Abstract: Taking the verb “eat” as its object,this article aims at carrying out the comparative study of Chinese-English VO construction,arguing that the conceptualized discrepancy between Chinese and English VO construction motivates the major difference in the semantic system:the conceptualized direction of English verbs is rather specific and concrete which requires the co-occurrence of subject and object,marking the starting and end points;while Chinese verbs have the vague conceptualized direction which permits the absence of both subject and object.As a result,it provides possibility for other semantic stuffs to occupy the subject or object position.

Key words: VO construction, semantic system, conceptualized discrepancy