A COGNITIVE STUDY ON THE DIRECTION OF TRANSFER IN DITRANSITIVE CONSTRUCTIONS ACROSS FOUR LANGUAGES

Abstract: Ditransitive constructions, a linguistic phenomenon universally observed, express the concept of transfer. This study investigates the direction of transfer in ditransitive constructions across Chinese, English, German, and Japanese, aiming to identify both similarities and differences. Our findings reveal that the Chinese ditransitive construction uniquely demonstrates bidirectional transfer, contrasting with the consistent unidirectional transfer observed in the other three examined languages. This difference primarily stems from two factors: firstly, the intrinsic features of the languages, including the rich case system in German and the use of particles in Japanese, clarifying unidirectional transfer, and secondly, the varying conceptualization of transfer activities, leading to different verb usage in Chinese and English. This, in turn, results in distinct meanings and directions of transfer in ditransitive constructions. These insights enhance our typological understanding of ditransitive constructions. Future research should expand to include more languages, further exploring these similarities and differences.

 Keywords: ditransitive construction, transfer direction, conceptualization.