	“The source object is linear with a pointed front from which the fictive line emerges axially.” For example: (15) Mũi tên màu đỏ sẽ luôn chỉ về hướng Bắc. Ngược lại, mũi tên màu xám sẽ luôn chỉ về hướng Nam (Nguyễn Trang) (The red arrow will always point toward the north. And the gray arrow will always point toward the south.) [Cf. The arrow on the signpost points toward/past/away from the village (Talmy, 2017, p. 9)].
	2. Radiation paths	“The fictive entity is an intangible line of radiation emerging continuously from an energy source.” For example: (16) Ánh mặt trời rọi vào sơn cốc (books.google.com.vn) (Sunlight shines on the mountain cave.) [Cf. Light shone from the sun into the cave (Talmy, 2017, p. 9)].
	3. Shadow paths	“The fictive entity is a shadow that moves from a factive objectstraight through space onto a distal factive object.” For example: (17) Nhiều ngôi nhà cao tầng soi bóng xuống dòng sông (Minh Chiến) (Many high-rise buildings shadow the river.) [Cf. The pole cast a shadow against the wall/The pole’s shadow fell onto the wall (Talmy, 2017, p. 9)].
	4. Sensory paths	“The fictive entity is a continuous sensory probe that moves from an experiencer along a straight path through space (to an experienced object).” For example: (18) Em chỉ có thể nhìn ngắm bầu trời qua ô cửa sổ hẹp (Tường Vi) (I can only look at the sky through the narrow window.) [Cf. I looked down into the valley/past the steeple (Talmy, 2017, p. 9)].
B. Pattern paths	“A factive pattern exhibits fictive motion because components of the pattern have moved factively.” For example: (19) a. Tuy nhiên, tuyết tan đến đâu, su su, atisô và nhiều loại hoa màu khác chết úa lộ ra đến đó (Quang Thế) (However, no matter how much the snow melts, chayote, artichokes, and many other dead plants are revealed to be there.) b. Nhiệt độ ngày càng cao trên trái đất khiến mực nước biển đang dần dâng lên. (www.vinacomin.vn) (Increasing temperatures on earth are causing the sea level to rise.) [Cf. As I painted the ceiling, (a line of) paint spots slowly progressed across the floor (Talmy, 2017, p. 9)].
C. Frame-relative motion	“A first object moving factively relative to a second object is represented as fictively stationary with the second object as fictively moving.” For example: (20) Tôi đang ngồi trong cupe xe lửa nhìn cảnh vật lướt qua ngoài cửa sổ (tuoitre.vn) (I’m sitting in the trunk of a train looking at the scenery gliding past the window.) [Cf. I sat in the car and watched the scenery rush past me (Talmy, 2017, p. 9)].
D. Advent paths	“The location of a factively stationary object is represented in terms of its fictive arrival at that location.” For example: (21) Những bông hoa nhỏ, mỏng manh và xinh xắn, mọc chen chúc san sát nhau thành chùm, tròn xoe và đẹp đẽ (Ngọc Suơng). (The flowers are small, delicate, and pretty, growing close together in bunches, round and beautiful.) [Cf. The palm trees clustered together around the oasis. Termite mounds are scattered/spread/distributed all over the plain (Talmy, 2017, p. 9)].
E. Access paths	“The location of a factively stationary object is represented in terms of a path that another entity might fictively follow to the point of encounter with the object.” For example: (22) Resort nằm cạnh bờ biển phía đối diện, bên kia đường Trần Hưng Đạo (Quang Vinh). (The resort is on the opposite coast, across Tran Hung Dao street.) [Cf. The bakery is across the street from the bank (Talmy, 2017, p. 9)].
F. Coextension paths	“The form, orientation, or location of a factively stationary extended object is represented in terms of a fictive path over the object’s extent.” For example: (23) Hàng rào điện tử McNamara chạy dài từ Nam vĩ tuyến 17 đến đường 9 (Đặng Hoàng Thám). (The McNamara Line ranges from south of the 17th parallel to 9th Street.) (The McNamara Line ranges from south of the 17th parallel to 9th Street.) [Cf. The fence goes from the plateau down into the valley” (Talmy, 2017, p. 10)].

Based on the gathered corpus, this study confirmed that Vietnamese has all six types of FM, together with their subtypes, that Talmy classified. Table 1 summarizes FM types and their subtypes with a representative construction in Vietnamese representing each FM type.

4. Some semantic characteristics and constraints of Vietnamese FM constructions

4.1. Some characteristics

4.1.1. Emanation paths

An emanation path is an FM type in which an intangible entity arises from a source. As shown in Table 1, the FM type possesses four subtypes:

(i) Orientation paths were defined by Talmy (2017, p. 9) as “a continuous line emerging steadily from the front of the source object.”

This FM subtype is subdivided by Talmy (2017, p. 9) into prospect paths and demonstrative paths. In the former, the source object has a flat front from which the fictive line appears to be perpendicular. In the latter, the source object is linear with a pointed front, from which the fictive length appears along the axis (Biên, 2021a, p. 8);

(ii) Radiation paths are paths with “radiation emanating continuously from an energy source and moving steadily away from it” (Talmy, 2000a, p. 111);

(iii) Shadow paths are “the linguistic conceptualization … that the shadow of some object visible on some surface has actively moved from that object to that surface” (Talmy, 2000a, p. 114); and

(iv) Sensory paths are “the conceptualization of two entities, the Experiencer and the Experienced, and of something intangible moving in a straight path between the two entities in one direction or the other” (Talmy, 2000a, p. 115; Biên, 2021a, p. 7).

As a kind of FM, emanation paths arise when “something intangible emerges from a source, moves along a straight line, and impinges on a distal object” (Talmy, 2000a, pp. 105–106). Specifically, this something intangible in nature, itself, is fiction, and its FM does not rely on the actual motion of any tangible object. The sunshine in (24), the shadow in (25), and the flavor in (26) are typical Figures of these motion events. What calls for this illustration is that, although the sunshine’s motion exists, it is beyond human ability to sense. Thus, these constructions are FM.

(24) Mặt trời lên, nắng chiếu xuống vạt ruộng, gặp mặt nước bị hắt ngược lên, lấp loáng như mắt biếc ai cười (Lào Cai).

(The sun rises and shines on the field; the water surface is thrown back up, sparkling like the eyes of a smiling person.)

(25) Lưng còng đổ bóng xuống sân ga (Nguyễn Bính).

(The hunched back casts a shadow on the platform.)

(26) Hương lan thoang thoảng toả theo làn gió nhẹ (Ngữ văn 5).

(The scent of orchids wafted in the light breeze.)

4.1.2. Pattern paths

Pattern paths are FM types in which the fictive entity is a continuous sensory probe that moves from an “experiencer” along a straight path through space to an object being experienced (Talmy, 2017, p. 9). Therefore, fictively, pattern paths contain the conceptualization of any organization as moving through space. According to Talmy (2000a, p. 129), “the literal sense of a sentence depicts the motion of some arrangement of a physical substance along a particular path, while we factively believe that this substance is either stationary or moves in some other way than along the depicted path.” In other words, Talmy (2000a, p. 129) confirmed that this type of FM concerns two motion senses. What is fiction is that the entity moves in a particular way, while what is real is that the object is either static or moves along some other path rather than in the depicted way. For example, in construction (27), although cars move from far to near, observing from a distant place, people speak as if cars traverse along a horizontal path by saying “nối đuôi nhau” (one after another). In construction (28), the white clouds in reality undergo undulating and stretching motions. However, the FM extends horizontally.

(27) Những dòng xe nối đuôi nhau trên những con đường men theo đồi núi (Thu Hiền).

(Lines of cars follow each other on the roads along the hills.)

(28) Những áng mây trắng nhấp nhô như sóng biển trải dài tới tận chân trờ. (VnExpress).

(The white clouds are undulating like ocean waves stretching to the horizon.)

4.1.3. Frame-relative motion

When observing, describing, or positioning things and phenomena, we often select some frame of reference for them. Talmy (2000a, p. 131) differentiated a global frame from a local frame. As for a global frame, the literal meaning of words faithfully describes moving observers relative to their motionless surroundings. However, a language can also permit a shift from a global frame to a local one in which moving observers are considered stationary, and the surroundings are considered moving. Talmy (2000a, p. 131) stated that English is limited to sentences that adopt frame-relative motion with a factively moving observer, i.e., part global–part local frame with part factive–part FM. This fact is also valid for Vietnamese. For example, at the beginning part of (29), Khi bước vào khu rừng (When entering the forest), the global frame is accepted. However, the presence of the clause, chúng tôi không khỏi bị choáng ngợp (we cannot help but be overwhelmed), the phrases of static objects: những cây cổ thụ (ancient trees), những bàn tay không lồ (giant hands), and tán xòe rộng (spreading tree canopy) appear to be moving relatively; all of them suggest accepting a local frame.

(29) Khi bước vào khu rừng, chúng tôi không khỏi bị choáng ngợp bởi những cây cổ thụ tán xòe rộng như những bàn tay khổng lồ (Báo Cao Bằng).

(When entering the forest, we could not help but be overwhelmed by the ancient trees spreading like giant hands.)

In nature, the frame of reference is an abstract mental structure. It is the coordinate frame used to organize sets of spatial relations. These coordinate frames can arise from any entity or group of entities in the world that the axes impose on them. As we can see from numerous FM illustrations, entities that function as axes can be stationary entities anchored to the earth (geocentric or environment-based frame of reference) or free-moving entities relative to the planet (object-centric frame of reference). The distinction between the object-centric and geocentric frame of reference is quite natural, suggested by the material world in which we live.

4.1.4. Advent paths

“Advent paths describe the location of a stationary object in terms of its manifestation or arrival at the position it holds. The two main subtypes are location manifestation (the fictive change in the sense of the display of this object at its site) and location arrival (i.e., FM of an object to its location)” (Biên, 2021a, p. 7). In other words, according to Talmy (2000a, pp. 134–135), advent motion denotes FM, where we can determine “a stationary object’s location in terms of its arrival or manifestation at the site it occupies.” This object is motionless in reality and connected to verbs that indicate motion to the position where it stays. In (30), “những thân cây tràm” (the trunks of the melaleuca trees) is meant as dynamic by using the verb vươn thẳng (stretch straight).

In Vietnamese, many idioms use the concept of advent paths, such as “chọc thẳng lên trời” (straight to the sky) in (31), “chui xuống đất” (get into the ground) in (32), and “sét đánh ngang tai” (lightning strike across the ear) in (33), in which verbs frequently indicate a sense of unpredictability.

(30) Những thân cây tràm vươn thẳng lên trời như những cây nến khổng lồ (Đoàn Giỏi)

(The trunks of the melaleuca trees stretched straight up to the sky like giant candles.)

(31) Quả gì chọc thẳng lên trời, màu thì xanh đỏ vàng tươi năm màu? (Câu đố)

(What fruit pokes straight into the sky? The color is green, red, yellow, and five colors.) (Folk riddle)

(32) Hoa gì khi nở trên cành, già chui xuống đất để dành nuôi ta? (Câu đố)

(What flowers bloom on the branches, and when old go to the ground to feed us?) (Folk riddle)

(33) Tin như sét đánh ngang tai (Tục ngữ).

(The news comes like a thunderbolt.) (Proverb)

4.1.5. Access paths

Access paths describe “a stationary object’s location in terms of a path that some other entity might follow to the point of encounter with the object” (Talmy, 2000a, p. 136). Because when expressing the location of a static object, as language users, we can describe a path that some other entity may follow to achieve (Talmy, 2000a, p. 145). This feature is typical of access paths. Reality is the expression of an object as motionless, while fiction is the characterization of some entity traversing the route. We can imagine this entity as a person or as the focus of attention of someone. For example, (34) describes the location of the Small Sagittarius Star Cloud along an imagined path starting at the northeast, passing southwest, and ending at a place from the northeast relative to the star Mu (μ) Sagittarii. Since the Small Sagittarius Star Cloud is far beyond reach in the sky, the path can only be journeyed by someone’s eye movement or visual scan. For example, the entity in (35) could physically be someone walking. In this sense, Matsumoto (1996b) stated that the access path is roughly abstract, like Subtype 1 of coextension paths concerning actual motion (see 4.1.6).

(34) Đám mây sao Nhân Mã nhỏ (the Small Sagittarius Star Cloud)—hay còn gọi với cái tên Messier 24. Đó là một khoảng sáng hình chữ nhật kéo dài từ hướng đông bắc sang tây nam với chiều dài khoảng 2 và 3/4° cách 2° từ hướng đông bắc so với ngôi sao Mu (μ) Sagittarii (Tuấn Nguyễn).

(The Small Sagittarius Star Cloud—also known as Messier 24—is a bright rectangular space extending from northeast to southwest with a length of about 2 to 3/4°, 2° from the northeast relative to the star Mu (μ) Sagittarii.)

(35) Từ đảo Nam Yết đi về phía Đông Bắc khoảng 18 hải lý là đảo Sơn Ca (Nguyễn Thị Phượng).

(From Nam Yet island, nearly 18 nautical miles to the northeast, is Son Ca island.)

In Vietnamese, impersonal constructions, or constructions without subjects, such as (31), are acceptable. Unlike English, which deals with prepositions, Vietnamese uses fewer prepositions, like “phía Đông Bắc” (to the northeast), and more verbs, like qua (crossing) and lại (back), to indicate motion. Vietnamese does not possess prepositions corresponding to across, through, and over in access paths, although these prepositions are commonly used in English.

4.1.6. Coextension paths

According to Talmy (2000a, p. 138), in coextension paths, an extended object is spatially defined as some fictive entity moving along the configuration of this object. Note that this fictively moving entity “can often be imagined as being an observer, or the focus of one’s attention, or the object itself,” depending on the particular state of affairs or circumstances. Here, we can apply the classification of Matsumoto (1996b) to subdivide coextension paths into three subtypes, as illustrated in Figure Figure 3.

Figure 3. Three subtypes of coextension paths.

(i) Subtype 1 concerns the actual motion of a concrete mover at a particular moment, as in (36):

(36) Con đường bê tông vừa trải dẫn vào khu rừng tràn ngập cây to, cao sừng sững (Dân Việt).

(The newly paved concrete road leads into the forest filled with big, toweringly tall trees.)

(ii) Subtype 2 relies on the hypothetical motion of a random mover at an arbitrary time, as in (37):

(37) Không khí Noel len lỏi phố phường Hà Nội (Khánh Huy).

(Christmas atmosphere crept through the streets of Hanoi.)

(iii) Subtype 3 concerns only mental tracing where its Figure is “nonhuman motion affording” (Stosic et al., 2015), as in (38):

(38) Hệ thống đường ống xăng dầu bắt đầu từ biên giới Việt—Trung và các cảng biển của miền Bắc kéo dài qua miền Trung đến tận Nam Bộ (Dân Việt).

(The petroleum pipeline system starts from the Vietnam-China border, and the North seaports extend through the Central region to the South.)

Talmy (2000a, p. 103) noted that coextension paths also “can serve as an orientation to fictive motion in general.” “Talmy illustrated coextension paths with sentences such as The road goes from the North to the South or The mountain range lies between France and Spain. In coextension paths, fictiveness is the object’s representation as moving along or over the space configuration. And the factiveness is the object’s representation as stationary in the absence of any entity traversing the described path” (Biên, 2016b, 2021a, p. 7).

4.2. Some semantic constraints

The Vietnamese FM construction types have their gestalt, or whole meaning created thanks to the contributions of six components, especially the four internal components: Figure, Motion, Ground, and Path (Talmy, 2000b, p. 34). Therefore, the construction types constrain how Figures, Motions, Grounds, and Paths are composed in constructions. This paper only considers constraints on these four internal components (see 2.1).

4.2.1. Constraints on figures

FM is a particular type of motion event with four internal components. Thus, in this construction model, the theme participant (see, Figure Figure 1) is the Figure of the FM event. In Vietnamese FM, we admit that the theme participants have the characteristics of [+immobile] and [+inanimate].

The Figure is typically emissive or perceptible, like light or flavor in emanation. In frame-relative motion, the Figure is usually the reference object in the global frame. In advent paths, the Figure often occurs unexpectedly due to motion verbs, while in coextension paths, the Figure is extensible, like a mountain range or national road.

Gestalt psychology provides us with a system of principles for the identification of Figures. For example, the continuity principle confirms that our perceptions bias continuous figures more, while the proximity principle affirms that elements close together are more easily considered a figure. As illustrated in (39), “một hàng dấu chân đôi” (a line of double footprints), a static Figure, is represented as moving. Besides, constructions also coerce theme participants that can combine within them. As noted above, in coextension paths, Figures are extended in space. In (40), the Figures are billboards, which we usually do not think are outstretched, but the construction coerced them to be extensible.

(39) Chiều về nhìn sau lưng mình, hiển hiện hình một hàng dấu chân đôi, cả hai cùng chiều đi tới, tựa hình với bóng bước song đôi (Nguyễn Đình Khánh).

(When the afternoon back, I looked behind myself and saw a line of double footprints, both walking in the same direction, like the image with the shadow of a pair of steps.)

(40) Quanh ngã tư Hàng Xanh (quận Bình Thạnh), bảng quảng cáo chen chúc, san sát nhau, đủ kích cỡ, màu sắc (Ánh Nguyệt).

(Around the intersection of Hang Xanh (Binh Thanh District), billboards of all sizes and colors crowded close together.)

4.2.2. Constraints on Motions

In Vietnamese, Motions are often linguistically coded with motion verbs. Therefore, we will consider the constraints on motion verbs in FM constructions.

According to Goldberg (1995, p. 49), constructions can constrain how verbs will combine with them on the one hand and specify the kind of verb that is composed within them on the other hand. Within FM construction, Vietnamese has three sorts of verbs that may be blended.

(i) Verbs that specify the motion path. When comparing English and Japanese FM sentences, Matsumoto (1996a) confirmed that FM sentences in both languages must contain information on this path. This confirmation can also apply to Vietnamese. When the verb conveys information about a route, prepositional or adverbial phrases representing a path are not obligatory. As witnessed in (41), the verb dâng (rise/ascend) presupposes information about the route occurring alone as the predicate.

(41) Do ảnh hưởng của triều cường, mực nước dâng cao làm cho một số tuyến đường trên địa bànTP Hồ Chí Minh ngập nặng (Nhân Sơn—Ngọc Lam).

(Due to the influence of the high tide, the water level rose, causing some roads in Ho Chi Minh City to flood heavily.)

(ii) Verbs that convey the manner of motion. Researching subjective movement in English and Japanese verbs, Matsumoto (1996a, p. 194) advocated the manner condition for the two languages. He confirmed that “no property of the manner of motion can be expressed unless it is used to represent some correlated property of path.” Verbs in Vietnamese FM constructions also comply with that condition. In Vietnamese, there are many manner-of-motion verbs (Biên, 2017a). Some are used in FM constructions frequently, such as quẹo (turn), bò (crawl), trườn (slither), lết (creep), chồm (leap), trèo (climb), lảo đảo (groggy), and loạng choạng (stagger). Quẹo (turn) typically implies a change in the direction of the path, as in (42a). Bò (crawl), trườn (slither), and lết (creep) commonly signify information about the path length, as in (42b). Chồm (leap) and trèo (climb) usually relate to a path that ascends, as in (42c). Lảo đảo (groggy) and loạng choạng (stagger) often denote loss of balance, as in (42d; Biên, 2017a).

(42) a. Xe buýt đang chạy trên đường Nguyễn Bỉnh Khiêm tới ngả tư Nguyễn Đình Chiểu bỗng quẹo phải (hoidap247.com).

(The bus was running on Nguyen Binh Khiem Street to the intersection with Nguyen Dinh Chieu when it suddenly turned right.)

b. Những con rắn trườn theo bờ bụi rồi qua con đường nhỏ bên bờ suối (olm.vn/hoi-dap).

(The snakes slithered along the dusty bank and then over the small path by the stream. (olm.vn/hoi-dap)

c. Giá điện leo dốc (Hồng Ngọc—Hương Vũ).

(The price of electricity has gone uphill.)

d. Đang lên dốc cầu Mỹ Thuận, chiếc xe khách bất ngờ loạng choạng (Nguyễn Hành).

(Going up the slope of My Thuan Bridge, the passenger car suddenly staggered.)

(iii) Verb-direction construction, including more than one verb. In this construction form, the first verb is the main verb that can specify either motion path or manner of motion, as illustrated with chạy về (run to) and chạy lùi (to reverse/going back) in (43) and (44). The second verb, which Talmy (2000b, pp. 101–102) termed satellite, encodes the motion direction and is lexicalized in a closed-class form. Some Vietnamese satellites include ra (out), vào (in/into), lên (up), xuống (down), về (to/back/frontward), lại (back), sang (cross), qua (across), đến (arrive), and tới (arrival). Lai (1989, 1994) termed these Vietnamese words những từ chỉ hướng vận động (words indicating the motion direction), while Dân (1996) called them nhóm từ định hướng chuyển động (a motion-oriented word group). While in actual motion events, the former verbs can act alone as core verbs. In FM, the latter verbs are often composed with the former verbs.

(43) Tuyến của mỗi đường cáp ngầm chôn trong đất chạy về khu đô thị mới (Nguyễn Trọng Huân).

(The route of each underground cable buried in the ground runs to the new urban area.)

(44) Ngồi trong xe ô tô đang chạy, ta thấy hai hàng cây bên đường chạy lùi về phía sau (Ngoc Thu Luong).

(Sitting in a moving car, we see two rows of trees on the side of the road going backward.)

As for collocation, some Figures can connect to certain verbs to create FM. For example, highways or railways are likely to collocate with băng qua (cross) or lao đi (rushing), while mountain roads or steep walkways tend to collocate with trèo lên (climb over) or trườn lên (slither), as illustrated in (45) and (46). Reality authenticated that in multiple constructions, verbs should concern the meaning-frames, referring to cultural and world knowledge. When representing FM, we usually imagine ourselves moving along the paths. On highways, cars often speed up because they have impulsive drivers, while on mountain roads or walkways, we are often cautious because they are narrow or rugged.

(45) Trong đêm tối, chiếc xe ô tô lao đi vun vút ngược chiều trên tuyến đường cao tốc Nội Bài—Lào Cai đoạn qua địa bàn thị xã Phú Thọ (tỉnh Phú Thọ), bất chấp nguy hiểm cho các phương tiện khác (Vietnamnet).

(In the night, the car rushed in the opposite direction on the Noi Bai–Lao Cai highway, passing through the town of Phu Tho (Phu Tho Province), despite the danger to other vehicles.)

(46) Cung đường quanh co mềm như dải lụa, trườn lên sườn đồi đầy hoa dã quỳ vàng rực (Thanh Hà).

(The winding road is as soft as silk, crawling up the hillside full of bright yellow wild sunflowers.)

Based on the research results of FM in English and Japanese, Matsumoto (1996a) pointed out that immobile linear entities not devoted to human commuting, such as walls or fences, can be Figures in English but not in Japanese. As with English, stationary Figures can occur in Vietnamese, as in (43). However, compared with travelable paths, they are limited when combined with certain motion verbs. For example, some verbs, such as chạy dài (long run) and chạy dọc (run along), can represent FM for impassable paths, as in (47) and (48). However, a few verbs, such as lao (rush) and phóng (launch), cannot. Because when describing these entities, conceptualizers have difficulty evoking in their minds a sensor-motor experience of moving along a path. This fact favors the viewpoint of embodied cognition that language is the embodiment of human concepts. “Because our conceptual systems grow out of our bodies, meaning is grounded in and through our bodies” (Lakoff & Johnson, 1999, p. 16).

(47) Từ lâu, bức tường gốm sứ chạy dọc trước cửa nhà các hộ dân tại tổ dân phố 28 (ngõ 78 Duy Tân, phường Dịch Vọng Hậu, quận Cầu Giấy, TP Hà Nội) đã gây ấn tượng với bất cứ ai khi có dịp ghé qua (Lao động Thủ đô).

(For a long time, the ceramic wall running along the front door of the households in residential group 28 (alley 78 Duy Tan, Dich Vong Hau ward, Cau Giay district, Hanoi) has impressed anyone allowed to visit.)

(48) Những hàng rào bằng đá chạy dài từ trong làng ra đến cánh đồng (Tùng Dương).

(Stone fences ran from the village to the field.)

4.3. Constraints on grounds and paths

In Vietnamese FM constructions, we can express Grounds and Paths by prepositional or noun phrases that function as adverbials. Therefore, in this section, for the sake of simplicity, we consider constraints on Grounds and Paths through ones on adverbials.

For actual motion, a temporal adverbial can denote motion frequency, duration, and time, as seen in (49). However, FM commonly cannot be combined with a temporal adverbial indicating the motion frequency and time. The FM constructions employ movement to construe spatial relationships, while motion frequency and time emphasize the motion itself.

However, FM can also combine with a temporal adverb. For instance, in English, a period often functions as an adverb of time in FM because the motion for a span can represent path length. A temporal adverbial can construe spatial distance, as in (50). Whereas in Vietnamese, the construction can combine with adverbials that designate length or with words of tense and aspect. In (51), the verb trải dài (stretching) is united with the length adverbial 3260 km (over 3260 km). In (52), the verb uốn lượn (wind) connects with đang (a word indicating progressive tense). Vietnamese FM rarely links with a temporal adverbial of duration such as (53), although we find a few exceptions. In (54), the temporal adverbial emphasizes the changes in history. Influenced by different cognitive-cultural patterns, English particularly emphasizes time relationships, while Vietnamese notably stresses spatial configurations.

(49) Chồng tôi lái xe ôtô cho một công ty vận tải và thường xuyên phải lái xe liên tục nhiều ngày mà không được nghỉ (Phạm Hằng).

(My husband drives a car for a transportation company and often has to control it for many days without a break.)

(50) The road runs along the coast for 2 hours (Matlock, 2004b, p. 229).

(51) Việt Nam là quốc gia ven biển, với bờ biển dài trên 3260 km trải dài từ Bắc xuống Nam (Xuân Trường)

(Vietnam is a coastal country, with a coastline of over 3260 km stretching from north to south.)

(52) Một con đường cát dài đang uốn lượn với trời xanh và biển cả (kenhhomestay.com).

(A long sandy road is winding by the sea under a blue sky.)

(53) *The highway runs along the coast for 2 hours.

(54) Đến thế kỷ 10, nhà Đường bị lật đổ, con đường tơ lụa cũng bị suy thoái dần (Văn Hiếu).

(The Tang Dynasty collapsed by the 10th century, and the Silk Road gradually deteriorated.)

Matsumoto (1996a) pointed out that if verbs do not convey information about a path, then some prepositional or adverbial phrase must be composed to denote it. Language users, as conceptualizers, employ FM to describe the extent or configuration. Specifically, the FM construction evokes the motion of an imagined observer or the focus of attention along the linear entity conceptualized as a path. Therefore, information about this path becomes entirely significant in comprehending the configuration.

As with manner-of-motion verbs, the construction also constrains manner-of-motion adverbials. They occur in these constructions mainly to describe some property of the path. For example, in (55), the adverbial dần (gradually) combined with the adjective dốc (slope) and the verb lên (up) represents the ascending slope of a road. In (56), quay cuống (crazily), vội vã (hurriedly), and chóng vánh (swiftly) make this sentence ungrammatical because they do not manifest any facet of the path. However, in Vietnamese, we find several exceptions. For instance, the adverbials mạnh mẽ (powerful) and đột biến (dramatically), as the adverbials of the manner of motion, are used to express the development but not the configuration of the city in (57) and the vehicle traffic in (58). This fact suggests that in many Vietnamese FM constructions, some adverbials do not entirely comply with the path condition that Matsumoto (1996a) proposed.⁷

(55) Bắt đầu từ đây, con đường dốc dần lên, như sợi chỉ trắng quấn trên triền núi xanh lục cho tới khi lên đến đỉnh (Lê Quang Huy).

(From here on, the road gradually sloped upward, like a white thread wrapped around the green mountainside, until it reached the top.)

(56) *Lối đi quay cuồng/vội vã/chóng vánh kéo dài về phía thung lũng.

(*The aisle crazily/hurriedly/swiftly path stretched toward the valley.)

(57) Ba năm sau ngày thành lập (1–12-2018–1-12-2021), giờ đây, thành phố trẻ Đồng Xoài đã chuyển mình vươn lên mạnh mẽ, là điểm đến đầu tư hấp dẫn của doanh nghiệp trong và ngoài nước (Thanh Nhàn—Ngọc Chinh).

(Three years after its establishment (1 December 2018—1 December 2021), the young city of Dong Xoai has transformed itself, becoming an attractive investment destination for domestic and foreign businesses.)

(58) Sau khi tạm ngưng thu phí, lưu lượng xe trên tuyến đường này tăng đột biến (Đức Phú).

(After suspending toll collection, vehicle traffic on this route increased dramatically.)

5. The network of Vietnamese FM construction types

Taking the classification model of Talmy (2000a, pp. 99–139) as a reference, we will classify Vietnamese FM constructions into three groups based on subjectivity and abstraction. According to Lyons (1977, p. 739), a speaker makes an utterance while at the same time commenting and expressing his attitude on that utterance. This phenomenon verifies subjectivity. In his Cognitive Grammar, Langacker (1987, pp. 129–138) asserted that subjectivity is a significant construal factor related closely to “perspective” or “viewing arrangement” (Biên, 2021b). For example, you can imagine yourself in a theater, watching and immersed in a play. In an egocentric viewing arrangement where you, as the viewer, are onstage and usually mentioned explicitly, you are construed objectively as in (36), repeated here as (60). Conversely, in the optimal viewing arrangement where you, as the viewer, are offstage, the maximized asymmetry in the view-role makes you construed with maximal subjectivity as (38), repeated here as (59).

(59) Subtype 1 (actual motion)

Hệ thống đường ống xăng dầu bắt đầu từ biên giới Việt - Trung và các cảng biển của miền Bắc kéo dài qua miền Trung đến tận Nam Bộ (Dân Việt).

(The petroleum pipeline system originates at the Vietnam-China border, and the North seaports extend through the Central region to the South.)

(60) Subtype 3 (nonhuman motion-affording; Stosic et al., 2015)

Con đường bê tông vừa trải dẫn vào khu rừng tràn ngập cây to, cao sừng sững (Dân Việt).

(The newly paved concrete road leads into the forest filled with big, toweringly tall trees.)

Based on the criteria of subjectivity and abstraction, the Vietnamese FM construction network is connected to three related but different groups.

Group 1 contains Subtype 1 of coextension paths and frame-relative motion. In this group, the Figure is a particular mover, exists in an idealized cognitive model of the move, and often coincides with the construction, as in (29) and (40). For instance, in (29), our sight, as the actual motion, is projected onto the Figure conceptualization of the movers, which causes fictivity in the language. Group 1 is shown schematically in Figure Figure 4.

Figure 4. Group 1 of Vietnamese FM constructions.

Group 2 contains Subtype 2 of coextension paths involving hypothetical motion and access paths. In this group, the Figure can exist as a concrete mover, as in (28) and (38). However, it can also be a focus of attention, as in (37). This group is shown schematically in Figure Figure 5.

Figure 5. Group 2 of Vietnamese FM constructions.

Group 3 contains Subtype 3 of co-expanded paths and rest types. In this group, the observer does only mental scanning and does not participate in any actual motions. This group is shown schematically in Figure Figure 6.

Figure 6. Group 3 Vietnamese FM constructions

From Group 1 to Group 3, the meaning of motion descends and becomes less observable, but abstraction ascends, and the observer seems gradually to lose cognitive processing subjectively to express FM. Thus, these three groups are distributed on a lower-to-higher spectrum of subjectivity and abstraction.

Regarding cognitive motivations for FM, most cognitive linguistics offer different accounts, including the human sensor-motor experience of moving along linear entities (Langacker, 1987, pp. 168–173) or a “cognitive bias towards dynamism” in both language and cognition (Talmy, 2000a, pp. 171–172), or the possibility of simulating motion mentally along the Figure (Matlock, 2004a). However, it is fair to say that these accounts do not adequately explain about multifaceted and complicated nature of FM.

Thus, Blomberg (2015) and Blomberg and Zlatev (2014) hold that the following three different experiences will motivate FM:

(i) Promulgation perception implies awareness linked intimately to bodily action;

(ii) Mental scanning involves diversion of attention; and

(iii) Imagination about motion.

Some might argue that while involving mental scanning and perception, we cannot imagine the imagination of motion as a separate dynamic parallel to the former two.

Some might argue that while involving mental scanning and perception, we cannot imagine the imagination of motion as a separate dynamic parallel to the former two.

Despite the overlap, conceptualizing the meaning of some constructions goes beyond mental scanning and enactive perception. As Blomberg (2015) and Blomberg and Zlatev (2014) stated, it requires communicators to imagine consciously. For instance, (42b) is not only linked to self-motion but also stimulates associations of manners of motion characteristic for some animals of the richer motion verb semantically, such as trườn (crawl). Therefore, straight imagination is considered a distinct construe.

Based on the above remarks, we see that Group 1 commonly involves enactive perception. Group 3 is related to mental scanning. Group 2 is motivated by both mental scanning and enactive perception. All these groups concern imagination. Especially, metaphorical constructions like (42d) go beyond mental scanning and enactive perception. Therefore, we can schematize the above descriptions as in Figure Figure 7.

Figure 7. The interaction of imagination with enactive perception and mental scanning in Vietnamese FM constructions.

Now, by combining Figures 2–7, we can construct an interaction network for FM construction types in Vietnamese based on a lower-to-higher spectrum of subjectivity and abstraction, as shown schematically in Figure Figure 8.

Figure 8. The interaction network of the Vietnamese FM construction types.

We found that the network shown in Figure Figure 8 is a network of constructional polysemy or a radical construction network. Therefore, it is necessary to define the central or prototypical sense of the network.

By observing the network shown in Figure Figure 8, it is possible to suggest that the central or prototype sense of the Vietnamese FM constructions is the meaning of coextension paths. There are a few reasons to justify this suggestion:

(i) According to the Scene Encoding Hypothesis of Goldberg (1995, p. 39), “constructions which correspond to basic sentence types encode as their central senses event types that are basic to human experience.” Thus, the coextension paths denote a more human-relevant situation, state of affairs, or scene. Because we wish languages topa be based on a limited set of possible event types, such as events of someone causing something, possessing and experiencing something, something being in a state or moving, causing a state or location change, and something affecting someone. Therefore, the exhibited meaning of coextension paths is more prototypical.

(ii) In terms of embodied cognition, as Lakoff and Johnson (1999, p. 16) pointed out, our bodies, brains, and bodily capabilities, such as perception and motion, provide a significant and unconscious basis for human reason. For example, Lakoff and Johnson (1999) suggested that basic concepts reflect the peculiarities of particular kinds of bodies. To some extent, less-basic notions depend on metaphorical extensions of these most-basic notions. They, in turn, reflect the peculiarities of particular body types. For Lakoff and Johnson (1999), all concepts are “stamped” with the body’s imprint as the characteristics of the body “trickle up” into more abstract concepts. Thus, according to Lakoff and Johnson (1999, p. 19), conceptualization is the peculiar nature of our bodies. This shapes the possibilities for conceptualization and categorization. In the low-to-high spectrum of subjectivity and abstraction, coextension paths occupy a relatively low rank. The reason is that often there is the actual motion of an observer, and this observer projected his sight movement onto his conceptualization of the Figure.

(iii) Based on the results of FM research in six languages, French, Italian, German, Serbian, English, and Polish, Stosic et al. (2015) discovered that in these six languages, FM constructions with motion-affording Figures are always more common than those without motion-affordance. The result of this discovery provides supporting evidence for further Vietnamese corpus-based study.

6. Conclusion

This paper established Vietnamese FM construction types by applying the typology of a motion event and FM, as formulated by Talmy, in combination with the constructionist approach of Construction Grammar developed by Goldberg. Based on the data, this paper confirmed that Vietnamese has all six FM types classified by Talmy: emanation paths, pattern paths, frame-relative motion, advent paths, access paths, and coextension paths. The paper then described some core semantic characteristics and constraints for each type of FM construction by analyzing constructions representing each type within the framework of Construction Grammar. The semantic description and analysis of Vietnamese FM constructions showed that, in FM construction types, not only the internal semantic components of Figures, Motions, Grounds, and Paths but syntactic components, such as verbs and adverbials, are also constrained by construction. All these components contribute meaning, but not the gestalt or whole meaning. From the Construction Grammar perspective, the paper also constructed an interaction network for Vietnamese FM construction types. This network is associated with three groups that rank in a lower-to-higher spectrum of subjectivity and abstraction. Instead of resorting to a general mechanism, this paper presented three different experiential and cognitive motivations and clarified which FM construction types are more closely linked to one of the three motivations. When necessary, this paper also compared Vietnamese and English to reveal that the two languages, apart from language-specific features, share much in common because human conceptual systems, as embodied cognition, carry the imprint of the universality of our bodies and our surrounding world.

Generally, this paper proposed a probe investigation of Vietnamese FM and attempted to provide cognitive explanations, while recognizing the interaction between different FM construction types. It also offered a practicable viewpoint to analyze Vietnamese FM constructions by applying Construction Grammar. As mentioned in the introduction, this paper is an initial research effort on FM construction types in Vietnamese. Therefore, the issues presented in this paper are still very brief, even sketchy. And there are certainly still many issues that need to be discussed and studied carefully by examining a large amount of Vietnamese corpus. For example, is the Vietnamese language a verb-framed, satellite-framed, or equipollently-framed language? To answer this question satisfactorily, we need a comprehensive, long-term study of Vietnamese, including all FM construction types.

Finally, we hope that this paper on Vietnamese FM constructions will contribute to identifying the typological characteristics of the language.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Dương Hữu Biên

Dương Hữu Biên is an associate professor in linguistics and Dean of the Faculty of Literatures and History, Dalat University, Vietnam. He received his doctorate in linguistics at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Viet Nam National University Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. His research areas of interest include semantics, syntax, pragmatics, and cognitive linguistics. He has published research in prestigious national academic journals, including Cogent Arts & Humanities; Ngôn ngữ, Ngôn ngữ và Đời sống, Nghiên cứu Văn học, and Dalat University Journal of Science.

Notes

1. Within the framework of Cognitive Linguistics, fictive motion has been given different names by various authors. For details, see, Biên (2021a, p. 2).

2. Recently, several researchers (e.g., Naidu et al., 2018; Zlatev et al., 2021) have moved into a post-Talmian motion event typology terrain with approaches focusing on an open-ended number of patterns across languages and constructions.

3. In the literature on Cognitive Linguistics, Cognitive Construction Grammar (sometimes simply Construction Grammar) is often shortened to CxG. Therefore, in this paper, we will use this abbreviation.

4. It is necessary to distinguish this notion in the Construction Grammar model of Goldberg (1995) from that in the Cognitive Grammar of Langacker (1987). In her model, Goldberg did not distinguish simplex from complex symbolic assemblies since either kind may count as a construction in the meaning of this term in Langacker. Construction, thus, is the term of Goldberg for the lexicon-grammar continuum. But in the Cognitive Grammar of Langacker, in nature, the term construction refers to a symbolic assembly that is complex, not simple.

5. It is necessary to distinguish the concept abstraction in a usage-based language model from the concept abstraction in the Cognitive Grammar of Langacker. For Langacker (1987, pp. 116–137; Biên, 2021b), the concept of abstraction is one of the three parameters of focal adjustment. This parameter relates to how specific or detailed the description of a scene is. It also influences the selected construction type. Consider the following instances:

(i) Tom ném cục đá vào cửa sổ và làm vỡ nó. (Tom threw the rock at the window and broke it.)

(ii) Tom làm vỡ kính. (Tom broke the window.)

The instance in (ii) is more abstract, i.e., less detailed, than the instance in (i). In this sense, abstraction links to the attention level paid to a scene in terms of the level of detail.

6. In Cognitive Linguistics, the term subjectivity is also used for situations in which a linguistic element or construction requires reference to the speaker for its interpretation (e.g., Langacker, 1985, 1990). For example, in the following two illustrations from Langacker (1990), the first shows an objective use of across, and the second shows subjectivity because it means that Vanessa is sitting across the table from the speaker.

Vanessa is sitting across the table from Veronica.

Vanessa is sitting across the table.

7. Matsumoto (1996a, p. 194) stated the path condition as follows: “some property of the path must be expressed.”