Lexical systems with systematic gaps: verbs of falling
Ekaterina Rakhilina2024, Folia Linguistica
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Abstract
The paper contributes to the typology of encoding motion events by highlighting the role of the verbal root meaning in lexicalization of motion. We focus on lexical semantics of the verbs of falling, which we study on a sample of 42 languages using the frame-based approach to lexical typology. We show that, along with downward motion, the verbs of falling regularly denote adjacent situations; and vice versa, the idea of downward motion is systematically conveyed by verbs from adjacent semantic fields. These findings challenge the application of the classical parameters of motion events (e.g. Path) to any given motion event description and offer new insights into the understanding of lexicalization patterns in general.
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SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000
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Chapter 1. Introduction: NINJAL project on motion event descriptions across languages (MEDAL)
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The present volume is an outcome of collaborative efforts of experiment-based, cross-linguistic research on the linguistic representations of motion events. The phenomenon of motion is ubiquitous in the world. Your family members walk around at home every day and run to work and school; you see cars passing by, dogs running about, and birds flying away. Such events are frequently seen in daily life and are of interest to people and are talked about by speakers. It is therefore no wonder that every language (to the best of our knowledge) has a specific set of morphological, lexical, and constructional forms to represent motion. Since motion is a multifaceted phenomenon involving several components, expression patterns used sometimes vary within a language, and languages manifest differences in the expressions they adopt. The linguistic descriptions of motion thus provide an interesting set of data that enable us to discuss commonalities and variations among and within languages. A motion event involves several entities. Consider what kinds of notions are involved in the motion event described in example (1).1 (1) Susan ran down the hill toward me. 1 Terms concerning the semantic components of motion in this volume generally follow those of Talmy (1985, 1991), but differ from them in several respects, especially the adoption of the terms "trajectory" and "means of causation".
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The semantics of the English and the Spanish motion verb lexicons, RCL, 2010
seminal work has engendered a great deal of research and debate in the literature on motion event descriptions over the last decades. Despite the vast amount of research on the linguistic expression of motion events, the fact that motion verb roots might encode information apart from Path and Manner of motion is often overlooked. The present paper addresses the semantics of 376 English and 257 Spanish motion verbs by exploring the general conflations which are conveyed by these verbs. In this regard, both crosslinguistic similarities and differences will be pointed out. My research concludes that path-conflating and manner-conflating verbs amount to the largest part of their lexicons but that other minor patterns such as ground conflations, in contradiction to Talmy's speculations on the lack of ground-conflating verbs, are present as well. Taken as a whole, this paper provides a rich and detailed account on the semantic nature of the English and the Spanish motion verb lexicons, and emerges as a helpful reference for researchers in this field.
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2014
The way in which different languages encode motion has been an important topic of investigation in the last few decades. As more data from typologically different languages has become available, the strict dichotomy between satellite-framed and verb-framed languages proposed by Talmy (1985, 1991, 2000) has come under fire (Croft et al. 2010; Beavers et al. 2010). Drawing on a parallel corpus with data from sixteen Indo-European languages, this paper investigates the validity of these categories. I employ aggregation measures to present visual representations of the relationships between the languages in order to show that although some languages fit well into the category of “satellite-framed” or “verb-framed” language, others clearly do not. In line with these and other results, I propose that the Talmyan classifications only have limited use, and motion research should take into account all motion construction types when describing motion encoding.
Human Locomotion Verbs in English and Spanish, IJES, 2007
2007
A vast amount of research has been carried out inspired by the motion event typology established by , that of, verb-framed and satellite-framed languages. However, hardly any research has been devoted to either deeply analyse motion verb lexicons or to explore manner-of-motion verb granularity between languages typologically different or similar (cf. Slobin, 2003. This paper concentrates on an important subdomain of motion, i.e., human locomotion, and examines the way Spanish and English lexicalise it in verbs. The first part of the paper focuses on the semantics of human locomotion verbs with special attention to the sort of fine-grained manner information that each language encodes. In the second part, an empirical study on how Spanish and English monolinguals categorise human locomotion verbs into three motor pattern categories (Walk -Run -Jump) is reported.
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Lexicalization of natural actions and cross-linguistic stability
ISCA Tutorial and Research Workshop on Experimental Linguistics, 2008
To what extent do Modern Greek, Polish, Swedish and American English similarly lexicalize action concepts, and how similar are the semantic associations between verbs denoting natural actions? Previous results indicate cross-linguistic stability between American English, Swedish, and Polish in verbs denoting basic human body movement, mouth movements, and sound production. The research reported here extends the cross-linguistic comparison to include Greek, which, unlike Polish, American English and Swedish, is a path-language. We used action imagery criteria to obtain lists of verbs from native Greek speakers. The data were analyzed by using multidimensional scaling, and the results were compared to those previously obtained.
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NRU HSE. Series WP BRP "Linguistics". 2015., 2015
This paper focuses on some lexical properties of two groups of verbs in the languages of the world, without trying to provide an exhaustive typological description of these groups. The first group includes the verbs of movement through air (verbs of 'flying'); the other includes those verbs that designate temporary separation from a supporting surface (verbs of 'jumping'). Keywords: lexical semantics, lexical typology, verbs of motion, flying, jumping, falling
2002. Linguistic typology in motion events: Path and Manner
Anuario del seminario de Filología Vasca 'Julio de …
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Journal of Linguistics, 2010
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