Based on the cognitive perspective of transitivity, the present study proposes that the transitivity of a clause is symptomatic of its conceptual bias for temporality and spatiality. By contrasting the syntactic differences between two common verbs in English and Chinese, eat and chi (吃),we find that English clauses are more transitive than their Chinese counterparts, because English clauses are more concerned with preserving the completeness, sequentiality and continuity of energy transfer, while Chinese clauses tend to disrupt the completeness, sequentiality and continuity of energy transfer, and amplify the participants of the event. The differences of transitivity between English and Chinese clauses can further substantiate the underlying difference between the English national mode of pro-temporal thinking and the Chinese national way of pro-spatial thinking.