Lái e qù in cinese moderno: asimmetrie semantiche e distribuzionali

The Chinese verbs lái “come” and qù “go” are commonly explained as tags expressing movement, respectively toward and away from the speaker. They seem to be a pair of opposed signs. Actually, their opposition does not prove to be fully systematic. This essay points out a number of semantic and distributional asymmetries exhibited by lái and qù, namely those dependent upon the deictic information conveyed, the absence of indication of the destination of movement, and the point of view in reference to the movement (initial phase versus final phase, departure versus arrival).