The complexity of the directional construction in Chinese involves the following factors: (a) it can take a single directional item as the predicate; (b) two directional items can cooccur to serve as the predicate; (c) one or two directional items can be attached to a matrix verb in a single clause; (d) if more than one directional item is involved, their linear order can differ. I propose that the leading factor behind this complexity is that in Chinese a single Root can take different categories when merged in different syntactic positions. Therefore, the same directional item may in fact have the phonological form of a verb, a preposition, a part of a single preposition, or even a spatial aspectual marker in different directional constructions. I then place this account within the context of parametric studies of motion event constructions, showing that two new dimensions can be added: the special property of Roots in a language and the existence of Spatial Aspect in at least some languages.

汉语定向结构的复杂性涉及以下几个因素： (a) 它可以以单个定向项为谓词；(b) 两个方向项可以同时出现作为谓词；(c) 一个或两个方向性项目可以在单个子句中附加到一个矩阵动词上；(d) 如果涉及多个方向性项目，它们的线性顺序可能不同。我认为这种复杂性背后的主要因素是，在中文中，一个词根在不同的句法位置合并时可以采用不同的类别。因此，同一个指向性项目实际上可能具有动词、介词、单个介词的一部分，甚至是不同指向性结构中的空间体位标记的语音形式。然后，我将此帐户置于运动事件构造的参数研究的背景下，