The Semantics of Causative Events： from the Perspective of Event Integration， by Dr.Jinmei Li makes solid contributions to the study of events，both in theoretical terms and in terms of empirical research.The work is highly original in that it develops a new theoretical model of how speakers of different languages verbalize events of varying degrees of internal complexity.This model is then applied to a contrastive analysis of English and Mandarin Chinese， with a specific focus on the distinction of extended causation versus onset causation.Studying two very different languages~British English and Mandarin Chinese-provides an interesting opportunity for disentangling language-specific and more universal patterns of perception and expression of causation.Furthermore， previous studies of extended and onset causation that have investigated Mandarin Chinese have done so only to a limited extent.This study therefore breaks new ground both with regard to linguistic theory and the empirical work involved.
　　The broad theoretical framing is well-grounded not only in recent works in linguistics from different theoretical traditions （including both formal linguistics and cognitive linguistics），but also in cognitive psychology and the history of western philosophy from the past several centuries.In particular， it reflects a very thorough intellectual engagement with the linguistic literature on causation.
　　The empirical research consists of studies conducted both in China and in the United Kingdom. It draws on existing methodologies that have proven useful to the cross-linguistic study of event structure and causation，and extends these methodologies with the use of new video clip stimuli that allow for answering new research questions.The research that was conducted in considerable depth is presented in clear language，and the author has taken great care to render the Chinese examples in a way that will be understandable even for readers who are not fluent in the language.
　　On the whole，this book makes a substantial contribution to the field of linguistics and even the philosophy of language.It generates findings that are relevant beyond the languages that are investigated in the given empirical studies. Specifically， theresearch ties together issues of conceptual structure with topics concerning the morphosyntactic organization and substance of typologically different languages. The work undertaken here can thus serve as a valuable impulse for further studies that could investigate the verbalization of extended and onset causation across other languages.