Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Editors
Werner Abraham
University of Vienna
Michael Noonan
Editorial Board
Joan Bybee
Christian Lehmann
Ulrike Claudi
Robert E. Longacre
Bernard Comrie
Brian MacWhinney
William Croft
Marianne Mithun
sten Dahl
Edith Moravcsik
Gerrit J. Dimmendaal
Masayoshi Shibatani
Ekkehard Knig
Russell S. Tomlin
University of Erfurt
Volume 91
Talking about Motion. A crosslinguistic investigation of lexicalization patterns
Luna Filipovi
Luna Filipovi
University College London
TM
Table of contents
Acknowledgments
chapter 1
Introduction
1.1
Why study lexicalization patterns? 1
1.2
Definition of the subject and the approach 5
chapter 2
The point of departure: Data, methodology and theory
2.1
Data and method description 9
2.2 How the two systems work 13
2.3 Typological claims 16
2.4 Typology in action 20
2.5
Problems encountered 23
2.6 The notion of satellites 33
chapter 3
The proposed approach and central assumptions
3.1
Introducing situation types 37
3.2 Events in reality vs. events in language 49
3.3
Contra aspect? 56
chapter 4
The heart of the matter: Main argument
chapter 5
Data analysis for English
5.1
What the tenses (do not) tell us 79
5.2
What verbs (do not) tell us 83
5.3
Particles that appear only in boundary-crossing expressions 84
5.4 Particles used in both boundary-crossing and non-boundarycrossing expressions 89
ix
37
69
79
5.4.1
5.4.2
5.4.3
5.4.4
chapter 6
Talking about motion in Serbo-Croatian
6.1
The importance of being a prefix 109
6.2 OD-/DO-: deixis, aspect, boundary 113
6.3 Other prefixes 122
6.4 Ups and downs 128
6.5 Other things we need to know about prefixes 129
6.6 In need of direction: directional verbs and pattern frequency 131
chapter 7
Moving on: Issues for further reflection and research
7.1
Two levels of representation: two sides of the same coin? 137
7.2
Between a rock and a hard place: lexical and/or construction
meaning 145
chapter 8
Conclusion: Moving forward
109
137
157
Bibliography
Dictionaries: 165
Corpora: 165
References: 165
165
Appendix 1
175
Appendix 2
177
Index
181
Acknowledgments
chapter 1
Introduction
1.1 Why study lexicalization patterns?
The research presented here has the aim of uncovering the underlying mechanisms in the process of lexicalization crosslinguistically. The term lexicalization
means the way experience is rendered into languages via the semantic content of
lexical items that are used to express experiential categories (cf. Talmy 1985).
Studying lexicalization patterns provides insights into how speakers of different languages organize experiential data in their accounts of events. It has been
observed that a limited number of components of events is lexicalized in all languages, but there is still significant variation in the way this is done in individual
languages or language groups. The starting point of the present research was
choosing an experiential domain that pertains to universality, and then determining what kinds of linguistic means are used to express it. In this way, one can detect
the components of events that are relevant for speakers and the constraints in languages that determine the manner in which those components will be lexicalized.
We also investigate the possibility that languages are not just different means of
expressing the same components. In different languages we notice tendencies to
express some components more often than others, to omit components (or not to
typically express them), or to have constraints in the system that prevent speakers
from expressing certain components in particular structures that are habitually
used in the lexicalization of a domain. This in effect helps us predict what kind of
information is likely to be provided in the accounts of events in different languages and explain certain aspects of language variation.
The domain chosen for our purpose is that of motion events, because motion
is one of the primary experiential domains in human life and therefore bound to
be lexicalized in all languages. A number of approaches has been suggested for
dealing with issues related to lexicalization patterns in motion expressions, most
of which have concentrated on the meaning of verbs or verb+PPs. There is no
doubt that verb meaning is central to any account of motion lexicalization in languages, but there are many other elements that are indispensable to the analysis.
Therefore, the present research targets all the relevant factors that are crucial to the
process of rendering motion events into linguistic expressions. The roles of verbs,
Chapter 1. Introduction
Chapter 1. Introduction
highly disputed in linguistics, psychology and philosophy. What we deal with here
are verbalized events, since verbalization is the fundamental medium through
which they can exist, as it were, for others, apart from the speaker/witness. In the
process of speaking or writing, experiences are filtered through language into verbalized events (Slobin (2000b)). The initial point is an attempt to single out possible mechanisms for individuating verbalized events and their components, i.e. the
recurrent principles on the basis of which segmentation seems to be carried out in
a language. Talmy identified the relevant components of events in a number of
cognitive domains as well as the means to lexicalize them across languages. The
regularities of these lexicalizations formed the basis for the typology he proposed
(Talmy (1985)). However, at the same time, when speakers use language-specific
devices to express those universal event components, additional meanings can be
conveyed. As a result, certain lexicalization patterns facilitate the presence of one
kind of information over another (e.g. direction over manner of motion), the patterns are then reinforced, with consequences potentially reaching beyond the systemic differences and habitually affecting the content of expressions and language
use in general.In other words, treating languages as different vehicles for expressing the same, universal meanings could work to an extent, but then languagespecific expression of those (universally) shared meanings has to be taken into
consideration. This interplay of possibly universal and language-specific factors in
domain lexicalization is one of the central themes in the present study.
1.2 Definition of the subject and the approach
We will first look at some ways of defining what a motion event is and how to define motion in general.One definition is given by Rudzka-Ostyn (1988: 517):
In essence, spatial motion is nothing else than a series of consecutive changes in
the relationship of location holding between a given object and its domain.
will have a central place in the spatio-temporal network we propose. Ikegami (1970:
87) gives the following simple, but straight-to-the point definition:
Verbs of motion are understood in this paper as those verbs which refer to
changes in locus.
ic-Fuchs (1991: 15) follows Fillmore and provides a definition that emphasizes
the spatial and the temporal frame within which motion events occur. Namely, if
we want to say that something has moved in the sense of linear locomotion, the
moving Figure must have started out at one place at one time and ended up at
another at a later time (ibid.).
Miller (1973: 338) has a similar view:
[] a language must have a rich supply of words for indicating how an object
that is at place P1 at the time T1 comes to be at place P2 at some subsequent time
T2.
It is interesting to note that Fillmores and Millers definitions coincide with Aristotles (1970) view of motion, whereby locomotion is considered primary. Quite a
different view is suggested by Wierzbicka (1972: 97):
Movement cannot be interpreted as a change of place (although a change of place
may be the result of movement) because a moving object is not at any definite
place at any moment unless it stops. That is to say, a man walking in the garden
may well be said to be in the garden, but if his movement is continuous he can
never be said to be in a particular point in the garden.
She completes her definition by stating that movement is not being somewhere
(successively in different places) but becoming somewhere (ibid.). Therefore, Wierzbickas definition has the following formulation:
X is moving in P = X can be thought of as becoming part of different parts of P.
Wierzbickas definition provides a starting point for a philosophically inclined discussion of event segmentation in the context of spatio-temporal continuity (more
of which in chapter 3), but we shall rely on Fillmores and Millers definitions,
which are based on the perceptual foundations of motion, and the present research
will follow their approach. As noted in ic-Fuchs (1991: 16) Aristotles view, and
the definitions by Fillmore and Miller better reflect the way motion events are
lexicalized in languages. Intuitively, they seem to sum up in simple terms how we
think about motion.
Chapter 1. Introduction
The present analysis will also follow the lines advocated within the event-frame
approach, which was proposed by Talmy (1996).2 This approach builds on Fillmores frames, where a words meaning can be understood only with reference to
a structured background of experience, beliefs, or practices, constituting a kind of
conceptual prerequisite for understanding the meaning (Fillmore and Atkins
1992: 76). The event-frame approach differs from Fillmores frames, because, as
Talmy (1996: 238) explains, event-frames are a generic category, quite likely universal across languages. Talmys view on events and expression of events also diverges slightly from the postulates of Langackers Cognitive Grammar related to
the linguistic expression of events. The main difference between the two, as Ungerer and Schmid (1996: 223) put it in a nutshell, lies in the treatment of adverbials. In Langackers approach, adverbials are analyzed on the clause level as referring to the setting of the event, which exhibits a low degree of prominence and is
therefore somewhat neglected in the analysis. By contrast, Talmys event-frame
analysis regards adverbials as explicit specifications of the Path component in the
case of motion events for example (e.g. She flew across the channel). Talmys notion of event-frames widens the investigation to include the previously neglected
adverbials and other less prominent parts of the clause structure. The two approaches (Langackers and Talmys) are not incompatible. Nevertheless, the present
analysis will refer to the motion events as defined within the event-frame approach
because of the importance given to previously less prominent parts of clause structure, which, as we will see, can play a crucial role in deciding what kind of an event
an expression refers to.
Another matter of relevance here is how to define what we mean by semantics
and semantic level, since we will define our field of research as semantic. Here the
differentiation made by Matthews (1995) makes it clear and helps us deal with issues like interfaces among morphology, syntax, and lexical semantics. There are
two ways in which we can define what semantics should comprise: semantics 1
(narrow sense; dealing, for example, with sense relations) and semantics 2 (wider
sense; studying jointly all levels where meaning is construed: morphology, syntax,
lexical semantics, and even more broadly, obliterating the sharpness of the semantics/pragmatics distinction). Our view of semantics is based on the latter definition, thus accepting that the lexicon belongs to semantics, and so by implication,
do the semantic relations in syntax that are a projection of it, and the ways in
which they are realized formally. The meaning of a linguistic unit is not confined
to a given level; rather, its meaning is accessible for any linguistic process or context
in which that meaning is relevant. The motivation for rigidly restricting various
types of meaning to different levels of language disappears.
Summary
This is a study of lexicalization of motion events in English and Serbo-Croatian,
with contrastive examples from other languages, such as Spanish, Italian, Russian,
French, Mandarin Chinese and Albanian. Motion is primarily defined as a change
of location. One of the main arguments is that a study of lexicalization should incorporate detailed analyses of language-specific interaction among all levels where
meaning is conveyed, namely morphology, syntax and lexical semantics. In this
way, some underlying principles of lexicalization will not be left out, as has been
the case in some previous studies, and they may provoke a rethink of the typological classification of languages based on their lexicalization patterns. This is also
an invitation to look more closely into intratypological differences. The central
point of the language contrasts presented here will be to show how the information content of a message (in this case, a motion expression) is conditioned by
certain language-specific systemic restrictions. This study also promises to show
how motion events could be classified on the basis of verbalized information.
chapter 2
This chapter provides an insight into the material used for this study and investigates some of the research that has been carried out within the domain of motion
events and its lexicalization in different languages. Some of the results of previous
studies critically discussed here have been incorporated into the present research,
leading to further investigation of the relevant issues. The broad typological strokes
in which languages had been presented give a broad picture of lexicalization that
excludes many important language-specific features that throw a different light on
the classification of languages and their mechanisms of lexicalization. The present
study takes the typology as a point of departure and moves towards a more finelygrained account of how motion events are expressed in a language.
2.1 Data and method description
The database for this research consists of dictionary and corpus data from English
and Serbo-Croatian. For English, we used the Oxford English Dictionary on CD
ROM and the British National Corpus (BNC) on-line. For Serbo-Croatian we used
two dictionaries: one by Matica Srpska and one by the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, and the Croatian National Corpus on-line. We collected combinations of English verbs of manner of motion and the relevant directional particles
(into, out of , across, over, through, onto, and under). A list of manner verbs in
English was taken from Levin (1993), and then simple past forms of all the verbs
were checked in the British National Corpus on-line in combinations with the directional particles.1 We also did a corpus search with directional particles only as
keywords in order to find examples of motion expressions that contain verbs other
than manner of motion verbs. The corpus data for English was very extensive so
there was no need to add examples from the Oxford English Dictionary, which we
just consulted for definitions of lexical meaning. For Serbo-Croatian, however, we
1.
See appendix 1.
could not find confirmation in the corpus for all manner of motion verbs, so we
included examples that we found in the two dictionaries of Serbo-Croatian in our
corpus when we consulted them in order to make the list of verbs of manner of
motion and check their lexical meanings. We realized that the number of verbs
prefixed by OD-/DO- (typically indicating movement to/from the speaker/scene
(deictic location)) is much higher than those prefixed by any other prefix in SerboCroatian.2 Thus, we first collected all the verbs prefixed by OD-/DO- from the
dictionaries, and then checked in the corpus for confirmation that those verbs
could be prefixed by other prefixes, even though there was no mention of them in
the dictionary data (the relevant prefixes being IZ- out of , U- into, PRE-across/
over, PRO-through, NA-onto, POD-under). We then searched the corpus for
examples of all prefixed manner verbs.
The first thing we noticed was that many verbs that exist in the dictionaries
prefixed with OD-/DO- do not appear with other prefixes. Therefore, we can state
that if a verb is found prefixed by only one kind of prefix, it is prefixed by OD-/
DO-. Nevertheless, we have checked in the corpus if all the verbs that are not
found in the dictionary prefixed by prefixes other than OD-/DO- could possibly
be found in the corpus data. We combined verb roots with prefixes that we did not
find confirmation for in the two dictionaries, and we discovered that no such examples were found in the corpus data either. We did not have to limit ourselves to
a certain number of examples, as was the case with examples in English, where
tokens were numerous, because there were not that many examples found for each
verb in Serbo-Croatian. We included all Serbo-Croatian examples that came up in
our search. The quantitative difference between English and Serbo-Croatian examples could easily be due to the fact that Croatian National Corpus is significantly smaller than the BNC. This is not a problem for our study, because we were
primarily interested in the existence, use and frequencies of certain prefixed verbs
forms in order to provide a complete picture of a domain lexicalization in SerboCroatian, without aiming to contrast the frequency statistics with English
verb+preposition combinations. The frequencies of prefixes in Serbo-Croatian are
relevant because they confirm the preference for the deictic OD-/DO- verbs in
Serbo-Croatian motion expressions even when verbs prefixed otherwise are possible, and that the frequency of the deictic OD-/DO- verbs is greater on the whole
than those of verbs prefixed otherwise. The frequency of English prepositions is
not discussed in the same vein because quantifying their productivity in English
will not reveal any kind of relevant constraints since their combinability with
2. Serbo-Croatian prefixes appear in capital letters. They are morphophonemes that stand for
all the phonetically changeable forms, which depends on the initial sound of the verb they precede (e.g. OD- is realised as either od- or ot-).
manner verbs is free. This means that motion expressions in English are not conditioned by verb+preposition combinability as is the case with Serbo-Croatian
prefix+verb occurrences. In other words, we are not interested in the frequency of
individual prepositions in English at present because that is not the object of our
study. It could be possible that, by chance, in our limited corpus data of English,
into will be more frequent then onto just because there happened to be more
scenes of this kind described in the data, not because onto is subjected to any kind
of system restrictions as opposed to into. The use of prepositions with manner
verbs and their accumulation is unconstrained in English, and any manner verb
can combine with any of the prepositions, which is not the case with prefixed manner verbs in Serbo-Croatian.3 It is not the use of prepositions per se that is restricted in Serbo-Croatian either, but rather the prefixed verbs combinability with prepositions. Therefore, general preposition frequencies are not of interest here and are
not discussed further.
We excluded all metaphorical uses of motion verbs in both languages and
senses of prepositions that did not relate to the direction of motion. The additional difficulty in the process of collecting data in Serbo-Croatian was the fact
that one dictionary (Matica Srpska) was not sufficient as a starting point because
of its rather small volume, and the other dictionary (SANU), although extremely
comprehensive and detailed, is only half-finished (the last published volume lists
entries down to half way through letter N, the last word being nedotruo), and additional data were provided by checking the database compiled for the SANU dictionary.4 There were not many examples of motion expressions in either dictionary
or SANU database data, and neither source was available in electronic form. Our
only way of checking if some manner verbs can be prefixed by prefixes other than
OD-/DO- was to look for them in the Croatian National Corpus. The corpus
search also provided information regarding frequencies of prefixed manner verbs
and construction environments where they appear. Therefore, our corpus data for
both English and Serbo-Croatian were the major source of information for our
research. We ended up with 1769 examples for English, and 1326 for SerboCroatian. The reason why we carried out a corpus search on selected forms (simple
past in English and prefixed perfective verbs in Serbo-Croatian) is a principled
one. These tenses are the typical ones used in descriptions of experienced events in
3. This freedom may be universally restricted depending on vector constraints; cf. Bohnemeyer (2003) for the proposed argument uniqueness constraint (AUC), which concerns the
semantic uniqueness of Path argument roles that can be mapped onto Ground-denoting expressions within single clauses.
4. We are most grateful to the Institute of the Serbian Language at the Serbian Academy of
Sciences and Arts for granting permission to access the database.
the two languages repectively. This is also the key data which offers the relevant
insights into the intratypological differences that are the focus of our study and that
provide the main support for our arguments. Other tense forms and examples are
included to illustrate the relevant typological contrasts (even though they had not
been taken into consideration within the typology itself), but are not studied based
on corpus data because they are not crucial for making our claims about language
contrasts within the typology.
Verbs and prepositions used in motion expressions in English are compiled
searching the BNC on-line to locate all the combinations of motion verbs in simple
past and prepositions and/or adverbs. For each verb 50 or fewer examples are taken
into consideration (examples for the verbs that had more than 50 entries were randomly selected).5 The examples containing the past progressive tense were not collected systematically, because the verbs in past progressive do not pose a significant
problem in determining what type of motion events are being referred to. Although
some examples with the past progressive tense are provided to illustrate its use in
certain situation types and contrast it to the simple past tense, they are not a part of
the main corpus we prepared for the purposes of this analysis. The focus is on the
verbs in simple past and their combinations with prepositions, because this tense is
most frequently used in relating past events. At the same time, it causes numerous
difficulties, because it can be used, with certain restrictions, in expressions of all
kinds of events, unlike the past progressive. Iterative and habitual meanings are not
included, because they are seen as a separate topic for research.
For Serbo-Croatian, the corpus assembled contains examples with prefixed
manner verbs (examples from both dictionaries and the electronic corpus). Examples with unprefixed manner verbs are not in focus because they are not problematic from either the morphological or lexical semantic point, unlike the prefixed
ones. Directional verb frequencies have also been collected for Serbo-Croatian,
and they are analyzed separately, not as a part of the main corpus we prepared. The
reason behind this is our aim to contrast English and Serbo-Croatian expression
of the manner of motion in the verb, and thus our main corpus consists of manner
verbs. However, directional verbs in Serbo-Croatian deserve special treatment due
to their morphological peculiarities and high frequency of use. We point out in
our main discussion in chapter 4 that there are occasions where manner verbs are
not used, imperfective directional verbs being the only option in motion expressions in Serbo-Croatian, and we discuss the reasons why these situations occur.
We illustrate the contrast between the use of perfective directional and perfective
manner verbs in Serbo-Croatian by providing the number of tokens in motion
5. This has been done only for English; for Serbo-Croatian all examples found in the corpus
are included.
expressions available in the corpus data. These pieces of information hold the key
to our claims regarding the lexicalization of motion events in Serbo-Croatian and
the ways in which it contrasts with the English pattern.
We stated that we chose to collect examples in simple past for English and
perfekat (past perfective) for Serbo-Croatian, because these two tenses are the
most frequent in the accounts of events. They are not absolute translation equivalents, although they often can be (cf. Bybee, Perkins and Pagliuca (1994) and also
chapter 3). Perfekat in Serbo-Croatian is formed with the present tense of the auxiliary verb jesam (be) and participles marked for number (sg. and pl.) and gender (m.f. in 1st and 2nd person sg.and pl., and m.f.n. in 3rd person sg. and pl.):
(U)TRATI (RUN INTO)
singular
plural
Ja sam utrao/utrala.
I be-COP into-run-PST-PFV-SG-M/F
Mi smo utrali/utrale.
We be-COP into-run-PST-PFV-PL-M/F
Ti si utrao/utrala.
You be-COP into-run-PST-PFV-SG-M/F
Vi ste utrali/utrale.
You be-COP into-run-PST-PFV-PL-M/F
On/ona/ono je utrao/utrala/utralo.
He/she/it be-COP into-run-PST-PFV-SGM/F/N
Oni/One/Ona su utrali/utrale/utrala.
You be-COP into-run-PST-PFV-PL-M/F/N
We can say that in the case of agentive motion events, which are being analyzed in
the present research, one event begins with the Figure moving from a location and
ends with the Figure stopping at a different location. In verbalization, any portion
of an event can be gapped (i.e. not expressed; cf. Talmy (1996)). We chose to carry
out our analysis on the sentence level (cf. also Slobin and Hoiting (1994)), where we
consider an expression to be referring to one verbalized event if it contains one
subject and one verb with accumulated directional phrases (as is the case in English) and also if it contains more than one verb in Serbo-Croatian in such a way
that the verbs have the same stem and are just prefixed differently so as to be able
to lexicalize different Path segments. This was the main criterion on the basis of
which we determined what our database will consist of and how to collect the data
from the dictionaries and the corpora.
2.2 How the two systems work
Before we concentrate on individual examples in these two languages, we shall
briefly refer to some of their systemic features. In English, as many researches have
All these prefixes also have many other meanings. They can be employed to signify only a change of aspect without adding any other component of meaning (e.g.
direction). This is pure perfectivization (cf. Grickat (1966/67)). Prefixes are also
used to turn non-transitive verbs into transitive verbs, and to express a semantically different kind of action from the one expressed by the verb root. Here are
some examples:
a) trati (an imperfective intransitive verb to run) vs. pretrati (a perfective
intransitive or transitive verb, meaning either to run across sth., or to run the
whole length of sth.). (Compare: Trao je ceo dan. (He ran all day.) vs.
Pretrao je ulicu (ACC) (Either: He ran across the street, or He ran the whole
length of the street.))
b) mutiti (an imperfective verb; to stir (e.g. ingredients)) vs. izmutiti(a perfective verb; to stir until the final product/stage is achieved).
c) itati (an imperfective verb; to be in the process of reading) vs. proitati (a
pefective verb; to have read).
d) staviti (a perfective verb; to put) vs. dostaviti (a perfective verb; to deliver).
Serbo-Croatian, like English, has verbs that conflate Motion and Path, i.e. directional verbs, such as ui (enter), izai (exit), popeti se (ascendREFL), sii
(descend), proi (pass), etc. 6 All of these forms are perfective. Imperfective directional verbs also exist (IPFV: ulaziti- enter, izlaziti-exit, penjati seascend(REFL), silaziti-descend, prolaziti-pass, etc.). However, the perfective
and imperfective directional verbs do not seem to have the same derivational relationship like the perfective and imperfective manner verbs. The perfective/imperfective difference in directional verbs is not the result of prefixation. The perfective
stems seem to be monomorphemic, even though technically they consist of directional prefixes (e.g. U- meaning into) and the neutral verb to go (ii), as in, for
example, U- + ii = ui (enter). The imperfective forms seem to be derived differently and are not morphologically related to their perfective cousins. We can
6. The fundamental difference is the fact that directional verbs (such as enter, exit, etc.) are
much more formal and less frequent in English, while in Serbo-Croatian they represent the
statistically favorite means on the whole for lexicalizing motion events (cf. chapter 6 and also
Vidakovi (2006) for some experimental evidence from spoken Serbo-Croatian).
not talk of derivation by prefixation (e.g. U- + laziti) with the imperfective forms
here because the latter part, *laziti, is not licenced. We have a rather different
derivation: ulaz (entrance) + -iti(inf ending)=ulaziti (enter-IPFV). This morphological detail has to be highlighted here, because it is important for our explanation why only imperfective directional verbs can be used in expressions of certain situation types in Serbo-Croatian.
2.3 Typological claims
Leonard Talmy first put forward the proposal of a typology of the worlds languages
on the basis of the way they map schemas (cognitive notions) onto surface (linguistic) expressions.7 First, Talmy assumes that one can isolate elements separately
within the domain of meaning and within the domain of surface expression. Second, he examines which semantic elements are expressed by which surface elements.8 This relationship is largely not one-to-one. A combination of semantic elements can be expressed by a single surface element, or a single semantic element by
a combination of surface elements. We subscribe to the principle that Talmy (1985)
proposes, whereby one should start from universal experiential domains in linguistic research, and not from certain structures or categories in some languages, which
are then looked for and claimed to be found in all languages, or said to exist in all
languages underlyingly, but are not necessarily realized on the surface.9
Talmy suggests that one can find a range of typological patterns and universal
principles. His early study on the topic (Talmy 1975) was the cornerstone of this
rather novel approach to old linguistic questions. He specified the range of surface
participants (grammatical categories such as nominal, prepositional, and verb
constituents) and their semantic equivalents (Figure, Ground, Path, and Motion).
7. We will not delve into detailed arguments about how schemas should be defined, and how
they are treated by different authors. For us, at present, it is important to give a working definition, which can be formulated as mental representations of events, based on cognitive processing
of data. For example, the schema for causation would consist of representations of a causer, the
action performed by the causer, the object it was performed on, and the outcome, as in: He
painted the door red.
8. Talmys semantic elements, are in fact not components on the semantic level of representation consisting of potentially language-specific semantic features, but rather universal components of events themselves as cognised by speakers. Talmy does not precisely specify a distinction here between semantic representation and conceptual representation, the importance of
which we discuss in detail in chapter 7. It seems that these elements are part of conceptual representation rather than what we would call semantic.
9. cf. Croft (2001); also Bowerman (1997).
The terms Figure and Ground are borrowed from Gestalt psychology. According to
Talmy, a motion event has four basic components:
A typical example of an expression of a motion event would be: The ball rolled
down the hill. In this sentence, the ball expresses the Figure, the hill refers to the
Ground, and the Path is expressed by the particle down (termed satellite by
Talmy). The verb root (roll) itself conflates Manner and Motion. Lexicalized manner of motion seems to be an additional component in motion expressions, since
an expression of motion events can appear without it (e.g. The ball went down the
hill). In experience, Manner is an indispensable experiential component of a motion event, because every change of location from A to B must have been carried
out in a certain manner. Cause is another additional component, but unlike Manner, it is not inherently present in all motion events (e.g. agentive motion, as opposed to caused motion). To this array, Choi and Bowerman (1992: 86) add Deixis
(e.g. expressing motion towards the speaker vs. away from the speaker), which
seems to play a role in the lexicalization of motion events in some languages that
is comparable to that of components such as Manner or Cause. They state (ibid.)
that although Talmy (1985) apparently regards deixis (which he terms direction)
as closely related to Path in his analysis, deixis often patterns differently from other kinds of Path in the way it is lexicalized (e.g. in many languages deixis is expressed in main verbs that have the meaning of come and go away from even
though other kinds of Path are not typically lexicalized in the verb system). However, we should emphasise that deixis should be seen as a part of the expression of
a motion event rather than part of the motion event itself. Deixis is the process of
referring to an object or an event that is positioned or is occurring at a certain
point with relation to the speaker or hearer in a communicative situation.10 Therefore, it is not an inherent part of events as such.
In Talmys analysis of how languages express motion, a motion event is defined
as a situation containing movement of an entity or maintenance of an entity at a
stationary location (1985: 60). What is meant by movement is directed or
translative motion that results in a change of location. The maintenance at a
stationary location means either a static situation or a contained motion that
results in no overall change of location (e.g. jumping up and down, walking around
in one place, etc.). What is meant by situation on this occasion is apparently what
10. We discuss deixis in more detail in chapter 6.
we would rather term an event. The point Talmy made by clarifying this distinction here was that one should distinguish between two major groups of motion
events: one in which the Figure does not remain at a certain location, but rather
changes location by moving (i.e. directed motion, as in He ran into the park), and
the other in which the Figure stays within the boundaries of a location (i.e. motion
at a location, as in He ran in the park). The meaning of particles that convey the
former kind (directed motion) we refer to as directional, and the meaning of those
that convey the latter (motion at a location) is said to be locational.
For the purpose of our research we had to limit our focus to a particular type
of motion events, and we opted for agentive motion because it constitutes the basis
for the formulation of the typology.11 This includes directed motion as well as motion at a location, and sometimes the same means are used to express both kinds
in English. We also mention caused motion in our discussion, but only when certain examples are considered relevant for a point we want to make, as causation is
in itself a separate, although related, topic for research.
Not all types of semantic-to-surface mapping are to be given the same attention, according to Talmy (1985), but only the ones that constitute the pervasive
pattern in a particular language. The concern is to understand how such patterns
compare across languages. The question asked first by Talmy is whether languages
exhibit a wide variety of patterns, a comparatively small number of patterns (a typology), or a single pattern (a universal). The interest would primarily lie in the
last two cases, as well as in the case where a pattern does not appear in any language (universal exclusion).
Talmys suggestion, though cautious and tentative, is that most of the worlds
known languages can be classified into three categories. Languages that characteristically map the core schema onto the verb will be said to have a framing verb and
to be verb-framed languages.12 Included among such languages are Romance, Semitic, Japanese, Tamil, Polynesian, most Bantu, most Mayan, Nez Perce, and Caddo.13 On the other hand, languages that characteristically map the core schema
onto satellites are said to have a framing satellite and to be satellite-framed languages, and included among these are most Indo-European (excluding Romance),
Finno-Ugric, Chinese, Ojibwa, and Warlpiri (cf. Talmy (1985), Talmy (1991)).14
The third category proposed in the typology could go under the heading of satellite-framed languages, and therefore the major dichotomy can be defined as that
between verb-framed and satellite-framed languages.15 Satellites are defined as
certain immediate constituents of a verb root other than inflections, auxiliaries,
or nominal arguments (Talmy 1985: 102), like prefixes in Slavic languages or adverbs like in as in He walked in without saying a word. The definition of a satellite is debatable and it is discussed in detail in section 2.6.
What seems to be Talmys prevalent interest is to see what kind of information
about motion is encoded in the verb itself and how much is conveyed by some
other means. In the case of expressions of motion, the core information is that of
Path (since motion events are defined as change of location), and it is expressed
within the verb itself in verb-framed languages, and via satellites in satellite-framed
languages. The verb complex, which is the focus of attention in Talmys analysis,
consists of a verb root and satellites. Satellites relate to the verb root as periphery
(or modifiers) to a head (Talmy 1985: 102). The representational example that he
provides to illustrate the basic dichotomy between the two major types of languages in the typology is the following (descriptions of a bottle floating out of a
cave in English and Spanish): The bottle floated out. vs. La botella sali flotando.
(The bottle exited floating.) In English, a satellite to the verb, out, conveys the
core information about the Path of the moving Figure, whereas in Spanish it is the
verb itself, salir (exit), that conveys this piece of information. Note also that supporting information about the manner of motion is conveyed by the verb in English and by the gerund flotando (floating) in Spanish. These patterns are quite
pervasive in the two languages. English has a large collection of verbs of motion
that convey Manner (walk, run, crawl, fly, etc.), combinable with a large collection of Path satellites (in, up, to, across, etc.). Spanish prefers verbs of inherent
directionality, i.e. Path verbs like entrar enter, bajar descend, subir ascend, etc., with more restricted non-directional verbs of motion and a less developed lexicon with regard to manner verbs (cf. Slobin (1997a)).
14. Framing in this context refers to the process of mapping the core schema (in this case the
Path of motion) onto elements in the motion expression (e.g. verbs or satellites).
15. The third category of languages seems rather marginal considering the number of languages it comprises (out of those that are known so far). Also, it can be classified under the same
heading as the satellite-framed languages, since it maps its core of the schema (i.e. the Path
component) in a similar way, i.e. onto satellites. The members of the third group (to which Atsugewi and Navajo are said to belong) differ from the satellite-framed languages group proper,
as defined by Talmy, because their verb roots convey a different piece of information from the
one provided by the verbs within the satellite-framed group (they lexicalize the Figure component in the verb as opposed to Manner), but the Path is still rendered via satellites.
(1) a. So then the three men walked slowly and without visible agitation through
the streets, from the jail to the marshy point.
(1 manner verb; 3 Grounds)
b. As, pues, los tres hombres caminaron lentamente y sin agitacin visible
por las calles, desde la crcel hasta el extremo de la marisma.
(1 manner verb; 3 Grounds)
(back translation: Thus, then, the three men walked slowly and without
visible agitation through the streets, from the jail up to the edge of the
marsh.)
16. cf. Aske (1989) for the initial proposal regarding the importance of telicity on this occasion,
developed further in terms of boundary-crossing in Slobins work.
However, if boundary-crossing is to be expressed, Romance languages cannot offer manner verbs+directional particles and such expressions typically tend to have
one Ground element per verb (Slobin (1997a: 438)):
(1) c. English: I ran out the kitchen door, past the animal pens, towards Jasons
house. (1 manner verb; 3 Grounds)
d. Spanish: Sal por la puerta de la cocina, pas por los corrales y me dirig a
casa de Jasn. (3 directional verbs; 3 Grounds)
(back translation: I exited through the kitchen door, passed by the animal
pens, and directed myself to Jasons house)
Where English offers one verb, Spanish gives three. It is conspicuous that all three
encode Path in Spanish, and that the Manner component is absent. A translator
has to make choices when fitting one language to the patterns of another, as it
were. The translator could have indicated in (1d) that one part of the Path was
traversed running (e.g. sal corriendo), but this very choice would have foregrounded Manner, which had not been done in the original.By the same token,
repetition of corriendo (running) with all three verbs would have been stylistically intolerable. Such decisions in translation are not simply stylistic or aesthetic;
rather, they are strongly influenced by the typologies of the source and target languages (Slobin (1997b)).
By the same token, different carving of the motion event continuum can be
seen in Russian, even though Russian and English belong to the same typological
group. The fact that Russian has three prefixed manner verbs in (2a), and the English translation contains one manner verb, does not mean that English speakers
describe one event whereas Russian speakers describe three. They refer to the same
event, but in Russian, one cannot amass all the directional phrases onto one manner verb. Shull (2003) argues that in Russian, the prefix combines almost exclusively with a single preposition that is its equivalent in terms of the spatial relation
expressed (e.g. OT-with ot (from)) or with a few principal prepositions, although
she does not discuss prefixed verb combinability with prepositions and accumulation of prepositions in motion expressions in detail.17 That could be the reason
why one prefixed manner verb cannot be used to express the whole of the Path of
17. The limitations of prefix combinability with prepositions in Serbo-Croatian are of central
importance to our arguments (cf. chapters 2, 4 and 6) and perhaps a future contrastive study of
other Slavic languages could draw parallels with respect to the role of prefixes in the lexicalization of the domain of motion events, as well as other cognitive domains.
motion in Russian. Slobin (p.c.) provides the following example from Dostoevskys
Bratja Karamazovy, which illustrates this point:
(2) b. he ran in a big detour, through the lane, past Fyodor Pavlovichs house,
along Dmitrovsky street, across the bridge, right into the adjoining lane
Los tir
a un precipicio donde habia harta agua.
Them throw-PST-3SG at a cliff
where had much water.
Entonces se
cayeron.
Then
REFL fall-PST-PFV-3PL
[The deer] threw them at a cliff where there was lots of water. Then they fell.
Spanish speakers would most often omit the relevant spatial points (i.e. initial,
medial and final) and describe a series of scene-settings rather than continuous
dynamic action (Slobin (1996: 204)). Slobin concludes that it would appear that
descriptions of motion tend to be richer in manner detail in English than in Spanish (ibid.). Information about the Ground component is given via objects of prepositions in the prepositional phrases that can follow one verb in an expression.
Spanish speakers tend to limit themselves, when using a prepositional phrase with
a verb of motion, to one per verb, whereas English speakers can use many with a
single verb of motion. The problem facing the Spanish translator is whether or not
to allot a separate clause to each part of the Path segments in a complex Path (e.g.
(1d)) that are associated with a single verb in the English original.
Slobin was particularly interested in how Spanish translators cope with the
abundance of English locative detail. In addition, he states that manner of motion is
apparently far more salient in English narratives than in Spanish. Spanish translators omit Manner information about half of the time, whereas English translators
actually add Manner to the Spanish original in almost a quarter of their translations
(Slobin (1996: 212)). This is due both to the considerable lexical differences between
the two languages and the associated syntactic means of expressing Manner.
2.5 Problems encountered
Even though there have been many studies of the systemic differences between the
descriptions of motion in English and Spanish, we still encounter some unresolved
problems. Spanish is deemed to be a verb-framed language in that the core meaning of a motion event Path of motion tends to be expressed by the verb itself, as
already shown. However, Spanish (as well as other Romance languages) does have
verbs that are neutral with regard to Path, and some of them encode manner of
movement and occur with what appear to be satellites (e.g. correr abajo run
down). Slobin points out that after introducing boundary-crossing, one is able to
account for examples like this that seem to undermine the typology. When we
compared English and Serbo-Croatian, we noticed some other constraints that
should be introduced in order to preserve the typology. The question appears to be
how far we can stretch the typology without significantly decreasing its predictability. Moreover, even the prototypical V-languages show signs of disobedience
to their typological classification (cf. inter alia Naigles et al.(1998), Berthele (2004),
Lemmens (2005), Baicchi (2005)).
In the English example The bottle floated under the bridge, the meaning expressed can be both boundary-crossing and non-boundary-crossing in spatial
terms, and consequently the utterance can be interpreted as expressing either directional or locational meaning. In French, however, according to some authors
(cf. Fong and Poulin (1998) and Levin and Rappaport Hovav (1995)), the equivalent of this kind of expression (or more precisely verb+preposition) can only have
non-boundary-crossing, locational meaning, which is deducible as the only
possible interpretation.18 Romance languages (in this case French, but Spanish and
Italian certainly have the same option) can express Manner in the verb and Path in
a particle.19 The constraint proposed here by Slobin is that they may do so only in
non-boundary-crossing situations (as in the example (1b)). But then we encounter
the following examples in French (Asher and Sablayrolles (1996: 198)):
b. John ran into the garden. He saw the cat through the window and wanted
to catch it.
c. Jean a couru dans le jardin. Il a voulu sentraner pour la comptition.
d. John ran in the garden. He wanted to train for the competition.
18. It would be very important to attest the examples that these authors provide, because the
same authors claimed that dans (in/into) cannot be used in the expressions that are boundary-crossing, illustrated not to be apparently so by Asher and Sablayrolles (examples in (4)). It has
to be attested whether it is possible to find an expression of a situation type where sous (under)
could be used in the boundary-crossing sense. We offer more discussion on under in particular
in chapter 5.
19. Boundary-reaching situation types are not discussed in further detail here, as they seem
uncontroversial.In French, as well as in Spanish (cf. Aske (1989); also Naigles et al.(1998)), if
the reference is to a situation when a boundary is not crossed, but only reached, manner
verb+directional particle are used freely (e.g. Fong and Poulin (1998: 32)): Le poisson a nag
vers la rive (The fish swam towards the river bank) and Lenfant a couru vers sa mre (The
child ran towards her mother).
boundary) that is crossed. This is so in (5a) but not in (5b), marked as? by Fong
and Poulin:
(5) a. Le poisson a nag travers la chute deau.
The fish swam through the waterfall.
b. ?Lenfant a couru travers la pice.
The child ran across the room.
In the example (5a) a manner verb is used with a directional preposition. Even
though this pattern is not as favored in French as the one where a directional verb
is used in motion expressions, they do occur, and when they do not, there is a
reason for it. We can say that in the case of (5a), the English translation contains a
manner verb, which is the most natural choice in that language and the manner
expressed is the inherent manner of motion of the Figure involved (i.e. fish normally move by swimming). A directional verb would be a marked option in English in general and especially so in this case, although still possible in an imaginable but obscure context (e.g. if the fish changed location in an untypical manner,
for example travels as a pet in a bowl on a ship, when the verb cross would be used
and manner probably further specified in an adjunct). However, the French sentence in (5a) does not seem acceptable to a great majority of French native speakers to whom it was presented for the purpose of the present study.20 They reasoned
that it was precisely because fish move by swimming that it is most natural to use
just traverser (cross) and unnecessary to specify the manner of motion. The
manner verb in French that the two authors offer here might be the result of language contact (e.g. Canadian French in contact with English).21 Moreover, even if
we accept the possibility of a manner verb+directional particle as an existing (but
limited) lexicalization option for boundary-crossing in French, it is not certain
that the situation referred to in (5a) is necessarily a boundary-crossing one. We
shall return to this point shortly.
By the same token, it is important to notice a more serious problem with the
example (5b). It was intended for an illustration that the use of travers is impossible because room (la pice) is not considered to designate a boundary. However, this example does not serve its intended purpose. The English sentence itself
given as an equivalent is not an expression of a boundary-crossing situation strictly
20. The example was tested on 20 native speakers of French and 19 out of 20 subjects confirmed
it was unacceptable (one speaker who accepted it said it was extremely marginal).
21. D. I. Slobin (p.c.) also thought this could be the case.
speaking.22 It is difficult to fathom which situation type the expression in (5b) refers to (The child ran across the room erratically for 10 minutes? Or there was
space across the room where the child ran?). An event containing boundary-crossing in English can be expressed as The child ran through the room, which could
then potentially more clearly refer to the situation when the child entered running,
passed through the room and ended up in the back garden for example (although
a non-boundary-crossing interpretation is available with through as well). A required expression in French would still not contain a manner verb+directional
preposition, but the reason is not the impossibility to construe la pice (the
room) as a boundary. We need to focus on why travers is not ideal for comparison with English through or across, which are the two most frequent translation equivalents. 23
A possible explanation for this is offered in Stoi (2001), where the meanings
of par and travers (neither of which could be an adequate equivalent for English across or through) are analyzed in detail. He contends that travers needs a
complement which expresses a location that the Figure has to make his/her way
through, whereas par expresses an intermediary space that is a connection between an initial and final location, Thus, neither par nor a travers can be used to
express boundary-crossing, but rather locate the moving Figure during the displacement or location change, unlike the often offered English translational equivalents across and through, which can include all the stages (initial, medial and
final). The use of par and traversis illustrated in (6a) and (6b) respectively:
(6) a. Ils sont entrs/sortis/passs/rentrs par le jardin.
They entred/exited/passed/returned via the garden.
b. Le soldats marchent travers la ville.
The soldiers marched their way through the town
Expressions with par refer to a transitional process, implying the whole trajectory
from the intial to the final location via the connecting (medium) space, such expressions are normally telic, thus the use of directional verbs. Expressions with a
travers refer mainly to processes, they are atelic (cf. the classification of Vet (1994))
and they refer to movement through a location that is functionally not primarily
viewed as a passage (cf. Stoi (2001)). The expression in (6b) is acceptable with
mediums such as le bois (woods) or les dunnes (dunes), whereby the moving
Figure finds its way through the spatial configuration. The location such as room
22. Across in English can be used to refer to both boundary-crossing and non-boundary-crossing
situations, but here it is considered inappropriate for the point that Fong and Poulin wanted to
make.
23. For a detailed analysis and an insightful account see Vet (1994).
(la pice) in the example (5b) not only cannot be taken to refer to a boundary in
French if travers is used, but it also does not normally refer to a location through
which passage is sought. The acceptability of the example in (5a) for some speakers
could potentially be better understood if we think of the waterfall not as a boundary but rather a location through which the moving Figure (the fish) finds its way,
which in this context could be seen as space that is normally not understood to be
a passage itself. Finally, we are not sure where examples such (5a) are attested and
the extent to which this combination of manner verb+ travers applies in different
contexts. Stoi (2001) further contends that the uses of the two prepositions in
French are conditioned by rather different conceptualizations of the state of affairs,
depending on whether the object of a preposition is considered to be a connecting
space between the initial and a final stage that are implicit but not expressed (in
which case par is used), or the space through which one had to make way (when
travers is used).
This is just an illustration of the difficulties one encounters when scratching
the surface of the lexicalization process in languages based on a small piece of evidence in this case, but by no means an insignificant one. On the contrary, the examples provided so far have shown that it is not enough just to state that Manner
or Path is expressed in a verb.
We will briefly draw a parallel with a related situation in another Romance
language, Italian. It is possible to use a manner verb in both (7a) and (7b) in Italian, but the distinction is made via the auxiliary: when a boundary-crossing meaning is to be expressed, the auxiliary to be (essere) is used; when the non-boundary-crossing meaning is to be expressed, to have (avere) is used, and there is no
doubt that the interpretations of the following two expressions are distinct:24
(7) a. Ha
corso
nella stanza. 25
have-COP run-PTCP in the room
He ran in the room.
b.
corso
nella stanza.
be-COP run-PTCP in the room
He ran into the room.
In both cases, we have the preposition en (in/into), and again as with French
dans, we come across examples of the use of manner verbs+directional particles
24. All our informants for these two examples in Italian were speakers from northern Italy (10
of them), and it might be the case that the use of manner verb+directional particle in the examples in (7) rather than a directional verb+manner adjunct could be more common in some regions as a consequence of language contact (Northern Italy with German-speaking neighbors).
25. Here the preposition en is realised as nella because of the following noun (la stanza).
Jackendoff (1990)), to just those describing motion events that cross boundaries
(Slobin and Hoiting (1994)).
Naigles et al.(1998) also pointed out that the use of different stimuli and methodology could also affect the results. For example, Slobin (1996) targeted narrative and
highlighted the difference in narrative styles between English and Spanish, whereby
English speakers use many more verb types than their Spanish counterparts. Naigles
et al.(1998) used dynamic stimuli (video-clips) that produced contrasting results,
which do not demonstrate absence of varied verb types in Spanish. This indicates
that the context of language use can have a significant, albeit not entirely understood, role (ibid.: 547). Having all this in mind, we can state that the invaluable
insights of the typology itself are not irrevocably undermined, and it still remains
the driving force behind numerous research projects, which in return indicate the
ways in which the typology could be refined and become more accurate.
If we have to come up with a generalized conclusion, we can say that, on the
whole, statistical, corpus and experimental data suggest that the habitual tendency
in Romance languages is to express the Path of motion in the verb (Slobin (1996),
(1997a), (2000a), (2004)). Nevertheless, the examples analyzed so far indicate that
important additions to the typology may come up if a detailed analysis of a number
of language-specific semantic features within the Romance and Germanic groups
of languages becomes available, since some seem to show a number of divergences
from the main template. A number of researchers provide further confirmation of
this assumption. Slobin (2004) acknowledges that morphosyntactic structure plays
a role in lexicalization, in particular with regard to prefixes in Russian. A cline in
the typology within a language (German) was proposed by Berthele (2004), who
argues that a language and its dialects can differ along certain typological parameters and shows how dialectology can contribute to the refinement of the typology.
Similarly, Lemmens (2005) talks of a cline of salience within the typology in
crosslinguistic expression of location events (i.e. posture), and discusses significant differences within one language family (Germanic), which calls for further
and more detailed study of typological variation. Important insights could become
available by studying the effects on lexicalization of the following: tense and aspect, unergative vs. unaccusative meanings and different uses of auxiliaries (cf.
Levin and Rappaport Hovav (1995)), preposition and VP meaning, as well as lexical and construction meaning (cf. Croft (2001), Goldberg (1995), (2005)) in individual languages. A comprehensive study that is presented here could serve as a
model to be applied in the study of other languages because our approach combines a number of sources and unifies them in a single account of meaning within
a lexicalized cognitive domain observed from a crosslinguistic perspective.
consistently the manner detail from the English original would be rendered into
Serbo-Croatian. Although speakers of both languages show certain similarities in
their descriptions of motion events (e.g. use of manner verbs on numerous occasions), it was obvious that there was a number of rather noticeable differences in
the motion expressions in the two languages (cf. Filipovi (1999), (2001)). In the
Serbo-Croatian translation of the English text the information about Manner
seems to be omitted (or simplified) on a number of occasions, very much like
translations into Spanish in Slobins reports. In more than a half of the examples
from our data (40 out of 70), the information about the manner of motion has
been omitted in the Serbo-Croatian translation, simplified (e.g. by using a less
complex verb), or expressed in another way, usually by an adverbial (Filipovi
(1999)). For example:
(8) a.
b.
Manner is completely omitted from the translation in Serbo-Croatian in the following examples:
(9) a.
b.
The reason for the differences that are detected is sought in the restricted combinability of prefixed verbs with different prepositions and what turned out to be the
relevant factor for this behavior of Serbo-Croatian is a particular morphosyntactic restriction that prevents all verbs from being prefixed by all prefixes, and consequently prevents their unlimited use in motion expressions. This original proposal is discussed in detail in chapter 6. Also, English has a much more developed
lexicon of manner verbs and a strong influx of new words, especially through
languages that have the same possibility to express one component (e.g. Manner)
in the verb do not do it in the same way and with the same frequency. This search
brought us to the point where we had to uncover what morphological, syntactic
and lexical semantic features of the two systems play decisive roles when it comes
to deciding what pieces of information about events are habitually expressed and
with what prominence. Obviously, we can learn very important things by studying
lexicalization patterns crosslinguistically, but what is the right way to do it? We
argue in chapter 3 and onwards that our approach is the most adequate one.
We can make a preliminary conclusion here that there is more to lexicalization
patterning than just determining whether the Path component is lexicalized in a
verb or in a particle. Slobins remark (p.c.) is that verb- vs. satellite-framing is only
one typological dimension, and it intersects with the morphosyntactic typology. He
goes on to say that
what is neat about Slavic is that the Path satellites (verb prefixes) have a primary function, namely aspect (another typological dimension in this case, the
degree of grammatical expression of aspect). These additional typological factors
apparently conspire to reduce the attention to manner of motion in Slavic languages, as compared to Germanic. However, the availability of some constructions that allow for manner verb + Path expression seems to make a more frequent
option in Slavic than in Romance languages.
A related comment comes from Lehrer (1992: 250). She points out that Talmy
stresses the fact that it is necessary to examine characteristic patterns of lexemes to
arrive at a satisfactory typology, since English also has a few verbs that incorporate
the moving Figure instead of Manner (e.g. (It) rains), and Spanish has verbs of motion that incorporate Manner. Therefore, one must examine a large number of items
and a large number of semantic fields in order to find significant generalizations
(ibid.). Her view is that there will be an interaction between the packaging notion
of lexical typology as envisioned by Talmy and morphological typology (ibid.).
2.6 The notion of satellites
We have already established the validity of the proposal to start from general experience universal to speakers of all languages, and then find out the ways in which
different parts of events are rendered in different languages, including possible
consequences this process might have on various language-related activities (e.g.
acquisition, translation, narrative stylistics, etc.). We also pointed out some of the
emerging problems in different languages, mentioning just a few most conspicuous ones related to the two languages that are of prevalent interest for us at present,
i.e. English and Serbo-Croatian. We will now discuss the notion of satellite and
explain why a very narrow definition suggested and adopted in some previous
studies is not considered to be adequate here.
A satellite in Talmys terms refers to those elements that were traditionally
known as adverbs. This becomes more obvious when we consider what Talmy insists on, namely that satellites for expressing Path should be distinguished from
prepositions (and he focuses on analysing satellites only). It may be so because this
sometimes seems to be a fuzzy area in English. Talmy insists that no confusion can
occur in most Indo-European languages, where the two forms have quite distinct
positional and grammatical characteristics. For example, in Latin, Classical Greek
and Russian, the satellite is the prefix to the verb while the preposition accompanies the noun and governs its case. English, perhaps alone among Indo-European
languages, regularly places satellite and preposition next to each other in sentences. Nevertheless, according to Talmy (1985), there are still ways in which the two
kinds of forms satellites and prepositions are distinguishable. We will explain
why, even though it may be possible to distinguish between the two, it is of no
relevance for this kind of research.
Talmy contends that only prepositions will disappear when the Ground nominal is omitted; a satellite remains (Talmy 1985:105). Then, the two classes of forms
do not have identical memberships: there are forms with only one function or the
other. For example, together, apart, and forth are satellites that never act as prepositions, while from, at, and toward are prepositions that never act as satellites.
He contends that the directional particles that follow the verb and are not followed
by a noun are considered to be satellites, as opposed to prepositions, which are
followed by a noun and cannot follow the verb on their own.
Talmy offers evidence in support for his satellite/preposition distinction,
which we think is not fully persuasive. He contends that English has a special feature, detected also for example in Mandarin Chinese (ibid.). There is a number of
forms like past that behave like ordinary satellites when there is no final nominal,
as in: I saw him on the corner, but I just drove past, but appear without any preposition when there is a final nominal, as in I drove past him. Forms like these have
properties of both a satellite and a preposition. According to Talmy the distinction
could be made on the basis of stress. He claims that these forms receive heavy
stress as satellites, whereas as prepositions, they receive a light stress. Because of its
special behaviour, according to Talmy (ibid.: 106) a form like past might be considered a coalesced version of satellite plus a preposition a satellitepreposition.29
29. This is very reminiscent of what Bolinger (1971) termed adpreps, which are particles that
can function both as adverbs and prepositions.
drawn elsewhere and formulated as the distinction between intransitive and transitive use of prepositions (cf. Palmer (1987)). They both play an important role in
expressing direction of motion and will be treated as particles that express the Path
of motion in expressions of motion events, with a tentative distinction between the
expressions in which they form a unit with a verb and those when they seem to be
forming a unit with a noun that follows (they follow the verb on their own, or are
themselves followed by another element). Thus, some Path particles can be used as
both intransitive and transitive (to use Palmers terms), whereas others can be either one or the other. The difference their use makes for the meaning of a motion
expression as a whole, in combination with other factors in sentence structure, will
be one of the focal points in the present analysis. For example, the satellite in can
follow the verb with or without the noun, which significantly alters the meaning of
an expression (compare: He ran in vs. He ran in the house). The interpretation of
the whole expression can be either directional or locational, depending on whether
there is a noun following the preposition or not.
Summary
We presented the data and methodology we used for the purpose of this study.
This chapter also introduced the typology (Talmy (1985)) that served as a starting
point in our contrasting of languages. We pointed out some problems of the typological classification and discussed examples from our pilot study as well as those
from a number of other related studies. We highlighted the effect of typological
variation in an applied linguistic setting, i.e. in the process of translation. Some
potentially problematic examples that we discussed are not aimed at seriously undermining the typology, but rather at signaling directions in which future research
prospects and typological improvements could be sought. A proposal to treat the
typology as a cline is put forward, to be elaborated and further confirmed with
evidence from different languages in the following chapter. The interaction of different typological dimensions and intratypological contrasting of languages
emerge as two particularly resourceful areas for further investigation.
chapter 3
We can sum up the relevant spatial and temporal features of motion events of these
kinds in Table 1:
Table 1. Situation types
Spatial
Boundary-crossing
Boundary-reaching
Temporal
Change-occurred
Moment-of-change
No-change
+ (2a)
+ (2b)
+ (2d)
(+)
Non-boundarycrossing
+ (2c)
Examples:
The terms situation types and events are not mutually interchangeable. One event
in reality could be construed or witnessed at different moments in time and what
situation types register is the spatial configuration at the moment of witnessing or
reporting an event (cf. 3.2 for more elaboration). A complete motion event is defined by change of location whereby a moving Figure is at a location A at a certain
point in time and then as a result of motion ends at another location B at a different
not can influence the meaning of the whole expression and will be discussed at
length in chapter 5.
The (+)marking in Table 1 indicates that this situation type (boundary-reaching/moment-of-change) is possible, but it is not considered in great detail here for
the following reasons: a) strictly speaking, it is not a motion situation type and it is
not expressed by motion verbs, but rather with verbs of arriving and leaving, which
are considered to be a separate category (cf. Levin (1993)), and b) it could be subsumed under other situation types if motion verbs were used to describe it. An
example of that situation types would be the expression I was arriving at your door
when my phone rang. It is also questionable whether door refers to a boundary or
is rather seen as a goal (as a part of source-path-goal schema; cf. discussion below).
Generally, the moment when a boundary is reached seems hard to stretch because reaching a boundary seems to be an instant rather than a process. If we try to
use a manner of motion verb to express boundary-reaching/moment-of-change,
we can see that the situation type referred to is actually that of non-boundarycrossing/no-change type (still directional, not locational): I was running to your
door when my phone rang (the pattern in (2c) in Table 1). Therefore, the boundary-reaching/moment-of-change situation type does not figure in our situation type
templates, but we acknowledge the possibility of this spatio-temporal combination
in the context of arriving/leaving, which is related to, but not a part of, strictly
speaking, the main network of situation types in motion events.
Boundary-reaching/change-occurred situation type (cf. (2d) in Table 1) expressions are generally not analyzed in detail in the literature because they do not
seem to cause problems in crosslinguistic comparisons. The systemic restrictions
(e.g. the impossibility of using manner verbs in verb-framed languages) seem to
apply only when boundary-crossing needs to be expressed, not when the boundary is reached or non-existent on the Figures path (cf. chapter 2.). However, we
included boundary-reaching in our table in order to illustrate the whole spatiotemporal network that underlies the situation types, and we discuss it when we
analyze the means of lexicalizing the situation types in English and Serbo-Croatian
respectively. Certain English examples of boundary-reaching deserve (and do get)
some more attention in chapter 5 because of their potentially problematic interpretation. In Serbo-Croatian, boundary-reaching situations have straightforward
lexicalization due to the transparent morphological marking, which we will explain in detail. They do not serve the purpose of highlighting our central claims
regarding the contrast between the two languages in focus at present, but they are
analyzed in chapter 6 when we explain non-deictic uses of prefixed OD-/DOverbs, which in that case convey the meaning of boundary-reaching.
We cannot commit ourselves to the claim that the situation types we propose
pertain to universality, i.e. that they would be absolutely applicable in analysis of
all the worlds languages. We had to abstract certain components of events, within
both the spatial and the temporal frame, in order to allow adequate comparison of
the two languages we have focused on at present, and we selected the features that
we found to be helpful in revealing numerous relevant aspects of domain lexicalization that are comparable across languages. When we looked at the data from
different languages and some previous research, we concluded that many languages seem to have the means to draw the distinctions we propose, which we will illustrate by examples from Albanian and Mandarin Chinese in this section. Our
analysis based on situation types may prove to be, if not universally, then at least
widely applicable in language contrasting.
Our spatio-temporal features are physically and perceptually salient. We can
assume their universality based on shared human experience and perceptual capabilities when it comes to understanding notions such as presence or absence of
change in space and time. Nevertheless, it does not mean that what is universally
perceivable will be also universally expressed. Languages may make more numerous and subtler distinctions within the spatio-temporal framework than the ones
we propose, or may not draw these distinctions explicitly on every occasion at the
level of analysis we assume here (sentence level). We also noticed that sometimes
one event can be referred to differently, whereby different spatio-temporal features
are selected in verbalization, but those references will still represent what in reality
is one and the same event that is only witnessed or described at different points
during its occurrence. Thus, the spatial and temporal features we singled out are
features of events (or parts of events) selected in verbalization, and we shall see
how speakers of different languages place motion events within the spatio-temporal framework based on the means their languages provide them with. We will
show that there are situations in which an English speaker is not obliged to draw
distinctions in the kind of structurally explicit way that a Serbo-Croatian speaker
has to do. We do not analyze personal factors involved in production and processing of patterns by individuals, because we consider it a different, although related,
field of research, which would involve more elements related to intraspeaker characterization, and thus be more of a psycholinguistic character, which is beyond the
scope of the present analysis. We recognize that our analysis is more geared towards interpretation mechanisms and guidelines, especially for non-native speakers. It brings benefits to first and second language acquisition, foreign language
teaching and translation in particular.1
When choosing our approach and methodology, we considered doing our data
analysis based on the source-path-goal schema. We acknowledge this possibility
1. For example, see Naigles et al.(1992) for data on early acquisition in children where these
differences in lexicalization patterns are detected.
here, even though we do not employ it. This schema could be useful to us. The way
of interpreting the meaning of grammatical functions in terms of image schemas is
explicitly acknowledged by Langacker ((1987), (1991a)). Image schemas, in the
sense of Lakoff (1987) and Johnson (1987), are fundamental conceptual notions,
dynamic patterns that function somewhat like the abstract structure of an image,
and thereby connect up a vast range of different experiences that manifest the same
recurrent structure (Johnson (1987: 2)). This last characteristic (connecting up a
vast range of experiences) makes image schemas particularly suitable for generalizations across different types of linguistic phenomena (Serra-Borneto 1997: 195).
This schema is very general and while it may be helpful in the analysis of some
motion expressions, it may be less helpful in analysing some others like He ran
across the field all afternoon. Here we do not know either of the defining points
and we cannot say much about this event except perhaps that source and goal are
gapped and the Path component is present. We acknowledge the justification for
using this schema in certain analyses, but in our study, we need to talk about features that are perceptual (i.e. boundary-crossing/change-occurred, non-boundarycrossing/no-change, etc.), rather than conceptual (schematic). If analyzed according to our situation types, He ran across the field for 10 minutes is an expression
of non-boundary-crossing/no-change type. We provide more finely grained information (spatial and temporal) about events as described if we use the spatio-temporal features that form the situation type network.
We will now illustrate some differences in the means employed by different
languages in expressing the relevant spatial and temporal features. We will also
look into whether these languages just use different means to express the same
meanings, or they prompt speakers to convey some meanings more often than
others, habitually omitting or including certain pieces of information depending
on lexical availability and the difficulty or ease with which they are inserted in the
structure of a lexicalization pattern. Our aim is to reveal the extent to which languages draw the distinctions we deemed relevant, and how one can know which
real-life situation an expression refers to, especially in situations where one of the
two interlocutors is not a native speaker of a particular language in which the communication is being carried out. This may sound like a difficult exercise to perform, but as we will see, there are mechanisms in languages that operate on the
basis of a reliable set of rules, and when we uncover them, we can make predictions about the means that are going to be used in different languages when different situations are described.
When it comes to expressing our situation types, it is important to point out
that all languages provide the option to use manner verbs+directional particles
when expressing boundary-reaching or non-boundary-crossing. Therefore, all the
postulates and restrictions within Talmys typology refer to expressions of
Serbo-Croatian:
(4) a. ovek je
iepao
iz
bate.
Man be-COP out-limp-PST-PFV-3SG-M out of garden
The man limped out of the garden.
b.
ovek je
izlazio
iz
bate epajui
Man be-COP exit-PST-IPFV-3SG-M out of garden limping
(kada sam
ga ugledao.)
(when be-COP him spot-PST-PFV-3SG-M)
The man was exiting the garden limping.
2. Boundary-reaching/change-occurred can be lexicalized without any restrictions in languages, just like non-boundary-crossing situation types. Thus, both verb-framed and satellite-framed languages have the freedom to express manner in the verb. However, the tendency of speakers of verb-framed languages to habitually omit information on manner detail in general
(regardless of the possibility to express it on certain occasions like boundary-reaching and nonboundary-crossing) is still conspicuous (e.g. Slobin (2004)).
c. ovek je
epao
u bati
Man be-COP limp-PST-IPFV-3SG-M in garden
The man was limping in the garden.
The reasons for these differences are discussed and further illustrated in chapter 6
where Serbo-Croatian data are presented in detail. Suffice it to say at the moment
that morphosyntactic restrictions prevent a manner verb from being used in situation types as in b), and thus a directional verb is used (*iepavao, the prefixed
imperfective form that would have been adequate in Serbo-Croatian is not licensed3). Furthermore, situation types like the ones expressed in (a) sometimes
cannot be lexicalized with a manner verb in an expression because an adequately
prefixed manner verb does not exist or it is simply not used because there is another morphologically simpler option, that of using a directional verb:
(4) d. ovek je
uao
u dnevnu sobu ljuljajui se
Man be-COP enter-PST-PFV-3SG-M into living room swaying REFL
The man entered the living room swaying.
It is also possible to use a deictically prefixed manner verb if the required manner
verb cannot be prefixed otherwise (i.e. with a prefix expressing the precise direction of motion), thus providing an additional piece of information, nomally absent
in translations into languages that do not have equally strong deictic lexicalization
(cf. Filipovi (1999)). The use of deictically prefixed manner verbs in SerboCroatian is discussed at length (chapter 6):
(4) e.
ovek se
doljuljao
Man be-COP to-the-speaker/scene-sway-PST-PFV-3SG-M
u dnevnu sobu.
into living room
The man swayed into the living room.
These examples give an idea of the contrast between English and Serbo-Croatian
in the process of lexicalization of the relevant situation types. They illustrate why
all situation types have to be considered when contrasting the means to lexicalize
them across languages. In this way, we can establish more correctly both how similar and how different languages are.
We will now contrast further the expressions of the types (3a) to (3c) in different languages and illustrate how the analysis based on situation types provides a
better picture of lexicalization patterns within a language and across languages. A
quick glance would tell that Serbo-Croatian speakers use unprefixed manner verbs
for no-change and, with constraints, prefixed manner verbs for the change-occurred
3.
phase, and directional verbs to express the moment-of-change phase, whereas Albanian uses manner verbs for no-change and directional for moment-of-change
and change-occurred. This in effect involves certain restrictions imposed on speakers by the linguistic system they use and obliges them to typically provide certain
pieces of information in the verb and others out of the verb, the latter causing
some pieces of information to be omitted altogether.
Serbo-Croatian:
(5) a. Upuzio
je
u sklonite.
Into-crawl-PST-PFV-3SG-M be-COP into shelter-ACC.
He crawled into the shelter.
b.
Ulazio
je
u sklonite puzei.
Enter-crawl-PST-IPFV-3SG-M be-COP into shelter crawling.
(kada sam
ga ugledao.)
(when be-COP him spot-PST-PFV-3SG-M.)
He was entering the shelter crawling when I saw him.
c. Puzio
je
u sklonitu.
Crawl-PST-IPFV-3SG-M be-COP into shelter-LOC
He was crawling/crawled in the shelter.
Albanian:
(6) a. Ai hyri
n park duke vrapuar.
He enter-PST-PFV-3SG in park running.
He entered the park running.
b. Ai po hynte
duke vrapuar n park kur
e pashe.
He enter-PST-IPFV-3SG running
in park when him I saw
He was running into the park when I saw him.
c. Ai po vraponte/vrapoi
n park.
He run-PST-IPFV/run-PST-PFV-3SG in park.
He was running/ran in the park.
Obviously, Mandarin Chinese can combine Path and Manner components freely
and in this respect resembles the English pattern. These V-V compounds are
known as resultative verb compounds (cf. Chang (1998: 77)). The important
point to make is that it is neither a verb- nor satellite-framed language; rather it
seems to be both at the same time.
However, if we apply our situation type analysis and see how the situation
types are expressed and distinguished in Mandarin Chinese, we can learn more
about the process of lexicalization patterning in that language. If the change of
location is expressed, we have both Path and Manner lexicalized in the expression.
If the situation type referred to is no-change, we have only a manner verb. If we
tried to explain the difference in the temporal features of events expressed on the
basis of what have been termed aspectual operators, like the particle le for example, we run into difficulty, because expressions for both change-occurred and nochange phase in Chinese can contain this particle (which indicates that the event
is referred to as complete).5 If we recall the traditional distinction within the category of aspect, whereby perfective is defined as complete, and imperfective as incomplete (Comrie (1976: 18)), we would not be able to apply it to Mandarin Chinese. The reason lies in the fact that the distinctions in Chinese are not made on
the basis of the presence or absence of the operator le as is done in, for example,
Slavic languages with perfective (prefixed) and imperfective (unprefixed) verbs.
4. Verb serialization has been treated as a syntactic phenomenon with consequences for morphology and semantics. The subject is followed by two (or more) predicates, and it functions as
such for both predicates (for further discussion see Svorou (1994)).
5. This is the reason why we dispensed with the aspectual notion of complete vs. incomplete
event. Evidently, both change-occurred and no-change situations types can be marked by the
particle le, which indicates completeness.
The situation types we propose seem to be better for the analysis of patterns in
Mandarin Chinese. What distinguishes change-occurred from no-change expressions in Mandarin Chinese is the presence or absence of Path expressions. Take
the following example (Egerod (1994: 293)), which is an expression of non-boundary-crossing/no-change situation type:
(7) b. T p o le snsh fn
zhng. 6
He run ASP thirty minute clock.
He ran for thirty minutes.
The event in (7b) can be described as complete in Mandarin Chinese. The equivalent
of this sentence in a Slavic language would have the verb in the imperfective form,
and thus the aspectual distinction complete/incomplete applied as an equivalent of
perfective/imperfective differentiation does not apply universally when it comes to
distinguishing what completeness is and how it is expressed crosslinguistically.
For the moment-of-change in Mandarin Chinese, another specific construction is used:
(7) c. W kn t de sh hu, t zhng p ojn
gngyun
I
see he time when he PROG run-enter park
He was running into the park when I saw him.
When the change has occurred, the following construction is needed (also cf. (7a)):
(7) d. T p ojn le
gngyun.
He run-enter-ASP park.
He ran into the park.
Therefore, it is possible to express Manner in all situation types, just like in English.We can notice one important distinction: in Mandarin Chinese, the distinction between the situation whereby the moving Figure crossed the boundary (examples (7a) and (7d)), and the situation where no boundary was crossed and the
Figure was moving at a location (7b) is marked by the presence (as in (7a) and
(7d)) or absence (7b) of a Path element. This can be compared to the presence or
absence of directional prefixes in Serbo-Croatian, the advantage being that we do
not need to evoke or use tradiational aspectual notions such as complete vs. incomplete to make this comparison. On the other hand, Mandarin Chinese and
Serbo-Croatian differ in the way they lexicalize moment-of-change, because only
Path is lexicalized in the verb in Serbo-Croatian on such occasions. In Mandarin
Chinese, Albanian and the Romance languages expressions of boundary-crossing
6. Le signals the point in time when something occurred or was accomplished, while zhng
in (7c) indicates that the action is a process.
and non-boundary-crossing are clearly signaled via verb choices. In contrast, verb
choices and their combinations with Path particles in English do not always make
this distinction clear because of their potential to be used in more than one situation type. In this way, we can detect the common points that Serbo-Croatian, English, Albanian and Mandarin Chinese share, as well as those on which they differ.
We have now illustrated some advantages of the comprehensive insight into
lexicalization of motion events that our analysis has to offer. The distinction between directional/locational is proportional to an extent to our boundary-crossing/non-boundary-crossing. Still, we consider our distinctions more finely grained
(for non-boundary crossing situation types can encompass both directional and
locational meaning of particles, as in He ran towards the park vs. He ran in the
park). We will further demonstrate that the kind of analysis we propose provides
a better understanding of the lexicalization process and enhances the predictive
power of the hypothesis put forward here that a system must be considered as a
whole when analyzing the means of expression of a particular experiential domain. It can also explain variation in expressions in different languages and trace
its roots at different levels where meaning is conveyed (focusing on habitual use
and meaning of prefixes, tenses, verbs and constructions, as well as narrative practices; cf. chapter 5).
There is one remaining catch regarding motion events and their expressions.
The problem arises if a preposition can have both directional and locational meaning and the object of the preposition can denote either a boundary or location, in
which case both boundary-crossing and non-boundary-crossing interpretations
are possible (e.g. He drove through the town (in 10 minutes or for 10 minutes?)).
This issue is particularly pronounced in English. How is one to know which event
is being described, and whether the moving Figure changed location or not? The
speaker must have been perceptually aware of whether or not the change of location occurred when he witnessed the event (since the presence or absence of
change in the event itself is not dependent on the speakers choice of expression).
These kinds of expressions in English that could refer to either of the two situation
types seem to cause indecisiveness in interpretation. Why would this happen? If
we claim that we can distinguish situation types perceptually, should we not be
able to have linguistic means to express these relevant distinctions? We have to
emphasize that it is the case of English we are singling out as problematic here, and
this problem does not arise in languages that have a clearly marked category of
verbal aspect (e.g. Slavic), or those that express the distinction via cases (e.g. German; cf. examples section 3.2) or through choice of verbs (e.g. Mandarin Chinese
or Spanish). We try briefly to account for this difficulty in chapter 4, and in more
detail in chapter 5. A problem may arise, as it does in English, due to the possibility
to construe boundaries as locations and vice versa, when the VPs containing cer-
7. Note that the reverse is also possible, i.e. when eating ice cream there will be many instances
of eating a number of units of ice cream (e.g. pints/scoops/teaspoons), so an atelic event can
consist of a number of telic instances, which we can put in Higginbothams terms by saying that
(e1,e2) are multiplied.
8. For some recent discussion see Pianesi and Varzi (2000).
9. Causational chain (Croft (1990)) or the uniqueness of time and place (cf. Higginbotham, Pianesi and Varzi (2000)) are some of the possible criteria for event identification.
combination, a sequence of temporal phases during which the relation of the Figure
and Grounds changed. He ate apples logically leads to the conclusion that a certain quantity of apples (more than 1) was eaten. The construal choice is not quite
the same in the domain of motion events, or at least, does not seem to have the
same consequences and implications. Running towards the room and running
into the room do not entail each other in either direction. If the speaker states that
he saw a boy running towards the room, we understand (assuming maximum informativeness) that the speaker witnessed non-boundary-crossing/no-change.
The speaker could have decided to gap the information that the boy actually ran
into the room for some reason even though it was witnessed, but even then we
would not be speaking of different construal of events but rather of gapping the
information.12 If the speaker witnesses the whole event (running towards and into
the room), we presume that his construal of the event was boundary-crossing/
change-occurred, even though his choice of expression could be non-boundarycrossing/no-change. That is why we cannot talk of construals of events and event
types (we do not have accesss to speakers minds), but we can make our judgments
about events based on situation types that are expressed instead. The choice of expression can, but need not, tell us everything about the construal of an event in the
mind of the speaker.13
Communicating information regarding change from a previous state of affairs
is the driving force of information exchange. The economy of language encourages
gapping and it frequently occurs in language in general (cf. Talmy (1996)). As a
result, only one temporal perspective (e.g. the most contextually relevant/informative) is typically assumed by the speaker and if the change is known, it is the most
likely one to be reported. Change is the bearer of information focus. Therefore, if
the speaker only states that the boy was running towards the room, the hearer
understands that the speaker probably did not see the boy actually run into the
room. The hearer can then probe for further information, if relevant (e.g. Did the
boy end up in the room?). Similarly, if the speaker just stated that the boy had run
into the room even though he witnessed both running towards and into the room,
he must have thought that the information about running before entering the
room is irrelevant. The hearer, again if relevant to him/her, can ask further whether the boy was running previously, i.e. before he entered the room. Consequently,
12. For example, if contextually irrelevant. Imagine that the hearer already knows that the boy
ran into the room but wanted to know if he had been running before entering the room.
13. By the same token, the fact that Spanish speakers habitually gap information on the manner
of motion because of their lexicalization pattern restrictions does not necessarily mean that they
do not construe Manner as a part of a motion event. Current research testing language effects on
memory of motion events is trying to tap into the interplay between construals in memory and
verbalization of motion events (Filipovi (in progress)).
basing our analysis on situation types makes it possible to talk of the (parts of)
events as expressed, or in other words, the linguistically/perceptually/contextually
(and perhaps conceptually) relevant (or defining) spatio-temporal features of
events. We therefore underline that we are dealing with the expression of spatiotemporal features of events in language (verbalized events) rather than event construals in speakers minds.
Is language the perfect means to express experiences? Perhaps not, but it is the
most sophisticated system of communicating experience available in any species.
There are situations where no words can describe what one is experiencing, but
such occasions are not common, everyday ones. There are people who apparently
think and process information in terms of images, but those are not typical cases
either. Language is not to be understood as the perfect system that would map
perfectly onto all domains of experience, but should be thought of in terms of
close, yet non-absolute, correspondence with reality. Verbalized experience of
events need not equal cognitive experience of events, but many aspects of the two
do correspond and overlap, with the remaining parts within each domain (the
cognitive and the linguistic) that stay unavailable for the other. In line with Levinsons position, we may argue that languages are good to think with. Linguistic representations cannot be identical to the ones in which we do our central thinking,
but nevertheless they have to be in some respects similar, since the languages of
thought must, directly or indirectly, support linguistic distinctions (Levinson
(2003a: 292)). Our knowledge of events in the world is to a large extent gained via
verbalization (with the exception of our own non-verbal experiences), and this
study will show that verbalized events are indeed the closest one can get to a perfect source of information. Language leaves a choice to speakers, and speakers can
choose to express (or conceal) certain aspects of events when they do not matter
for the relevance of the message in a certain context. Perhaps the fact that somebody ate 3 or 4 apples for breakfast is less important in a certain situation than the
fact that the same person ate apples and not pears for breakfast. In the case of motion events, the choice is of a different nature. The differences based on whether
boundaries are crossed or not and whether change has occurred or not pertain to
events themselves. They are the basis for distinguishing our situation types, which
may correspond to whole events or portions of events. They represent what we
know about events via language.
To sum up briefly, events and expression of events are intertwined when it
comes to classification of both. Our proposal is that, in certain domains all events
may be understood as inherently telic (e.g. the domain of consumption, since all
consumable entities are potentially measureable and quantifiable), but that they
can be expressed as either telic or atelic. Thus, it is not the case that events cannot
be distinguished inherently, but rather that individual domains embrace
classification differently and there is no reason why a single criterion for event
classification should hold in all cognitive domains. Different perceptual and cognitive factors may operate in different domains. One can say He ate apples entailing He ate a certain quantity of apples, whereas one cannot say He ran towards
the room and mean He ran into the room. Expressions of these differences in motion events are not mutually interchangeable in the way different expressions containing information about quantification are.
Apart from the possibility of referring to the same events with different expressions (eat apples vs. eat two apples), there is also the possibility to refer to two
very different situation types (i.e. boundary-crossing and non-boundary-crossing)
by using the same verb+particle combinations. We mentioned a potential difficulty for our system that arises in these circumstances in the previous section
(3.1.). It appears that the difference between boundary and location is not drawn
on all occasions in English, as in He ran across the field or He ran through the
house. In our corpus, this kind of bare, underspecified expression is almost nonexistent. Speakers simply do not communicate about motion events in such a way.
In spontaneous communication some kind of further specification is always given
that helps us decide what situation type an expression refers to (discussed in detail
in chapter 5). We can see, based on corpus data, that verb+particle combinations
that can refer to both boundary-crossing and non-boundary-crossing are inserted
in broader syntactic environments in a sentence so that the interpretation in terms
of situation types becomes available. Our knowledge of the world plays an important role in this process of interpretation. For example, the likelihood of construing a door as a location rather than a boundary in motion expressions is almost
impossible, and it occurs only in special circumstances, for example when space is
construed as extended (cf. chapter 5) or when multiple moving Figures are referred to in the external argument (The soldiers marched through the door for
half an hour.). This occurrence is not attested in the corpus data though, which
leads us to believe that it is imaginable but does not represent a habitual construal.Another principle that can be adopted is to understand a situation type in
relation to its preceding or following context. If a speaker says that he stumbled
across the uneven ground and reached the back door, the uneven ground could
have been experienced as either a boundary or a location. However, the fact that
the speaker ended at a different location (reached the back door) indicates that
the location has been changed; the boundary has been overcome (because he
reached the back door after he crossed the uneven ground) according to the linguistic information we have. The speaker is free to think of the uneven ground as
either boundary or location, but in his linguistic construal it is understood as a
boundary and therefore we treat these kinds of expressions as boundary-crossing/
change-occurred. Speakers normally elaborate if they want to focus on the process
speaker describing an event (s)he had witnessed is referring to a phase of the action
where some kind of change had already occurred, or was occurring, or when no
change was registered. These are the relevant distinctions one should take as a starting point and then see how languages deal with those distinctions, regardless of
whether they do or do not have a specific category to mark them.
Vendlers (1957) four classes of situations (states, activities, accomplishments
and achievements), which are actually seen as aspectual classes of verbs by Dowty (1979: 52), have been the basis for aspectual research for many years.14 Accomplishments (draw a circle) and achievements (recognize, reach) differ from activities (push a cart, swim) exclusively in the presence and absence, respectively, of the
feature goal-oriented, or in other words the presence or absence of a natural (inherent) terminus. The difference between accomplishments and achievements appears to be a question of whether goal-oriented (or inherently terminus-bound)
actions/events are understood as simply goal-oriented (other terms used are: terminative/telic/bounded), having conclusivity or instantaneity in addition (cf. Thelin (1990)). Many studies dealt with these distinctions, the criteria for them and
exceptions to some general rules, which led to a further clarification of these notions (cf. Rothstein (2004)).15 The non-terminative (atelic/non-bounded) meaning
of activities (e.g. swim) is canceled by complements introducing goal-orientation
or the intentional spatial delimitation of these activities (e.g. swim to the other
beach, swim a mile, etc.; Thelin (1990: 7)). Thelin notes further that the examples
of the above classes are usually adduced in English simple forms, which in no way
represent aspectual zero as would often be assumed. He argues for (ibid.) the
obvious polysemic aspectual nature of simple forms (original emphasis).
We would rather say that, in English, simple forms of verbs themselves are not
marked for aspect, and certain relevant distinctions which are aspectual in nature
can be made at levels above the verb form level, e.g. verb phrase or sentence level.
In some cases, as we show in the next chapter, some lexical features of verbs can be
decisive for understanding what kind of a situation an expression refers to, but this
is not very common in the English verbal system. The greatest (and very common)
problem in aspectual studies is the definition of terms. This does sound strange,
but considering that the relationship between events and their expression is rather
complex, it need not be surprising. Vendler proposed his four aspectual categories
14. An insightful comment by Verkuyl (1999: 38), who sees Dowtys interpretation of Vendlers
classification as the main source of trouble.
15. For example, the distinction between the notions of (a)telicity and (un)boundedness is
drawn with clarity in Depraetere (1995). The same account also offers an overview of other
studies dealing with these notions. I hereby thank an anonymous reviewer for suggesting this
source.
based on their applicability to event classification and understanding of verb capacity to be used when expressing certain event types. Dowty used the four Vendlerian categories to classify verb phrases, and on many occasions other authors opt
for either Vendlers or Dowtys approach, or both, thus making it harder to understand whether event distinction is independent of its linguistic expression or not.
A similar thing happens to telicity, as we saw in section 3.2. It is enough to leaf
through the volume edited by Erteschik-Shir and Rapoport (2005), entitled The
Syntax of Aspect, in order to get an idea of the number of different definitions associated with aspect. For example, Doron (2005: 154173) talks of aspect as an
internal structure, either temporal or thematic, imposed by verbs on eventualities. Harley (2005: 4264) discusses Aktionsart as pertaining to verbs, and Smith
(2005:190210), more traditionally, and consistently with her earlier work, distinguishes two components of an aspectual system: viewpoint (perfective, imperfective, neutral) and situation types (states and events of different kinds). Different researchers have different associations and thoughts about what constitutes
aspect and how it relates to event structure outside linguistic expression (if they
acknowledge and mention event structure outside linguistic expression to start
with!). Rothstein (2004), for example, says that events are countable entities which
are individuable, relative to a particular description (ibid.: 4). Furthermore, verbs
denote sets of events and are classified into lexical classes depending on the properties of events in their denotations relative to that particular description (ibid.).
Then again, states, events, achievements and accomplishments are properties of
verbs, and the telic/atelic distinction belongs to the VPs domain for Rothstein
(2004: 33). Later on, and notably in the conclusion, she defines accomplishments
and achievements in terms of events of change (ibid.: 196). Her claim is that the
theory of lexical aspect she presents doesnt only constrain which events are individuated, but also constrains how predicates can shift from one class to another
(ibid.). Thus one can conclude that, assuming this theory of lexical aspect is correct and that it really constrains the individuation of events, the event continuum
will be carved as lexical aspect dictates and not based on language-independent
criteria, such as causational chain for example (see Higginbotham, Pianesi and
Varzi (2005) for thorough discussions). Event individuation would be heavily language-specific then, which we believe is not the case.
What is to be done with languages that do not have lexical or grammatical
aspect? The decoupling of events and their expression is not an easy task, but surely it is not viable to talk about some kind of verb-onto-event type match. There
is more to both events and their expression than a simple one-to-one relationship.
And moreover, as we discussed in 3.2, perhaps not all experiential domains should
be subjected to the same type of analysis. A clearer distinction is offered in Hale
and Keyser (2005), who argue that aspect is orthogonal to argument structure,
the latter being autonomous, i.e. a separate and distinct component of grammar.
For example, stativity for them is not a feature of lexical heads but rather a property of construction and arises in the semantic composition of meaningful elements (ibid.: 38). Much depends on the definition of terms. They define argument
structure as the system of structural relations holding between lexical heads (nuclei) and their arguments within the syntactic structures projected by nuclear
items (ibid.). They add, however, that any argument structure configurations associated with an actual predicate in sentential syntax will be interpreted in terms
of one or another aspectual type (achievement, accomplishment, etc.) (ibid.).
Thus, even though the argument structure may be independent, it is still interpreted in terms of constructional aspectuality.
A crosslinguistic perspective can provide some crucial insights on this topic,
and thus a neutral set of tools, which comes in the form of our spatio-temporal network, proves its pivotal role. We are not limited by notions of lexical or any other
kind of aspect or aspectuality, simply because languages differ importantly along
this line. Rather, we choose to start from potential universal and perceptual, physical distinctions in the domain of motion events, a choice that proved to be fruitful.
Since the telic/atelic distinction is not enough to encompass all the subtle distinctions in event types we are discussing, we are not using it. We preserve the
perfective/imperfective distinction only as a morphological distinction marked on
verbs in Slavic languages, without any generalizations related to the notion of aspect as it is sometimes used for describing related phenomena in languages that do
not have it as a distinct morphological category. Thus we are free to talk of verb
forms in various languages with different morphological structures without committing ourselves to imposing categories from one language onto another or generalizing certain notions to the point where we can even say that, for example, an
aspectual distinction is expressed via cases of the object of prepositions. German
is the case in point here, as illustrated in the examples from Serra-Borneto (1997:
189), where (8a) has locational meaning (the plane remaining above the town,
inside its airspace), and (8b) directional (the plane crossing the airspace above the
town), which can be viewed as difference in aspectuality:
(8) a. Das Flugzeug flog ber der Stadt.
The airplane flew over the-DAT town
b. Das Fleugzeug flog ber die Stadt.
The airplane flew over the-ACC town.
We will explain now why we dismiss the notion of aspectuality. Verkuyl (1999)
insists on a compositional approach to aspect, for both Germanic and Slavic languages. His approach thrives on the idea that the so-called Slavic aspect is neither
But the presence of specQ direct object need not cause perfective interpretation
(and consequently the use of a perfective verb) in Serbo-Croatian. The example
(9b) need not necessarily receive perfective interpretation in this language. We
could easily imagine a context where a translation of this sentence into SerboCroatian could have an imperfective verb (e.g. (9d)) as an equivalent, as well as a
perfective one (9c)), as in:
(9) c. Meri je
prehodala
tri milje.
Mary be-COP over-walk-PST-PFV-3SG-F three miles-ACC
Mary walked three miles.
16. Actually, what Verkuyl seems to be referring to here is obtaining the equivalent of the Slavic
perfective.
17. Related views to Verkuyls appear in Smith (1991) and Tenny (1992).
d. Meri je
tri milje
hodala,
Mary be-COP three miles walk-PST-IPFV-3SG-F,
a onda je
poela da tri.
and then be-cop began to run.
Mary walked three miles, and then she started to run.
The expression in (9d) could be used in a context in which Mary covered ten miles,
of which she walked three miles, and ran the rest. However, the clause with the
verb in the imperfective seems to need additional specification, as it cannot stand
on its own. There seems to be a requirement for a larger template with a fixed
meaning, which we could refer to as construction meaning. We will try to define a
contrastive construction, which is used to express two activities the agent was involved in, one after another, conditioning the use of the imperfective form of the
verb and requiring a quantified modifier (spatial, as in three miles, or temporal
for time expression, cf. examples in (11)). In Serbo-Croatian, the difference in the
interpretation between (9c) and (9d) is easily established by looking at the verb
form (perfective vs. imperfective). However, the interpretation and the use of
forms in (9d) in the English translation as it stands could still be either terminative
or non-terminative (and consequently parallel to either perfective or imperfective
use in Serbo-Croatian). Even though the relevant contrast between the two competing interpretations of the VPs in (9d) is morphologically marked only in SerboCroatian, it could be argued that in English it is modified intonationally (with
tonic stress on walk; e.g. Mary WALKED three miles, and the rest she ran). It is
probably easier to postulate this construction meaning in Serbo-Croatian than in
English because it is clearly marked by structural features such as tense and adverbial presence requirement, although positing it in English may just require another level of analysis (conveying meaning via intonation). Frequency and use
could be further criteria to which a candidate for a construction status should be
subjected, so this is an example of a way forward within and across languages in
search for units of meaning of various sizes in domain lexicalization.
Verkuyl tries to prove further that the presence or absence of certain prefixes
reveals dependencies that should be accounted for syntactically rather than morphologically in Slavic languages, which is related to his promise to show that a
perfective prefix has a VP as its domain rather than just a V. He claims that some
processes might affect the verb only, and some others, the whole VP. Russian uses
verbal morphology to distinguish between perfectivity and imperfectivity, and the
presence of a perfective prefix requires a specific interpretation of the internal argument (Verkuyl 1993: 27). Compare the translations of the Russian sentences
Ivan ital (IPFV) stihotvorenija (Ivan has read poems) and Ivan proital (PFV)
stihotvorenija (Ivan has read the poems). We may conclude that in Russian, even
though there are no articles, Ivan has read an unspecified quantity of poems if an
unprefixed verb is used, whereas the prefixed verb restricts the quantity of poems.
However, Verkuyl admitted that he faced some serious and insurmountable difficulties in mapping all of the postulates of his theory onto a more general Slavic
platform. Firstly, different Slavic languages have developed different options on a
common aspectual ground (ibid.: 117). What seems to be a more striking problem
is obvious in the following examples (from Verkuyl (1999: 127):
(10) a. Ivan pil
dva piva.
Ivan drink-PST-PFV two beers.
Ivan drank two beers.
b. Ivan pil
pivo.
Ivan drink-PST-IPFV beer.
Ivan drank beer
Neither (10a) nor (10b) are perfective in Russian, so experimenting with the idea
of the compositional approach in Slavic and quantification expressed in the internal argument of the verb does not seem to provide a satisfactory explanation and
the same ground for the Germanic and Slavic aspectuality.18 Obviously, in Slavic
languages internal argument is not crucial for the quality of the VP. It is the verb
that is a decisive factor in Slavic languages, although Verkuyl would not concede
that point so easily. (He chose to remain indeterminate on this matter; ibid.: 150).
A different view on aspectual matters comes from Janda (2004), who proposes that Slavic aspect should be understood in terms of Lakoff s ICM (i.e. Idealized Cognitive Model) of matter, whereby SITUATIONS ARE MATERIAL ENTITIES,
and more specifically PERFECTIVE IS A DISCRETE SOLID OBJECT and IMPERFECTIVE
IS A LIQUID SUBSTANCE (ibid.: 471). This view is intriguing, especially because it
apparently overcomes the hurdles that a featural characterization of aspect cannot.
However, the cognitive reality of this view must be tested. Do speakers of Slavic
languages really conceive of aspectual meanings as solid vs. liquid, and more importantly how and why are those affinities with embodied knowledge triggered?
In other words, are the ICMs really the key to the conceptualization of aspectual
distinctions in terms of substances? This is not so important to us at present, at
least not for our central argument regarding aspect. One other issue that Janda
discusses and aptly explains is that the ICM is more specific than the count/mass
distinction and presents a rich domain of oppositions, only a subset of which can
be motivated by count vs. mass alone (ibid.: 486). This should interest us because
most of the previous studies, including the one we critically discuss here in more
detail (Verkuyl (1999)) try to present Slavic aspect as having the count/mass
18. Verkuyls term.
distinction as its focus. Janda dispells such a view by showing that such claims
simplify the matter to a great extent and do not reflect the reality of the interplay
among different properties that underlie aspect meaning and use, count vs. mass
being just one of them (Janda 2004:486).
Although perfective verbs are most often used in telic VPs and imperfective in
atelic, perfective atelic and imperfective telic VPs also exist.19 The biggest problem
for Verkuyls account was the imperfective telic VP, which he openly admitted to be
a difficulty in applying his theory onto Slavic data (Verkuyl (1999: 119127)). Since
in time adverbials follow perfective verbs and for time imperfective, and telic
VPs can be either perfective or imperfective, it turns out that telic VPs can be followed by either in time or for time adverbials. Thus, in time/for time is of no use
as a telicity test. Furthermore, imperfective telic VPs in Serbo-Croatian illustrate
that the perfective prefix does not have a VP domain, i.e. that aspectuality does
not spread onto the whole VP. This is illustrated by using the Serbo-Croatian version of Verkuyls (1999: 119) example in Russian (cf. (10)):
(11) a. Ivan je popio
dva piva (za dva sata).
Ivan COP drink-PST-PFV-PTCP-SG-M two beers (in two hours)
Ivan drank two beers in two hours.
b. Ivan je pio
dva piva
dva sata.
Ivan COP drink-PST-IPFV-PTCP-SG-M two beers for two hours
Ivan drank two beers for two hours.
There is a difference in the interpretation between (11a) and (11b). The example
(11a) refers to the situation where the two beers are fully consumed, whereas according to (11b) it is not clear whether they were consumed. The representation of
the events in both cases is telic (they contain a specQ DO). However, it is not the
perfective verb (or a perfective prefix), whose presence requires the specific quantity interpretation, or vice versa the specified quantity expression in the DO
does not require to be governed by the perfective prefix. If the DO was conditioning the use of the perfective, then the imperfective would not be used with the
specified quantity DO. However, the imperfective form is used as in (11b), and
Verkuyls difficulty stems from this. Note that in the case of (11b) above, the meaning expressed is that the speaker does not know or does not want to say if the telos
was reached, but the point is also that the action took longer than normal/natural/
expected. With the perfective verb in (11a) in two hours is optional, whereas with
the imperfective verb in (11b) some additional piece of information, e.g. for two
hours, is required. If the for time adverbial expresses unusually long time for the
19. For example, Thelin (1990) cites Russian pospat meaning sleep a little (otspavati in Serbo-Croatian).
consumption of this quantity to take place, the meaning of the whole expression in
(11b) becomes more than the sum of the meanings of its constituent parts, indicating that we are faced with construction meaning. If the adverbial does not express
unusually long duration, we seem to have a different construction meaning, that of
contrasting activities (see example (13) and also (9d)).
The meaning that emerges when an imperfective verb, a quantified DO and a
semantically adequate for time expression are used is that of the action in question took longer than usual/normal/expected to perform, which none of the constructional elements express singularly. Attested examples from Serbo-Croatian
support the definition of the unusual duration construction, which has a form of:
For example:
(12) Jeo
je dve jabuke dva sata.
Eat-PST-IPFV-PTCP-SG-M COP two apples for two hours
He spent two hours eating two apples.
It is interesting to note that if there is more than one entity being consumed, the
interpretation is that the entities were consumed in sequence. If another in time
adverbial instead, which does not express an extraordinarily long period of time
for this kind of action, the expression would be used in different circumstances:
(13)
Jeo
je dve jabuke dva minuta,
Eat-PST-IPFV-PTCP-SG-M COP two apples two minutes
a onda je poeo da jede kruke.
and then COP began to eat pears.
He ate two apples for two minutes, and then he began to eat pears.
Why is it absolutely necessary that the for time belongs to the construction as in
(12) and is not an ordinary VP modifier, as it is in (13)? This is because if the for
time expression does not express an unusually long time interval, the construction meaning is not there and the consumption of entities (e.g. beers or apples) will
not be understood as consecutive but simultaneous as in (13). The use of the imperfective form in (13) also requires the presence of another element (a clause)
that expresses a contrasting activity of the same subject which follows the activity
expressed by the imperfective verb in the first part of the construction. We argue
that (13) is an example of contrastive construction, comparable to (9d), the only
difference being the measuring out of the event, whereby in (9d) it is done in
spatial terms (three miles), and in (13) in temporal terms (two minutes). There20. This construction works with imperfective verbs in all tenses (present, past and future).
fore, our background experiential knowledge regarding the normal length of times
for carrying out a certain action (e.g. drinking a beer or eating an apple) is essential in understanding the meaning and use of the construction. Language-specific
construction patterns and their frequencies of use should be further studied in
order to confirm constructional presence and entrenchment (cf. chapter 7 for further discussion on construction meaning).
One important detail to mention is pragmatic input, because the constructions
we propose might turn out to have culture-specific facets on occasion. What is
considered to be an unusual length of time can vary cross-culturally (e.g. the context of Italian vs. Serbian coffee-drinking habits; cf. Filipovi Kleiner (2006c)).
Thus, Verkuyls problem with certain cases related to Slavic aspectuality
could be resolved by positing construction meaning. There is an emerging and
growing interest in construction meaning within and across languages. For example, argument-structure constructions, aspectual constructions and sentence types
from English, French and German are discussed in Michaelis (2003). She says that
frame and frequency adjuncts in English represent aspectual concord constructions (where the verb projection unifies with the construction), and, similarly,
French morphological constructions that license perfective and imperfective pasttense inflections are seen as aspectual concord constructions as well (ibid.: 190).
There are possible grounds for comparison here with Serbo-Croatian, because adjuncts seem to play a pivotal role in the constructions we put forward.
We discussed the domain of quantity, with special attention being paid to temporal quantity, because that has been the battleground of numerous different ideas
of aspect and aspectuality. When it comes to spatio-temporal quantification of
motion (e.g. run three miles), it is important to understand that quantification
does not automatically trigger perfectivization of the VP, and this is why Verkuyls
aspectuality does not hold. Moreover, we emphasize again that temporal adjuncts such as in an hour/for an hour should not be seen merely as a test for telicity, even though this does seem to work well in some languages, and less well (or
not at all) in some others. Rather, these phrases carry temporal (in the aspectual
sense) information themselves, and are best accommodated as ingredients of construction meaning.
In support for this treatment of in/for time adverbials, we quote Higginbotham (1995: 15), who states that the expressions like The boat floated under the
bridge in an hour are actually a conjunction of three elements, namely: float (the
boat, e1) & under (the bridge, e1, e2) & in an hour (e1, e2). What distinguishes English from French or Korean, for example, is that in English, but not in the latter two
languages, locative prepositions can function as main predicates. It is a lexical distinction since it concerns the vocabularies of the language types (ibid.: 17).
Obviously, using a category from one language or group of languages and applying it to others does not work. And there is an additional potential difficulty when it
comes to Slavic aspect in particular, pointed out by Dickey (2000). He divides Slavic
languages into Western (Czech, Slovakian, Slovenian) and Eastern (Russian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian), with Serbo-Croatian as a transitional zone. The criterion is the use
of perfective verbs in the denotation of habitual events in the Western group, and
imperfective verbs in the Eastern (ibid.: 5). We will not dwell on that distinction,
since we decided to account for the system of only one Slavic language, but we have
to emphasize that the category of aspect is not unified within this branch of the Indo-European family and should be handled with care. What is important, however,
is that the kind of argumentation illustrated in the examples from Verkuyl (1993)
and Verkuyl (1999) is not the right tool for comparison and analysis on this occasion. Therefore, the key to understanding lexicalization patterns in the two languages we are focusing on should be sought in another direction.
Our perspective offers a different view. The meaning of verbs, verb forms (simple and progressive), PPs, VPs, external/internal arguments and specific constructions are equally important in the process of event expression, and they operate
with different responsibilites at different levels in different languages, illustrated in
chapter 5 for English and chapter 6 for Serbo-Croatian. In Serbo-Croatian, morphology plays an important role, while in English, the larger syntactic (and even
narrative) context contributes significantly to the overall aspectual meaning.
Nevertheless, it is not just the case of the same meanings being conveyed morphologically in Serbo-Croatian and syntactically in English. We argue that the results
of the differences between the two linguistic systems condition their respective
lexicalization patterns overall and affect the habitual presence or absence of content-relevant information in motion expressions. Neutral terms on the basis of
which we carried out our language contrasts were absolutely indispensable because the terms and concepts evoked in numerous previous studies have been so
overused (and misused, or even abused) that they blurred the distinctions they
were aimed at clarifying.
Summary
Some previously neglected aspects of lexicalization (cf. moment-of-change phase)
are given the importance they deserve in our study of lexicalization patterns. Our
examples from different languages show how differences in lexicalization of motion crosslinguistically become more finely grained than those given in generalized typological sketches. It is clear that the meanings within the category of aspect
are extremely important for the expression of any event, because they are relevant
in establishing whether or not a speaker witnessed the phase when the change of
location has occurred. Thus, we wish to dispense with the frequent practice of calling a variety of different phenomena in different languages aspectual. One has to
be reminded again of the view expressed earlier (cf. Hudson (1996)) that it is more
appropriate to think that languages are not just different means for expressing the
same meanings, but to assume that they can express different meanings, maybe
closely related, but not necessarily identical, and then to look for variation. Moreover, if we establish that languages express certain similar meanings, they do not
necessarily do it by using the same means or the same categories. It is not obligatory in every language to make the same distinctions even within the same category, let alone between different categories. It is therefore best to start by looking for
components in lexicalized domains that are most likely to find their expressions in
most, if not all languages (e.g. physical boundary or obstacle, change of location or
spatial configuration, or any kind of change over time). In this way, we can discover shared features among languages as well as language-specific approaches to
lexicalization of universal domains of experience.
chapter 4
When we submit the data from both English and Serbo-Croatian to our analysis
based on situation types as posited in Table 1, we get as a result two different algorithms for the processing of sentences that are expressions of motion events.1 Although we admit that there are some similarities between the two languages (i.e. both
have manner verbs+directional particles available on a number of occasions when
Romance languages typically do not), based on our overall comparison, we came up
with different instructions for processing motion expressions in the two languages.
It should be emphasized that these algorithms illustrate how to achieve understanding of what is being said in a particular language, and it is especially relevant
for situations when the expressions to be understood are not in ones mother
tongue. The outcome of our research contributes not only to typological studies,
but has consequences for understanding second language acquisition and could
have applications in foreign language teaching and translation. These algorithms
should be seen as step-by-step guidelines for the understanding of systems rather
than production/comprehension processes in languages.2 We already mentioned
that the latter is beyond the scope of our research at present. The algorithms refer
to systemic constraints, as defined in chapter 1. We will contrast examples from
English and Serbo-Croatian in order to look for constraints in both languages and
establish how all levels where meaning is conveyed, namely lexical semantics, syntax and morphology, contribute to the process of rendering the relevant spatio-
1. The word algorithm is used here without any psycholinguistic implications regarding natural language processing. It just refers to the working principles of (morpho)syntax and lexical
semantics in creating complex meaning structures in the two languages respectively and provides instructions about where to look for cues for understanding for non-native speakers.
2. We are grateful to Pieter Seuren and an anonymous reviewer for pointing out that this
should be stated explicitly.
temporal features of motion events into different languages. The English examples
of the three central situation types are followed by those in Serbo-Croatian:
Ulazio
je
u sklonite puzei
Enter-PST-IPFV-3SG-M be-COP into shelter crawling
(kada sam ga ugledao).
(when be-COP him saw).
He was entering the shelter crawling when I saw him.
c. Puzio
je
u sklonitu.
Crawl-PST-IPFV-3SG-M be-COP in shelter-LOC
He was crawling/crawled in the shelter.
The algorithms show similarity in expression a) and c), but not in b). This is due to
the fact that moment-of-change situation types need to be expressed by imperfective verbs.3 An imperfective unprefixed manner verb in (2b) would not convey the
idea of boundary-crossing, as seen in (2d):
(2) d. Puzio
je
u sklonite.
Crawl-PST-IPFV-3SG-M be-COP into shelter-ACC
He was crawling/crawled in the shelter.
Prefixed manner verbs are not licenced in moment-of-change expressions and further imperfectivization is not carried out.4 It has been registered on a very few
verbs (e.g. plivati swim, IPFV; u-plivati, swim into PFV; u-plivav-ati, swim into
IPFV), but then those verbs are principally used in habitual and iterative expressions,
3. The perfective/imperfective distinction in our analysis refers to the morphological marking; perfective manner verbs are normally derived from the imperfective ones by prefixation.
4. Grickat (1966/67: 189) confirms that Macedonian and Bulgarian have almost limitless possibility of furthering imperfectivization. In Bulgarian, though, such verbs are used only iteratively. Czech had a lot of examples of this process as well at one point in its history, but the number
of such verbs was later reduced (ibid.). Cf. Gasparov (1990) for similar observations on the iterative use in Russian.
and seldom for moment of change.5 The same phenomenon is noted in Russian
(cf. Gasparov (1990)). Therefore, in situations like the one in (2b) a directional
verb is used.
The algorithm for English goes as follows:
i. The simple past can be used to express all the phases: no-change, change-occurred and moment-of-change phase. There is a restriction related to the use
of the simple past to express the moment-of-change phase, and it is a syntactic
one, because a time adverbial or a time clause is necessary in order to convey
this meaning (compare: The soldiers marched into the hall change-occurred
vs. The people staggered out of the building while the soldiers marched into
the hall moment-of-change). Past progressive can be used to express moment-of-change and no-change. The simple guidance is to look at the form
first and try to eliminate the unlikely interpretations.
ii. Since we do not eliminate enough possible interpretations by looking only at
what tense is used, we then look at the verbs lexical meaning. For example,
hasten expresses something that run does not. The activity described as running over the hill or across the field for hours is possible, whereas hasten expresses motion that is very unlikely to last that long or to be used to refer to as
many situation types as run does. It is semantically much more narrowly
specified (and defined as a 2nd tier verb, while run is a 1st tier verb; cf. Slobin
(1997a) and also chapter 7):
(3) They hastened into the shelter of rock and wood.
(boundary-crossing/change-occurred)
iii. If the verb does not reveal which phase of a motion event is being expressed,
look at the particles (prepositions or adverbs) that follow the verb. For example into, being purely directional, typically expresses change-occurred when
used with simple forms and moment-of-change with progressive forms. The
relevant prepositions to be analyzed here are into, onto, out of (in boundary-crossing); to, from (in boundary-reaching); in, on, and out (in non-
5. e.g. Stalno je uletala kroz isti prozor. (She would always fly intoIPFV through the same
window).
boundary-crossing6); across, over, through and under (both in boundarycrossing and non-boundary-crossing). Certain particles, when used without a
following direct object, are traditionally recognized as adverbs (or intransitive
prepositions/prepositions used intransitively), like in, out through, over,
etc. and are used in combinations with verbs to refer always to boundarycrossing/change-occurred situation type (e.g. He ran in, or He ran out, etc.).
iv. If the interpretation is not obvious after looking at the preposition, then look
at one or more of the following elements in the structure: a direct object, a
temporal adverbial, another clause within the same sentence, or another prepositional phrase following the verb+preposition combination that is analyzed
(cf. chapter 5 for a thorough discussion)
The distinctions are illustrated in the following examples, and more examples are
analyzed in chapter 5:
(6) a. She ran through the house all day, looking for her passport.
(non-boundary-crossing/no-change)
b. She danced through the house and ended up in the back garden.
(boundary-crossing/change-occurred)
(7) a. We stumbled over the rough ground in the back garden for some time.
(non-boundary-crossing/no-change)
b. The door flung open and Sara stumbled over the threshold.
(boundary-crossing/change-occurred).
We are not implying that English speakers employ this algorithm every time they
speak or write, at least not consciously. Once the system has been acquired, speakers do not tend to perform an analysis of what happens, and why, when certain
expressions are used (unless they happen to be linguists!). On the other hand, nonnative speakers will have to go through the process of learning which expressions
6. There is ongoing research into the reasons why particles that normally have locational meaning can sometimes have directional meaning, as in: Trevor has jumped in the river. Some tend
to think this use is possible because of combinations with certain motion verbs, very limited in
number and type (even then, there is no absolutely decisive argument in favor of this use (cf.
Rooryck (1996), Jarvis and Odlin (2000)). Some authors (Thomas 2002) quote verb meaning as
a potentially important factor (e.g. Are all the combinations with prepositions in the following
examples interpretable as directional: He fell in/into the pool and He ran into/?in the room?).
However, in some cases, it is the verb rather than the particle that signals direction of motion (as
in the verb fall). We still treat them as locational particles as we stated in the description for the
algorithm for English under iii.
should be used in different situations, and the best way to do it is to base the learning process on a language-specific algorithm, and not translation equivalents.
The algorithm for Serbo-Croatian goes as follows:
i. Use a perfective manner (if available) or a perfective directional verb in the
change-occurred situations, imperfective directional verb for moment-ofchange situations and imperfective manner verb for no-change situations.7
ii. Note that all prefixes are to be used in expressions of either boundary-crossing:
U- (in/ into), IZ- (out of ), PRE- (across/ over), PRO- (through/ past),
NA- (onto), POD- (under), or boundary-reaching: OD- (from the speaker/
scene or location), DO- (to the speaker/scene or location), with the exception
of PRO- which can be both locational (indicating that some time has been
spent at a certain location) and directional and be used in expressions of both
boundary-crossing and non-boundary-crossing.8 Before we concentrate on
concrete examples, it is essential to notice that there is an important and welldefined cline in prefix use (i.e. the number of verbs that combine with individual prefixes), based on frequencies in both dictionary and corpus data: 9
OD-/DOIZ-/UPROPRENA-/POD-
cline, whereas the reverse is not the case. Most of the verbs in the dictionary and
corpus data are prefixed with OD-/DO- prefixes, used to describe movements in
all sorts of directions. There are fewer prefixed verbs in both the dictionary and
corpus data as one moves towards the lower end of the cline. The cline is based on
the fact that the number of expressions the prefixed verbs can be used in diminishes downwards. Another factor is the combinability of prefixed verbs with prepositions that can follow them, which also decreases down the cline. We termed this
phenomenon combinatory potential. The verbs prefixed by OD-/DO- have the
highest combinatory potential.They can be used on all occasions, in expressions
that refer to all sorts of directional motion events and they combine with all prepositions. IZ-/U- verbs, as well as PRO-verbs, combine with a smaller number of
prepositions than OD-/DO-verbs, and PRE- combines with an even more restricted number of prepositions than IZ-/U-, or PRO- verbs. Prefixes NA- and PODcombine only with prepositions na (on) and pod (under), and thus they are at
the lower end of the cline. Numerous examples and a detailed discussion are offered in chapter 6.
Another original proposal came from our data analysis of Serbo-Croatian,
which we termed morphological blocking. As a Manner-salient language (or Slanguage in the typology), Serbo-Croatian is expected to have the Manner of motion expressed in the verb and Path of motion expressed elsewhere (in this case a
prefix and a preposition). The first hurdle is the fact that both manner and directional verbs are used in lexicalization in Serbo-Croatian, but the restrictions are
different from those specified for Spanish (i.e. the issues related to telicity and
boundary-crossing; cf. Aske (1989), Slobin (1996)). In Spanish, manner verbs are
freely used in non-boundary-crossing and boundary-reaching situations, but for
boundary-crossing, a directional verb is needed instead. In Serbo-Croatian, unprefixed manner verbs are used in expressions of the non-boundary-crossing/nochange phase, prefixed manner verbs, with constraints, in the boundary-crossing/
change-occurred expressions and directional verbs to express the boundary-crossing/moment-of-change phase.10 The examples in (2) show the restriction in the
use of manner verbs. The situations in (2a) and (2c) are described with manner
verbs, whereas in (2b) we have a directional verb. Manner verbs are not used in
cases like (2b), which expresses the moment-of-change phase, due to the process
of morphological blocking.
Morphological blocking occurs because of the impossibility of further imperfectivizing a perfective manner verb which would have been necessary in order to
express the required Manner of motion and Path. If an unprefixed imperfective
10. Manner verbs in Serbo-Croatian can be prefixed or unprefixed. Prefixed manner verbs are
also perfective at the same time, and the unprefixed ones are imperfective.
(REFL); cf. examples in (4) in 3.1. see also appendix 2). There is a substantial
number of second-tier prefixed verbs in Serbo-Croatian, most of which are prefixed only by deictic prefixes, and when used in translation from English, an additional piece of information is included (normally not present in the original)
about whether the movement was from or to the speaker/scene-setting (cf.
Filipovi (1999)). The verbs prefixed by other prefixes are less numerous, and thus
confirm the cline in prefix use.
If a deictically prefixed verb is used, the Path does not need to be dissected,
because deictically prefixed manner verbs can accumulate all kinds of prepositional phrases that refer to different Ground elements. Using a manner verb prefixed by
different prefixes for each segment of the Path would unnecessarily overburden the
expression, thus also making it stylistically unacceptable. In Serbo-Croatian, we
also noticed that many 2nd tier manner of motion verbs (both OD-/DO- verbs and
those prefixed otherwise) are out of use: non-existent in the corpus data and only
present in the dictionaries. Their entries in the dictionaries are based on sources
dating from many years ago, even centuries ago in some cases, and such verbs are
absent from modern language use. This could be explained by the fact that the
needs of communication have changed and evolved in line with lifestyle differences
of the modern age, the information exchange caused by new means of communication being rapid, compact and not more detailed than necessary. Thus elaborate,
morphologically heavy structures are out of fashion, and unfortunately so are many
complex, lexically rich verbs in Serbo-Croatian, the meanings of which are unknown to todays speakers.
When both Manner and Path have to be rendered into Serbo-Croatian, and
the Manner is rather complex in itself, i.e. very rich in informational content (e.g.
rustled out, skateboarded across; cf. examples in 6.5.), Serbo-Croatian prefers
the other pattern, which is to use a verb which conflates Motion and Path, and then
to add the pieces of information about Manner separately (cf. example in (8) from
Slobin (1997a: 213), where it was used in contrasting English and Spanish):
(8)
English combines manner verbs and prepositions easily as a consequence of having very few morphological constraints, whereas Serbo-Croatian has many, so
expressions like She rustled into the room need to be rendered into Serbo-
Croatian by using a directional verb, just like in Spanish.11 Verbs of sound emission, which are used frequently in motion expressions in English, are extremely
rare in Serbo-Croatian.12
Another option is using an OD-/DO- verb, if an adequate one exists, with the
same or nearly the same meaning. Deictic information is thus added, which is
normally not given in the original (cf. Filipovi (1999)). For example:
(9) a. She rushed up the stairs.
b. Odjurila
je
uz stepenice.
From-the-speaker/scene-rush-PST-PFV-3SG-F be-COP up the stairs.13
This option is exercised because many more verbs can be prefixed by OD-/DOthan any other prefix (cf. the cline in prefixes use above.). We expand on this point
in chapter 6.
Unlike manner verbs, directional verbs show no constraints in use. Their perfective and imperfective forms are not related by derivation. For example, the perfective directional verb ui (go in) is derived from the neutral verb ii (to
go- IPFV) + the prefix U- (into), which then gives ui (go in- PFV). The prefixes
in perfective directional verbs are detectable, although the verbs themselves seem
to be monomorphemic. Their morphological simplicity makes them favourites for
the lexicalization of boundary-crossing/change-occurred situation types even
when prefixed manner verbs are available (cf. chapter 6.6; see also Vidakovi
(2006)). Imperfective directional verbs do not have prefixes, although it might
seem so at first glance, e.g. ulaziti (go in or enter-IPFV) is not a prefixed form
because U- is not a prefix here (*laziti being unlicenced). Their formation appears
to originate from the combination of ulaz(entrance)+-iti(INF ending). This
morphologically unconstrained use puts them in a favourable position in motion
lexicalization.
11. Cf. also Slobins example (1997a: 213) in Spanish, where a directional verb is used in this
motion expression: Sali del cuarto, acompaada del susurro siseante de sus ropas. (She exited
from the room, accompanied by the swishing rustle of her clothing).
12. Although Ivi (1982) does not either explicitly make this point or discuss language contact,
we noticed this detail in her account of different Slavic languages; some Slavic languages (e.g.
Slovene, possibly in contact with German) show a tendency to use verbs of sound emission with
directional prefixes in motion expressions, whereas some others do not exercise this option, or
do it extremely modestly (e.g. Serbo-Croatian). The extensive corpus data used for this study
offer no proof of this use. Slobin (p.c.) confirms that some northern Italian dialects may show
certain tendencies in lexicalization patterning under the influence of German, as Yiddish does
under the influence of Slavic languages (Talmy 2000: 297).
13. A verb prefixed by a prefix indicating only upward motion does not exist (*uzjuriti up-rush).
We can conclude that the notions of boundary and change that constitute the
essence of our spatial and temporal parameters respectively are helpful in determining what situation type a speaker has referred to, more so than knowing just
the meaning of verbs or tenses, for example. We find a reminder of that in Langacker (1987: 258), where the distinction between events and states has a primal
character, because it is linked to a basic cognitive capacity: the ability to perceive
change. The flexibility of the human mind to construe the same spaces as both
locations and boundaries plays an immense role in the lexicalization of spatial
domains. And here we are delving into the level between the perceptual and the
linguistic, namely that of conceptualization. We have mostly steered clear of conceptualization, because this is a separate level of investigation, requiring different
methodology and experimental data. We do not make claims relevant to this level
in the present study, but we can suggest that crosslinguistic typological studies of
domain lexicalization might be the way to probe for the ways in which perceptual
knowledge is organized in language(s) and cognition. We want to be able to look
into the consequences of typological constraints and liberties that go beyond language, such as habitual presence/absence of information in specific, language-pervaded contexts (such as eyewitness testimony, cf. Filipovi (in press)) as well as
non-linguistic understanding of space and other domains (cf. chapter 7 for some
ideas, current and future research in this area).
Summary
This chapter introduces our central claims regarding similarities and differences in
the lexicalization of motion events in English and Serbo-Croatian. We touched
upon a number of features relevant to the lexicalization process of the two languages that we intend to explore further in the following two chapters (chapter 5
for English and chapter 6 for Serbo-Croatian). The two algorithms we proposed
should be understood as instructions for analyzing lexicalization patterns in the
two languages so as to be able to explain (particularly to non-native speakers) the
major mechanisms of conveying meaning when it comes to lexicalized motion
events in the two respective linguistic systems. By taking into consideration all
levels where meaning is conveyed, we are able to pin down the individual contributions and roles that lexical items, categories, constructions and processes (such
as morphological blocking and combinatory potential in Serbo-Croatian) have in
the process of lexicalization. This holistic take on domain lexicalization will prove
to be indispensable in teasing apart the components that are language-specific
from those that are shared and (potentially) universal.
chapter 5
the other, but interpreting expressions with past progressive can be equally challenging at times. However, the extent to which they pose a difficulty is not as sizeable as the one posed by expressions in the simple past. Rather, we can say that
particular instantiations of some prepositions like under could be problematic.
We elaborate on this in section 5.4.3. Other particles that cause difficulty if combined with verbs in the simple past do not seem to have the same effect if past
progressive verb forms are used. Such expressions are more readily interpretable,
as in He was running over the bridge or He was running across the street, which
are both taken to be expressions of boundary-crossing/moment-of-change. It is
true that they can also be interpreted as expressions of non-boundary-crossing if
we take over the bridge and across the street to refer to locations where the Figure did some running. We would argue that such scenarios are imaginable but very
unlikely to be referred to in this way. We further discuss conventionalized scenarios
in 5.4.3. Finally, unlike simple past forms, past progressive forms cannot refer to
the boundary-crossing/change-occurred situation type.
With the simple past tense, on the other hand, the situation is more complex,
because it can refer to all three phases in situation types (change-occurred, moment-of-change and no-change) and thus the examples with prepositions that can
be used both in expressions of boundary-crossing and non-boundary-crossing
make it more difficult to account for and establish what the whole expression referred to. The object of the preposition, even though it denotes a larger space and
not precisely a boundary in the strictest sense, can be seen as non-problematic in
(1a) but potentially making two interpretations available in (1b):
(1) a. He was running across the field.
(non-boundary-crossing/no-change)
b. He ran across the field.
(either boundary-crossing/change-occurred or non-boundary-crossing/
no-change).
We will now look in some detail at corpus examples of verbs in motion expressions
in the simple past tense. When verbs in the simple past are combined with prepositions that refer to boundary-crossing, the expressions themselves refer to boundary-crossing/change-occurred (e.g. He ran into the building.). If the prepositions
can be used to refer to both boundary-crossing and non-boundary-crossing, the
entire expressions with verbs in the simple past can refer to either type, and these
are the most problematic combinations (cf. (1b)).
We have to point out here that verbs in the simple past, when combined
with prepositions that are used in boundary-crossing expressions and when appearing in a particular syntactic environment, can be used to refer to boundary-
crossing/moment-of-change situation type as well. The simple past tense in English can be used to express moment-of-change in situations where two
simultaneous events are being described, as in:
(2) People staggered through the back door while the soldiers marched into the
hall.
When the simple past is used in expressions of motion events where the subject is
in the plural and the spatial feature described is that of boundary-crossing, the
temporal phase can be either change-occurred or moment-of-change type.1 English speakers are not obliged to specify whether they are referring to a series of
events whereby a multitude of moving Figures are observed as individuals in the
process of changing location, or to a single event where the moving Figure is viewed
as a group of people that changed location. More problems are caused if the conjunction in an expression is one that can be used with various meanings (the case
in point being the conjunction as). In translation into Serbo-Croatian, this distinction will have to be drawn explicitly on the verb level, because the decision will have
to be made on whether to use an imperfective manner verb, a perfective manner
verb or a directional verb. Effectively, in reality, the event itself may essentially be
one and the same, but different chunks of it could be reported from a different temporal perspective and thus the situation type is not the same (cf. our discussion on
construals in 3.2). The following two examples illustrate our point:
(3) They staggered into the temple, a stream of garish colour and silly hats and
bare white flesh.
(4) Solemn and clamorous, a choir of young people filed across the hall to the
staircase.
Note that a manner of motion verb in the simple past and a preposition normally
used to refer to boundary-crossing (like into or onto) would be used in expressions of motion that refer to boundary-crossing/change-occurred situation type.
In example (2) we saw that there is a possibility that this typical use can be overridden. In the case of example (2), it is the sentence structure expressing two parallel actions that is responsible for the possibility of having the interpretation:
boundary-crossing/moment-of-change. We would interpret (3) as boundarycrossing/moment-of-change because of the description of the moving Figures as a
stream, which indicates continuous motion rather than a single instant. The elaboration in the description of the moving Figures also indicates the focus on the
process. In example (4) we have the possibility of interpreting the expression of the
1. Talmy (1988: 176) refers to this as plexity, whereby [] an original solo referent is, in
effect, copied onto various points of space or time; e.g. A bird flew in vs. Birds flew in (ibid.).
There is an obvious overlap in English with regard to the use of verb forms and
verb+particle combinations and their mappings onto different situation types,
which needs to be accounted for within our framework.
5.2 What verbs (do not) tell us
Since the simple vs. progressive marking is not enough in itself to express the relevant distinctions, we look into verb meaning to see whether we can detect the
way in which one can differentiate among the different situation types. Manner
verbs themselves do not contain any information regarding the direction of motion and thus cannot provide us with any crucial information regarding the distinctions within the spatial frame.
The occasions when the relevant piece of information regarding situation
types is located in verbs in English are very rare. There are some verbs, though,
which, because of their meaning, are normally used in situations which are either
boundary-crossing or non-boundary-crossing, but not both. Verbs like bolt (referring to a sudden movement) express an activity that takes place during a very
short span of time. On the other hand, the verb hover is used in expressions of a
situation type where a moving entity spends some time at a certain location moving in the way designated by the verb. Therefore, bolt is more likely to be used in
change-occurred/boundary-crossing expressions:
On the other hand, the example in (6) is most likely to have the interpretation
non-boundary-crossing and no-change:
This way of conveying the relevant distinction and deducing the meaning is limited in English, because most verbs do not contain either lexical features or morphological markers that help us decide what kind of expressions a verb is normally
used in. In fact, we can say that when we compare English with Serbo-Croatian,
we notice that a great many verbs in English seem quite neutral in relation to the
relevant temporal and spatial features crucial for motion expressions, and can be
used in all of the situation types. In Serbo-Croatian, we know exactly whether a
perfective or imperfective verb would be needed in an expression depending on
what spatio-temporal features are required by an expression. It is the verbs morphological marking rather than lexical meaning that immediately signals the intended interpretation of the situation type that is lexicalized. In most cases, English verbs are not lexically or morphologically marked in such a way that one can
determine the situation type expressed on the basis of a verb or a verb form. We
will see in more detail in chapter 7 that verb meaning can be relevant and even
decisive for some other aspects of the expressions in which it occurs, but when it
comes to rendering the relevant spatio-temporal detail in an expression of a motion event, knowing the lexical meaning of verbs and their projections (i.e. parts of
meaning relevant for syntax) is simply not the whole story in English.
5.3 Particles that appear only in boundary-crossing expressions
Many distinctions relevant for us are conveyed via directional particles, which by
virtue of expressing spatial detail related to the spatial features of situation types
(boundary-crossing, boundary-reaching and non-boundary-crossing) also make
temporal information inferrable. Verbs in the simple past tense with particles that
refer exclusively to boundary-crossing, like into, out of and onto, are used to
refer to change-occurred phase of motion. This can, but need not, be overridden
in a particular syntactic context, which gives the possibility to refer to moment-ofchange if the simple past tense is used in a construction expressing parallel actions,
or if a particular time adverbial is present in the construction. For example, the
expression in (7) can potentially refer to either change-occurred or moment-ofchange situation type, boundary-crossing though in either case.
(7) The enemy soldiers marched into town, while the defenders, disappointed
and exhausted, staggered out of the shelters, ready to surrender.2
Our assumption is that the speaker always assumes one temporal perspective, even
though the expression used could refer to more than one phase in event development. In this case, the situation type is that of moment-of-change and boundarycrossing. Two parallel processes are expressed here, and the fact that while is used
seems to indicate that. It can sometimes seem futile to try and establish what
2. See examples in chapter 3 and the discussion on the difference between describing an event
in which a group of entities is seen as a single moving Figure, or as a number of individuals,
whereby the number of moving Figures is more than one in a particular expression, which then
makes it possible to interpret an expression as either change-occurred or moment-of-change
type. The use of while here clearly indicates two simultaneous processes and therefore the situation type is boundary-crossing/moment-of-change. This would be a typical syntactic environment of the past progressive, but the simple past in this sentence has the same effect. In effect,
the simple past is the narrative tense, unmarked, most frequent and most versatile. It habitually
usurps the positions of other tenses, such as past progressive or present perfect, the latter especially in American English. As a result, the distinctions in meaning are made elsewhere, e.g.
constructionally.
situation type was expressed on the basis of one isolated expression (e.g. only the
first part of the sentence The soldiers marched into town), simply because English
does not always mark for this distinction for each part of a motion event, but we
claim that, on the whole, these distinctions must be inferrable from lexicalized
motion expressions. In other words, a Serbo-Croatian translator would have to
infer which situation type is being described because that would condition the
choice between manner and directional verbs, perfective or imperfective. Therefore, situation types help us ask the right questions when translating or learning a
foreign language: how a particular situation is lexicalized in this target language,
rather than what the closest translational equivalent of a lexical or syntactic structure
in the target language is.
It is important at this point to notice the two phenomena that we will term
extended space notion and extended time notion. We say in (7) that if the external
argument is a plural noun (e.g. soldiers), and it can refer to a selection of individuals rather than a unified group of entities seen as a whole, we can have the
extended moment-of-change/boundary-crossing situation when the verb+particle
combinations are used to express two parallel actions. The same occurs when an
expression contains a time adverbial, as in:
(8) The soldiers marched into the building for half an hour.
With a noun in the singular, as in (9), this meaning seems forced, unless we accept
the notion of extended space, whereby the expression would refer to a soldier going further into the interior of the building for some time:
(9) ?The soldier marched into the building for half an hour.
The notions of extended space and time become clearer when we see that they
prevent the acceptability of the following expression:
(10) *The soldier marched through the door for half an hour.
The point is that through the door could not refer to an extended space the way
into the building potentially could. We have to draw a distinction here between
unnatural and unacceptable. The example in (9) sounds unnatural, and although
it is possible to infer what kind of event it is used to refer to, it seems extremely
unlikely that speakers would phrase it in this way. In fact, this is just a possibility
to explore here, since such expressions are unconfirmed in our corpus data. Perhaps it is easier to come up with this expression in a situation where the internal
argument refers to a different kind of space (forest) and the whole scenario is
more transparent and straightforward to interpret, as in:
(11) The soldier marched deeper and deeper into the dark forest.
On the other hand, the expression in (10) is unacceptable, because the kind of
space that is referred to by the object of the preposition is not extended space and
therefore the whole expression is easily discarded as unlicensed. But once again, if
we use a plural noun instead, the expression becomes acceptable, as in: The soldiers marched through the door for half an hour.
We therefore reiterate the importance of both the external and internal argument in the study of lexicalization patterns. The extended time notion (extended
moment-of-change in this case) is present with plural subjects regardless of space
extension, and our notion of extended space is introduced only as a theoretical
possibility to account for the cases where some expressions with subjects in the
singular might be acceptable (cf. (11)), even though we cannot attest on this occasion how frequent and likely they are to occur. With prepositions that can be used
in both boundary-crossing and non-boundary-crossing situation types (like
across, over, or through), the constraint of extended time applies when they are
used to refer to a boundary-crossing situation, as in: The wounded stumbled
through the doorway for well over an hour. In clearly non-boundary-crossing
situations, there is no need for evoking extended space or extended time, since
there is no change of location expressed and the temporal phrase is that of nochange, as in He kept an eye on her as they ran across the field. 3
We will concentrate on some potentially problematic corpus examples that do
not necessarily involve any syntactic restrictions we have discussed in relation to
the prepositions we analyzed in this section, and will see how far our situation type
analysis can take us. We saw that the combinations of manner verbs in the simple
past and directional prepositions like into, out of and onto would normally be
used to refer to boundary-crossing/change-occurred situation types, except in
some restricted cases we just explained. We have to point out that in the case of
two clauses expressing parallel actions connected by while or when, it is easier to
decide on an interpretation than when the clauses are connected with as, because
as can mean both while and when. The following example (12) is an expression
of boundary-crossing/change-occurred. The space referred to by the object of the
preposition is unlikely to be construed as extended:
(12) Not much hope of that, muttered Adam as he bounced into the centre of the
ring.4
4. E.g. ?Adam bounced into the centre of the ring for 10 minutes.
occurred type (see examples (13) and (14)). Still, this is not so obvious in examples
(15), (16), and (17), because although the expression contains the verb file in the
simple past tense and the preposition into, as in examples (13) and (14), the structure that refers to two parallel events with the subject in the plural can potentially
indicate that the situation type referred to is actually that of boundary-crossing/
moment-of-change.
(13) After, two women filed into the dock, and with a whisper of mock modesty an
official suggested that I should leave the court as the case concerned prostitution.
(14) The five of them filed into a cab and were decanted outside the Hospitality Inn.
(15) The door closed, then Black turned to watch Mirandas face as the five men
filed into the adjoining room.
(16) [] all a little bit like a fairy tale, isnt it? she whispered as they filed into the
throne room with the other guests, and he nodded eagerly in reply.
(17) `It certainly is, Lindsey smiled, forbearing to mention that, as guests filed into
the reception lounge to be formally greeted by the captain and his deputy,
each couple would have handed their formal invitation card to a senior officer
and had their names discreetly murmured into the captains ear as the introductions were made.
The problem in (15)-(17) again lies in the meaning of as rather than anything else,
because it can be used in expressions that refer to two parallel actions (e.g. As we
walked along the river bank, we indulged in a pleasant conversation), or to two
actions that occur one after another (e.g. As I walked into the room, I saw her
standing by the window).5 There are reasons why these three examples have moment-of-change lexicalized rather than change-occurred. In (15), the use of the
verb watch indicates duration, meaning that the two activities (watching and filing into the room) were two parallel processes rather than two instants. Similarly,
in (16) and (17) multiple subjects as external arguments of the verb file induce the
understanding of the activities described as processes. Moreover, in the case of
(16) it seems strained to argue that the expression refers to the situation in which
the person whispered at exactly the same moment at which all the moving Figures
changed location (i.e. filed into the throne room). In the next example, however,
the interpretation is achieved with the help of the adverb finally and reinforced by
5. The issue does not arise when when or while are used instead. For example, the expression For Sartre, the journey came to a halt in 1956 when Soviet tanks rolled into Budapest obviously refers to a boundary-crossing/change-occurred situation type.
In the next example (20), the time clause introduced by as with the subject in the
singular refers to a boundary-crossing/moment-of-change situation because the
verb watch in the following clause implies duration and thus the motion expression shuffled into refers to a parallel durative action rather than a single instant.
The same situation type is illustrated with plural subjects in (21) and (22):
(20) As Ludovico shuffled into the kitchen, Constance waited fearfully on the landing.
(21) Then the front door was smashed and people streamed into the house for
what seemed an eternity.
(22) Although the opening parade was not due to start until noon, crowds thronged
into the Grounds of Eglinton Castle from early morning, everyone hoping for
a good place in the arena.
parametric differences are possible between languages, but contends that positing
combinatorial differences is unnecessary because a sentence in one language could
wear its logical structure on its face, i.e. providing in the overt syntax what is executed only abstractly in another, for example.6 Following that logic, we may say
that, while spatio-temporal information regarding events is always overtly marked
in Serbo-Croatian, it is covertly (or abstractly) marked in English. The combinatorics would be the same: the only difference between them could lie in how much is
actually heard (cf. Higginbotham (1995)). We have to ask one question here: what
is a learner or a translator to do then? Universalist-oriented scholars favor this UGinspired idea that parameters are covert in some languages and overt in some other
languages, but they are always underlyingly present (and as Higginbotham argues,
abstract presence counts equally). This does not help learners of English as a second
language or translators, who cannot do much with the knowledge that some operations in English are executed abstractly. Moreover, we argue that entrenchment of
lexicalization patterns has a profound effect on: a) habitual presence or absence of
information, b) use, productivity and frequency of processes and constructions,
and c) crosslinguistic engendering of language-specific narrative style. It is not just
a matter of major or minor lexical parametric differences. They are important in
crosslinguistic comparisons, but they are not the whole story.
Another proposal may come from theorists who contend that certain inferences (e.g. aspect-related phenomena) could only be drawn in contexts larger than
a sentence, which is the level at which we chose to operate here. We agree that
broader context has an important role to play in the understanding of individual
expressions (and we touch upon it in 5.4.4.), but we also suggest other pathways to
interpretation, via default meanings established through frequency of use and conventionalized scenarios. We did not choose the sentence level solely out of practicality, but because we established that corpus examples of sentences containing
motion expressions actually proved to be informative enough for our purposes.
We must bear in mind that our situation types are based on perceptual factors.
The flexibility of the human mind to construe the same spaces as either boundaries
or locations is evident although not always reflected in language in cases in which
a particular language does not obligatorily mark these distinctions. We illustrated
how a situation type can be individuated in a great number of cases in order to
achieve the right interpretation and translation into languages that offer different
lexicalization means depending on what spatio-temporal information needs to be
6. Cf. Higginbotham (1995) on quantifier scope in Hungarian and English. A man went into
every store is ambiguous in English, but not in Hungarian because surface order determines
relative scope. For Higginbotham, the difference is parametric and English and Hungarian show
no difference in their combinatorics.
The partial acceptability of (23c), for which the Path is only moderately longer
than the perpendicular axis, suggests that the relative length feature of the across
schema permits some stretching of its basic specification. But the unacceptability of (23d) shows, in Talmys opinion, that it cannot be stretched too far (ibid.).
Talmy also mentions some peculiarities about the use of across. Across is
used in expressions of motion whereby the Figures Path begins at one edge, lies on
(or covers the space above) the surface, and ends at the farther edge of the Grounds
bounded plane. This is illustrated by the usual understanding of sentences like
The shopping cart rolled across the street, and The tumbleweed rolled across the
field in one hour (ibid.). But one or more components of this schematic feature
can be suspended or cancelled when they conflict with other specifications in the
sentence. So the final component (the end of the Path) is dropped in the following
example: The shopping cart rolled across the street and was hit by an oncoming
car. Comparably, the boundedness of the across schema is canceled by an indicator of open-endedness for one hour together with the fact that a prairies great size
places its boundaries outside of the tumbleweeds hour-long trek: The tumbleweed rolled across the prairie for an hour.
Talmy mentioned two of the factors, the object of the preposition and time
adverbials, which he termed indicators of open-endedness and which are decisive for achieving the right interpretation of an expression. We discuss the importance of the objects of the preposition and temporal adverbials as well, but we also
include analysis of complex sentences connected by different conjunctions,
verbs+multiple PPs, potential to include defaults and conventionalized scenarios
as well as narrative setting in interpretation of motion expressions.
5.4.1 Object of the preposition
There should not be any doubt that speakers can differentiate between boundarycrossing and non-boundary-crossing, as well as between change-occurred and nochange type. Obviously, if a distinction is not clearly drawn in a language, it might
lead us to the conclusion that it is not relevant for the speakers of that language.
However, we believe that some differences, for example the difference between
change-occurred and no-change, are based on perceptually extremely salient distinctions and are left unspecified in language only when it does not matter for the
consequences of the event itself. For example, imagine that an English speaker produces the following sentence: I ran across the meadows. The speaker could be construing the meadows as a boundary or a location. We cannot know on the basis of
this simple sentence. This is a contrived example and we emphasize again that such
simple, out-of-context sentences are extremely rare in the corpus. Even in everyday
communication, if we stop to think about it, we can see that people do not
communicate using bare, uncontextualized clauses. Our claim is that we may not
know what the speakers perceptual or emotional construal of the situation was, so
we have to be able to infer our interpretation based on his linguistic construal.If this
were not possible, and if this underspecification were such an omnipresent phenomenon concerning motion expressions in English, then translation into languages like
Serbo-Croatian would depend exclusively on the choice of the translator and his
preference for perfective or imperfective verbs. This is not the case. For example, it
is not necessary to specify whether the speaker was referring to a change-occurred
or no-change phrase in They stumbled over the uneven ground, because the following clause specifies that the location had definitely been changed:
(24) They stumbled over the uneven ground and plunged, half-laughing, into the
entrance of the cave.
The example leaves an option to interpret the uneven ground as a barrier that was
overcome, or a location where the motion event took place (i.e. in the sense of
They stumbled over the uneven ground for a while and then plunged into the
cave). When the direct object explicitly expresses a boundary to be crossed, this
problem does not arise (e.g. The door flung open and Sarah stumbled over the
threshold). In (24) we interpret the former expression on the basis of the latter (i.e.
they must have crossed the uneven ground since they ended up at a different location afterwards). We would assume that if the speaker wanted to direct the hearers
attention to the process of overcoming the boundary, he would have emphasized
the process features of the activity (by using a different tense or an adverbial modifier) instead of just simply reporting how the Figures changed locations.
In English, it seems that not every part of the event chain needs to be specified
as to what phase of motion an expression refers to, whereas in Serbo-Croatian it is
done by default due to consistent morphological rules. Speakers of Serbo-Croatian
need to lexicalize temporal features of every portion of an event or a chain of
events, because that conditions the choice of verbs and verb forms. The equivalent
of the expression in (24) in Serbo-Croatian would contain an imperfective manner
verb if it is understood as a non-boundary-crossing situation type, and a perfective
directional (because an adequate perfective manner verb is not available) if it is
understood as a boundary-crossing one.
English speakers definitely have the means to specify whether they refer to the
uneven ground in (24) as a boundary or as a location (by further modifying the
verb+particle combination), but they would not do it unless a real communication
necessity exists. The expression of the latter situation type (and plunged into the
entrance of the cave) induces the interpretation of the former as boundary-crossing/change occurred. It is true that the same means (verb+particle) can be used to
express both boundary-crossing and non-boundary crossing events (as in stumbled
across), but it is also true that such combinations do not come as such, bare and
without surrounding elements that signal the intended interpretation. Using corpus data helped us realize that such combinations, often deemed problematic, ambiguous or unspecified, are actually not pervasive. We focused on the hearers perspective, especially if the hearer is a speaker of a typologically different language.
Further research into default meanings and frequency of use of particular
verb+particle combinations will help us learn more about the linguistic and communicative strategies that native speakers of English employ when they lexicalize
motion in what seems to non-native speakers to be an ambiguous way. Since this
was not the object of our study, we do not expatiate on these issues within English,
but we discuss some of them in this chapter (cf. our discussion of examples (31)(32) in this section and also section 5.4.3.). Native speakers of Serbo-Croatian and
Spanish, when translating from English, will be attuned to and will expect cues for
one or the other meaning as soon as possible in the message (i.e. expression).
We will now focus on how the interpretation is facilitated by the object of the
preposition. The situation in (25) is obviously boundary-crossing/change-occurred:
(25) She stumbled over the threshold.
Unlike the uneven ground in (24), the threshold in (25) is more likely to be conceived of as a boundary. Similarly, the next example contains an expression that
most naturally refers to boundary-crossing/change-occurred situation type because border is less likely to be construed as a location:
(26) We drove across the Belgian border at Aachen, stopped at a service station
about 30 miles from Brussels, and slept in the cab.
Similarly obvious is the use of through in He bobbed through the door, because
of what the object of the preposition refers to, i.e. the nature of the boundary expressed. When the noun following the preposition refers to a kind of space that
can also be a location of motion, as in He ran through the house, the interpretation is likely to be potentially indeterminate between non-boundary-crossing/nochange: He ran through the house all day looking for some old photos and
boundary-crossing/change-occurred: He ran through the house and ended up in
the back garden. The reason for this is that house can be seen as extended space
and not necessarily a boundary, whereas door is clearly more easily interpretable
as a boundary.
Again, the next two examples contain the same verb+particle combination,
whereby the interpretation is achieved after it is established that the object of the
preposition in the former example (27) designates a location rather than a boundary, whereas the object of the preposition in the latter example (28) clearly refers
The following examples (29) and (30) are an illustration of non-boundary-crossing/no-change, the nouns following the preposition designating a space that is a
location rather than a boundary:
(29) A Catholic friend had pointed him out as he hurried through the streets with
a small boy at his side, clutching a worn black leather bag probably answering a sick call, his friend had suggested.
(30) [] currently Vasilariov was being scarred by some of its own weapons as
Harq Obispal raged through the hive like an angry bear.
with an expression (e.g. The man swam to the island.) together with pictures or
video depictions of the situation, whereby two opposing scenes are depicted: one
in which the man swam and reached the island and the other where he swam towards but did not reach the island. Native speakers of English unanimously chose
boundary-reaching/change-occurred stimuli, i.e. the one depicting the man reaching the island.7 Fong contends that the reason for ambiguity in this case is that to
is ambiguous for some speakers. To what extent this is so is yet to be established
with accuracy, because as our corpus and experimental examples demonstrate,
speakers seem to have less difficulty with this kind of expressions than linguists
give them credits for. We also found examples in which to is clearly not used in a
boundary-reaching context:
(32) Indeed, the injured man did not even know he had been bitten until the water
turned red as he swam to shore.
The meaning of to does not seem to indicate boundary-reaching in (32) and the
situation type referred to would be non-boundary-crossing/no-change, because
the water did not turn red when the Figure reached the shore but rather while he
was swimming towards it. The conjunction as further reinforces the interpretation of the motion event as processual (i.e. two parallel actions are expressed, a
man swimming while the water was turning red). A thorough frequency analysis
could provide clearer insights into how often speakers mean towards when they
use to and in what constructional environments.
5.4.2 Sentence complex
We noticed that certain features of a sentence structure facilitate the determination of the temporal phase in a motion expression and that certain others make it
more difficult. In addition to (and often in combination with) the interpretation of
the object of the preposition, we need to consider the immediate context where a
motion expression is inserted. A particular difficulty occurs in cases in which motion situation types were a part of a larger sentential environment created by the
conjunction as. The same conjunction created difficulties for us in 5.3. We will
discuss a number of examples in order to provide a more in-depth analysis of how
the difficulties could be dealt with. In (33) we see that although the expression of
motion can potentially refer to boundary-crossing, it does not, because the clause
that follows indicates that the expression refers to a non-boundary-crossing/nochange situation type (two parallel processes).
7.
(33) Carrie hurried through the evening street and Fred struggled to keep up with
her.
Curiously, the next example contains the same verb+particle combination (drove
through) as (34), but it is used in a construction that refers to two parallel events,
in which case the expression of motion can potentially refer to either change-occurred or moment-of-change:
(35) Rain spattered against the windscreen as Fenn drove through the tall iron
gates.
If the conjunction as is taken to mean when (e.g. Rain spattered against the
windscreen when Fen drove through the tall iron gates), the interpretation would
more likely be that of boundary-crossing/change-occurred. If it is taken to mean
while, (e.g. Rain spattered against the windscreen while Fen drove through the
tall iron gates), the situation type referred to should be that of boundary-crossing/
moment-of-change. Furthermore, if we could imagine a situation when the moving Figure (Fenn) drove through a number of gates (e.g. a number of gates in a row
on a big estate) and the rain spattered all the way, than we have a situation type
which is non-boundary-crossing/no-change, which would presumably be the least
likely interpretation (such a scenario being very uncommon). The verb spatter
with the external argument the rain probably does not refer to a single instantiation of spatter, but a process instead. Our knowledge of the world tells us what
spattering of rain looks like. It is because of this depiction of a process in the preceding clause that we interpret the motion expression in the following as boundary-crossing/moment-of-change. The difficulty with examples containing clauses
introduced by as is encountered yet again in (36), accompanied with the problematic manner verb+multiple PP combination (blow+ across+ to):
(36) A cardboard box banged her knees as she blew across the road to where an old
lady was hopping on the spot and poking at a plastic bag on her foot.
She blew across the road on its own can refer to a boundary-crossing/changeoccurred situation type. Is the road a boundary or a location? Is to understood
as towards or not? We can say that the usual way to carry a cardboard box is with
both hands in the position parallel to the chest. It is impossible to see how a box
carried in such a way could repeatedly bang the carriers knees. Therfore, we could
argue that the expression in (36) refers to a single bang that occurred when the
moving Figure reached the other side of the road and lowered the box to the knee
level. This interpretation seems to require much more reading into it and harder to
reach than the alternative one. Imagine that the box was being carried on a string
(which is also a way to carry boxes) and suddenly it seems more likely that the
banging of knees happened while the Figure was crossing the boundary (i.e. while
blowing across the road), not when she reached the other side.
In (37) and (38), the objects of the prepositions are more likely to be interpreted as locations rather than boundaries and the conjunction as is less likely to
cause problems in interpretation. Therefore the whole expressions refer to nonboundary-crossing/no-change situation types. It is is more difficult to construe
grass or a field as a boundary, as shown in the following two examples:8
(37) The Headmaster still had on his gown and he flapped in the wind like a bat as
he charged across the grass.
(38) She enjoyed his company as they ran across the field.
In (39) we can notice that the clause following the motion expression reinforces
the interpretation of non-boundary-crossing/no-change:
(39) That evening Holmes and I drove across the moor until we could see the lights
of the Stapletons house in front of us.
The context that follows seems to resolve the interpretation of the following example (boundary-crossing/change-occurred):
(41) The white queen rolled under the table and was not found for several weeks.
8. Cf. Talmy (1988: 179) for the importance of bounded/unbounded space (e.g. We flew over
water vs. We flew over a sea).
9. The only exceptions are some verbs prefixed by PRO- that can refer to movement at a certain location for a certain period of time (chapter 6).
10. Bybee, Perkins and Pagliuca (1994) have made an observation concerning the English simple past tense: although the simple past encompasses various aspects including perfective,
habitual and progressive the default correlation is between perfective and simple past (ibid.:
ch.3.11).
them might provide a fresh look at some old problems. The underlying justification
for studying defaults in general is aptly phrased in Jaszczolt (1999: 272):
Defaults are less obvious to a researcher who lists the possible interpretations.
These defaults are only obvious when one realises how little has to be said for the
hearer to pick out the referent correctly.
The idea of default meanings in lexical semantics has been explored mainly in the
domain of categorization. Prepositional meanings, for example, are often subject
to different categorization practices (prototypes, clusters, networks, etc.). However, being aware of the networks of prepositional meaning, based on any classification criteria, is only a part of the complex picture of domain lexicalization and the
search for adequate translation. Consider the following example:
(44) The bottle floated through the pipe.
expressions, consisting only of very few components, taken out of context, are not
the best examples to illustrate the way of conveying meaning in a language, but
such examples are used for the purpose of seeing the extent to which it is possible
to single out the decisive elements in the structure and define their potential.As we
saw in the algorithm for English, certain verbs and VPs have the potential to induce
interpretation easily, unlike some others.
Another detail seems to be of consequence for the Serbo-Croatian speaker
here: if the expression is interpreted as a reference to a non-boundary-crossing/
no-change situation, an unprefixed (imperfective) manner verb can be used. But if
the interpretation is boundary-crossing/change-occurred, and there is a prefixed
(perfective) manner verb where the prefix expresses the desired direction, it will
be used. Since there is a cline in prefix use, and the verb expressing manner cannot
be prefixed by the relevant prefix (e.g. * proplutati through-float is not found),
a deictic verb (e.g. otplutati from the speaker/scene-float) is used (because they
are the most numerous and could combine with all prepositions), most often adding a piece of information not found in the original.A directional verb is another
alternative with Manner either expressed in an adjunct or omitted because it is
predictable (e.g. the verb proi pass through is used).
Only two examples ((45) and (46)) in our corpus data provide very simple
sentential context and apparently make it impossible to establish the reference to a
single situation type:
(45) Five Norwegians skied over the beautiful white snow.
One interpretation could be that the skiers did not cross any boundary, and another interpretation could be that they passed over the beautiful white snow and
then hit some snow that was not so beautiful and white, but rather a brown and
mushy patch. Native speakers seem to opt more for the non-boundary-crossing
interpretation, and when they are asked to put this expression in a broader context, most of them added an adverbial phrase to the effect of all day long, or all
morning.12 The fact that there are multiple subjects performing the activity could
potentially induce the non-boundary-crossing interpretation, together with the
obvious unboundedness of the Ground element (snow). In this case, however, a
broader context is necessary to establish precisely what the situation type was. The
preposition over can be used both in boundary-crossing and non-boundarycrossing situations, and the beautiful white snow can be seen as a boundary to be
crossed or as a location. In such cases, we are certain that the speaker had one or
the other meaning in mind, and it is the hearers inference that we should examine
further. One way of doing so is by introducing default inferences, whereby it can be
12. Tested on 10 English native speakers, all Cambridge University graduates.
assumed that the most likely interpretation would be the default one unless evidence to the contrary is given. Default inferences could be based on the frequency
of use, e.g. how often certain VP combinations occur, whether boundary or location interpretations are more common in certain cases and how conventionalized
the scenarios are that are lexicalized by those VP combinations. Shibatani (1973)
explains how conventionalized scenarios license certain expressions in language
and condition their interpretation (cf. chapter 7). In the case of example (45) the
default inference can be that a non-boundary-crossing/no-change situation type is
expressed, because in the provisionally termed skiing scenario, the white snow is
where the activity of skiing unfolds, not a boundary that skiers have to overcome.
Further psycholinguistic experimental evidence should throw more light on default inferences and the input that is necessary in order to process the intended
meaning of the speaker.13 So we contend that most of the expressions of motion
clearly refer to one situation type, and it is specified on different levels depending
on the meaning of different elements and their combinations (verbs, prepositions,
nouns or noun phrases, adverbials) with respect to the relevant features of motion
events they express (combined to create the situation types), and the interpretation is achievable on a sentence level.
The other example that seems hard to interpret within the situation type analysis is the following:
(46) The dog ran under the table.
How are we to determine what situation type such an expression refers to? It could
refer to either boundary-crossing/change-occurred, or non-boundary-crossing/
no-change. This, in effect, would depend on the kind of event the speaker was describing. In this case there are three possibilities:
i. the dog was located under the table and ran there
ii. the dog was somewhere else and ran under the table (and stayed there)
iii. the dog passed under the table running.
Presumably, the speaker would know what kind of event (s)he had in mind, but
how is the listener/translator to know on the basis of this expression? Speakers
seem to be confirming the assumption that some defaults are justifiably posited.
Since the expression can obviously be used to express very different events, we
cannot say that the distinctions are not drawn in this expression because they are
not relevant for the event. When we communicate, we tend to locate and follow
the Figure in both space and time. Moreover, this kind of indeterminacy would
cause a frequent misunderstanding in communication, which does not seem to
13. We argue throughout our study that the quantity and quality of this input varies across
languages and across lexicalized experiential domains.
It seems that knowledge about the world, together with knowledge of the typical
contexts in which verbs and constructions are used, as well as the frequencies of
particular constructions and combinations of lexical items, could be decisive in the
interpretation of expressions that can potentially be used to express very different
events, and thus make some interpretations more likely (i.e. defaults). A future direction of investigation could lie in checking frequency effects of all verb+particle combinations (e.g. how often is run+under used and understood to mean i., ii. or iii?).
How do speakers and hearers resolve this in conversation? We argue that the speaker definitely has one construal in mind (e.g. i., ii. or iii. in the case of (46)). However,
the expression as such has the potential to be mapped onto more than one situation
type by the hearer. Could it be that this is simply a case of polysemy, whereby the
same form can have different mappings onto two different situation types? This is
not an uncommon way of looking at word meanings in lexical semantics in some
instances. Alternatively, could it be the case that certain languages do not seem to
provide speakers and/or hearers with the means to express these differences on all
occasions, even though we argued that they are relevant and in our opinion define
the crucial spatial and temporal qualities of the situations described?
Although we suggested a number of steps to follow within the algorithm for
English in order to achieve the right interpretation, it is still not an all-encompassing outline of what happens in language use. Typically, the indeterminacy can be
resolved in one of the ways discussed in this chapter. On the other hand, perhaps
we are asking too much from a model, namely, expecting an explanation as to why,
on certain occasions, a system (English) does not make the relevant distinctions at
14. Other authors state that the status of under is unresolved and quote examples similar to
our (62): The mouse ran under the table, or The bottle floated under the bridge (cf. Fong and
Poulin (1998) and Levin and Rappaport Hovav (1995)).
the sentence level or below. Recent psycholinguistic evidence from the count/mass
domain suggests that even though the relevant distinctions are not made in Japanese, Japanese speakers make the same count/mass distinctions in verbal tasks (in
this case, similarity judgments on words and substitution errors in picture naming), just like English speakers (Iwasaki, Vinson and Vigliocco (in preparation)).
Similarly, English speakers know what they are referring to when they utter an
expression (if we are correct in defining our situation types as perceptual), but the
interesting thing would be to account for the hearers interpretation, especially in
cases where verb+particle combinations can be used in expressions of all three
situation types. We are not offering a definitive solution here, and are very much
looking forward to more psycholinguistic evidence of processing such expressions,
both by native speakers and language learners. Spatio-temporal inferences need
further probing, whereby the focus will be on the receiver of the message (especially one that speaks a different mother tongue) and the amount of information
(s)he needs in order to draw inferences regarding the spatio-temporal information
offered by the speaker. We selected the sentence as the unit in our study, but we by
no means want to imply that this is the necessary and sufficient context for communicating all the relevant situation type details in all the languages. The search
can start with the sentence as a minimal unit of analysis, but then it could lead, as
is the case in English, to exploring other contextual cues, when necessary. Potential areas to explore further are the immediate context (preceding and following),
as well as the general narrative scene setting, which could offer cues for interpretation. The point is, however, that if the speaker deems a piece of information, or a
contrast, extremely relevant, this will be highlighted, and an extra effort will be put
into drawing the distinction (e.g. by using past progressive, as a marked tense in
narrative, as in They were marching into the building, but then they stopped, so
not all of them managed to get in). However, if the speaker can achieve the same
effect by using a more economical, energy-efficient form (e.g. stick to the simple
past in narrative) or perhaps by considering the previous (or immediately following) contextual cues, this will be the preferred option. Translating a non-boundary-crossing situation from English into Serbo-Croatian or Spanish would cause
reorganization of information from the original because of the restricted use of
manner verbs, resulting in foregrounding of Manner in an adjunct. Languages
such as Serbo-Croatian or Spanish are not problematic in this sense, because the
use of verbs clearly indicates which situation type is expressed.
5.4.4 Narrative context
Since we have taken our analysis as far as the sentence level, we do not intend to
analyze narrative factors that could contribute to the interpretation of verbalized
events. Our corpus search did not present us with broader contextual information
beyond the kind of complex sentences we used as examples in this section. Nevertheless, we also pointed out in the previous section that two examples from the
corpus appeared without a broader, complex sentence context, which made it
more difficult to interpret them. We can conclude that the use of simple, underdetermined sentences, leaving open the possibility for the hearer to guess if change
of location occurred or not in a motion event, is not common in written or spoken
lexicalization of motion events in English. Nevertheless, it is possible that even a
complex sentential context can leave us wondering what situation type an expression refers to and imagining what the most likely scenario could be. In (48) we
have a complex sentence, but the interpretation of the temporal phase seems hard
to determine (moment-of-change or change-occurred):
(48) Carol was giggling insanely and Melissa was still trying to pull her jumper
down over her unruly, but perfectly formed, breasts as they ran across the
road to the van.
easily than when a single expression is given, and consequently opt for an adequate
form more readily when translating into a Slavic language. We take an example
from Danchev (1992: 329). When submitted to informants (ibid.), the verb cross
in the expression Soldiers crossed the street can be translated into Bulgarian (another morphologically complex language) by both perfective and imperfective
verbs, and the choice varied depending on the expansion of context. For the reason of concatenation of consecutive events, all the informants chose the perfective
form in the following cue: A siren wailed somewhere in the distance. Then a dog
chased a cat into a passage. Soldiers crossed the street. The imperfective form was
more readily chosen in the following narrative context: Sirens wailed in the distance, dogs barked in the garden and soldiers crossed the street. Danchev argues
that things evidently boil down to quantification made more explicit so as to allow an unambiguous single or multiple event reading of the respective texts
(ibid.). As we showed in chapter 3, it is not necessarily quantification that is decisive for the choice of perfective vs. imperfective verb (at least not in some Slavic
languages, e.g. Serbo-Croatian or Russian). These examples just show that expressions with plural external arguments and particles that have both directional and
locational reading can elicit different verb choices in Bulgarian. They do not tell us
anything about English aspectuality per se. We know now how native speakers of
Bulgarian (and perhaps other Slavic languages) react to examples such as Soldiers
crossed the street. What is the reaction of English native speakers? We already
introduced a simple experimental task in the case of our example The man swam
to the shore in chapter 3, whereby native speakers opted for a boundary-reaching/
change-occurred interpretation rather than non-boundary-crossing/no-change.
Perhaps there is one interpretation that is favored in English, which could differ
from case to case, i.e. the default meaning being different for different individual
V+PP combinations. This default may then be overridden in context. Therefore,
the relevance of context in English might be greater if seen through the eyes of speakers of languages in which such distinctions are explicitly drawn via morphology
(Slavic) or verb choice (directional vs. manner verb in Spanish) than for native speakers. We can also choose to say that the distinctions we are discussing here are latent/covert/abstract in English, but our analysis does not benefit from this. Instead, we chose to deal not with categories and facets of individual linguistic
systems but rather with universal experience of and interaction with space that
affects the experience of temporality (in the sense of the inner temporal contour of
events, traditionally aspect, not tense). This is our version of spacetime continuum,
represented in our situation type network.
Danchev (1992) focused on iterativity (which we do not tackle at present), arguing against a monosentential approach to aspectuality in general and in favor
of recognizing the broader context for the purpose of explicitation of aspectual
meanings (ibid.). Our sentential approach was not only practical, but also managed to cover a lot of ground. We never claimed that we can account for absolutely
all occurrences, but we detected principles and mechanisms that could help us understand how to carry out a crosslinguistic study efficiently and reliably. We acknowledge that some further understanding of the spatio-temporal intricacies of
events in reality and their verbalized counterparts crosslinguistically could come
from further exploration of narrative setting. For verbalized motion events, the
unit could be that of a journey in terms of Slobin, as we discussed in chapter 2.
Nevertheless, we showed that the sentential level is gratifyingly informative and
offers numerous clues in English when it comes to understanding situation type
references. The spatio-temporal network in terms of situation types is still valid as
a neutral tool because it unites perceptually relevant spatial and temporal features
which are likely to be salient across a great number of languages and prove useful
in comprehensive crosslinguistic contrasts. Further research into preferential, default interpretations and the frequencies of scenarios in reality that might motivate
the use and interpretation of lexicalizing expressions in a domain, as well as narrative patterns and narrative scene-setting crosslinguistically, may yet provide us with
more profound understanding of what other factors could contribute to better understanding of event verbalization. The interplay of experiential input, conceptual
processing and linguistic expression could truly be unified in this endeavor.
Summary
We argued in this chapter that our situation types are a useful matrix for lexicalization study within and across languages. We focused on the aspects of lexicalization
of motion events in English that are particularly difficult for non-native speakers.
The aim was to show that even though the relevant spatio-temporal distinctions
are not uniformly drawn in English in the way it is systematically done in SerboCroatian or Spanish for example, it is possible to determine which situation type is
described based on various constituents in a sentence and their combinations. The
fact that there are no morphological, syntactic or semantic restrictions (as is the
case in Serbo-Croatian and Spanish) could condition the use of manner verbs in
English; they combine freely with directional particles and are used to refer to all
situation types. Learning the rules of using tenses properly would not tell us very
much about the meaning of motion expressions. Lexical meanings of verbs also
offer limited information with respect to events in reality which they are involved
in lexicalizing. Verb+preposition combinations reveal more information about
our situation types, but they are not explicit enough because they also map onto
more than one situation type depending on the external and internal arguments in
the sentences. We saw that this is not an insurmountable problem, and listed the
ways in which it can be resolved. We emphasized that the spatio-temporal features
we proposed do not necessarily achieve systematic surface realization at the sentence level in all languages. The spatial notion of boundary and the temporal notion of change lie in the essence of our spatio-temporal network for verbalized
motion events, which are our motion situation types. We assume that these notions are universal, accessible to speakers of all languages. We also noticed that
typologically different languages can be contrasted on the basis of how their speakers talk about boundaries and changes in motion events. Perhaps the sentence
level is not the ideal universal platform for a contrastive lexicalization study. An
immediate example that springs to mind is Yucatec Mayan in which continuous
motion cannot be lexicalized in a single clause. Instead, when speakers of Yucatec
Mayan express change of location, they talk about a series of locations (cf. Bohnemeyer (1997)). The equivalent of He walked out of the house into the garden
would be something to the effect of He was at the house. Then he was in the garden. As a result, we may not be able to account for all the phenomena in all languages at one structural level (sentence), but we hope we have shown how it is a
good start to begin from universal features of a cognitive domain and move towards language-specific realization of those features on the lexical semantic, syntactic and morphological levels. We offered instructions that foreign language
learners, teachers and translators can use to systematically facilitate the grasp of
similarities and differences between the two languages, the latter of which frequently leads to difficulties and misunderstandings. We welcome further research
into habitual use of verb+particle combinations and constructions that feature in
the lexicalization of motion events, as well as other cognitive domains such as
posture or causation in order to pin down the trends and tendencies that are potentially universal (e.g. all languages habitually lexicalize Path of motion) as well as
those that are language-specific (e.g. some languages lexicalize Cause more often
and earlier in acquisition than others).
chapter 6
Unlike English, Russian uses morphologically simple verbs only for the activity
sense. In the accomplishment sense, the verbs form is morphologically complex,
including one of a range of directional prefixes indicating the goal of motion, as in:
(1) b. On ubeal
u komnatu.
He into- ran-PST-PFV-3SG-M into room-ACC
He ran into the room.
Levin and Rappaort Hovav conclude that in Russian, lexical semantic units of a
certain complexity cannot be associated with monomorphemic items (ibid: 257).
When verbs are semantically and morphologically related, the morphological devices used to signal such relations are associated with grammatically relevant components of meaning, such as aspectual classification (Levin and Rappaport Hovav
(1998a: 267)). However, this analysis hardly reveals anything about the relation
between lexical semantics and morphology. All the two authors present is the fact
that perfective forms are morphologically more complex than imperfective forms,
and that marking aspect is relevant for Russian. What it means for the whole system, what constraints (if any) can be seen in the lexicalization process and whether it can have further consequences for crosslinguistic comparisons are not indicated. This is what our study aims to show for Serbo-Croatian.
As demonstrated, English speakers can freely, and would most naturally, use
manner verbs in all situation types. In Serbo-Croatian, the choice of whether a
manner verb or a directional verb is to be used depends on whether a perfective or
an imperfective form of the verb is needed. Serbo-Croatian prefixed manner verbs
are used in cases in which change-occurred is expressed:
(2) Utrao
je
u
sobu.
Into-run-PST-PFV-3SG-M be-COP into room.
He ran into the room.
This is possible in cases in which an adequate prefixed verb exists, i.e. when the
relevant verb can be prefixed by the prefix that expresses the desired direction. If
the verb does not exist, an OD-/DO- verb is used:
(3)
Poto su
se
naekale napolju,
one su
After be-COP REFL waited a lot outside, they be-COP
najzad dobatrgale
unutra.
finally to-the-speaker/scene-lumber-PST-PFV-3PL-f inside.
After they had waited a lot outside, they finally lumbered inside.
In translations where an adequate manner verb does not exist in the target language,
a directional or a semantically simpler manner verb is used, as in example (4), which
is the repeated example (8) from chapter 4, and example (5) respectively:
(4)
(5)
As I ambled into the bar I decided to make my last stop for the night.
Kad sam
uetao
besciljno u bar,
When be-COP into-stroll-PST-PFV-3SG-M aimlessly into bar,
odluio
sam
da to bude moja poslednja stanica
decide-PST-PFV-3SG-M be-COP that this be-PRS my
last
stop
te noi.
that night.
When I walked into the bar aimlessly, I decided it would be my last stop that
night.
are also perfective at the same time. Imperfective directional verbs are different
from imperfective manner verbs because they do not seem to be related to their
perfective equivalents in the same way in which imperfective manner verbs are:1
(6) Ulazio
je
u
kuu puzei.
Enter-PST-IPFV-3SG-M be-COP into house crawling.
He was crawling into the house.
An important distinction we have pointed out earlier, but we feel we have to get
back to at this point, is that of directional vs. locational.There are cases where nonboundary-crossing/ no-change meaning is preserved in Serbo-Croatian in certain
expressions, but the meaning conveyed in the expression, due to the different case
of the object of the preposition, can be either directional or locational.The preposition u (into) can be used in boundary-crossing and non-boundary-crossing expressions, but when used with an imperfective manner verb, the situation type
referred to is always non-boundary-crossing/no-change. The distinction that is
decided by the case of the object of the preposition is that of directional vs. locational, and is marked by the case form of the object of the preposition as follows
(cf. example (8) in 3.3. and (2c) & (2d) in chapter 4):
(8) Trao
je
u kolu.
Run-PST-IPFV-3SG-M be-COP into school-ACC
He ran towards the school.
(9) Trao
je
u sobi.
Run-PST-IPFV-3SG-M be-COP in room-LOC
He ran in/inside the room.
Cf. chapter 3.
In the following examples we illustrate how sometimes the difference in meaning is drawn in expressions depending on what comes after the verb: direct object
or preposition+ object of the preposition. Talmy (2000: 127) claims that if the direct object is used, the idea of overcoming an obstacle is more salient:
(10) a. Preplivao
je
reku.
Across-swim-PST-PFV-3SG-M be-COP river-ACC
He swam the river.
b. Preplivao
je
preko reke.
Across-swim-PST-PFV-3SG-M be-COP across river-GEN
He swam across the river.
There are examples where this salience is more prominent in Serbo-Croatian. For
example, the verb pretrati (across-run or 'along-run') can be followed by either
a direct object or a preposition + object of the preposition. The example (10c) can
have two interpretations, whereas (10d) can only have one interpretation:
(10) c.
Pretrao
je
ulicu.
Across-run-PST-PFV-3SG-M be-COP street-ACC
He ran the whole length of the street.
or He ran across the street.
d. Pretrao
je
preko ulice.
Across-run-PST-PFV-3SG-M be-COP across street-GEN
He ran across the street.
The possibility of the expression in (10c) to refer to an event where a Figure covers
the whole length of the street running comes from the fact that the noun in the
accusative case can refer to either axis of the object (in this case the length or the
width of the street). And this dual interpretation is more likely if the direct object
refers to a street than if it refers to a river, because, on the basis of our knowledge
about the world, it seems easier to imagine a situation in which somebody ran
from one end of the street to the other length-wise, than the situation in which
somebody swam from the beginning to the end of a river!2 Still, native speakers
opted for the latter interpretation in (10c) as the preferred one, and the former,
which lexicalizes the length axis of the street, although possible, was not favoured.3
2. A Slovenian swimmer, Martin Strel, actually brings this less likely scenario to life by swimming the length of the Amazon, Danube, Mississippi and Yangtze. This unique scenario is an
exception.
3. Native speakers (20) were shown pictures that represented both interpretations of example
(10c) in writing and had to choose which one the expression referred to. The width axis was the
preference of 17 speakers.
Some speakers admitted that it would have been clearer that the expression referred to running the length of the street if it contained the word celu (whole) in
front of the word ulica (street):
(10) e. Pretrao
je
celu
ulicu.
Along-run-PST-PFV-3SG-M be-COP whole-ACC street-ACC
He ran the whole length of the street.
Types
118
118
43
43
41
20
5
3
391
Tokens
423 (31.9%)
396 (29.9%)
169 (12.7%)
117 (8.8%)
135 (10.2%)
74 (5.6%)
10 (0.7%)
2 (0.2%)
1326 (100%)
The interpretation of the prefix PRO- (through or past) is resolved by the prepositions
that normally follow PRO-verbs, which are different depending on this difference in meaning.
For convenience, PRO1- (directional) and PRO2- (locational) data are given together since this
does not affect the point we are making.
Doskakao
je
uz stepenice
To-the-speaker/scene-jump-PST-PFV-3SG-M be-COP up stairs
u
devojinu sobu.
into girls
room.
He jumped up the stairs into the girls room.
c) they habitually express deixis (a strong feature in Serbo-Croatian lexicalization and narrative pattern):
(14)
To je rekao i
oteturao
He said that and from-the-speaker/scene-stagger-PST-PFV-3SG-M
se u gostinjsku sobu.
REFL into guest
room.
He said that and staggered away into the guest room.
(Note that uteturati into-stagger exists).
In this way, a speaker of Serbo-Croatian would more often than not provide information related to his/her position, or have a referent other than the Figure that is
moving. The frame of reference in Serbo-Croatian seems to be in most cases a
relative one. Saeed (2001: 173) argues that deictic devices in a language commit a
speaker to set up a frame of reference around herself , and he gives examples of
Somali, where the two deictic morphemes (soo towards the speaker, and sii
away from the speaker) combine freely with verbs (ibid.: 176). We noticed the
complete freedom in the combination of deictic OD-/DO- prefixes with verbs in
Serbo-Croatian. This, in effect, brings this argument to Levinson (e.g. (1999a),
(1999b), (2003)), who studies a number of diverse (and less commonly discussed)
languages. The concept of the frame of reference, mainly based on Gestalt theories
of perception is a unit or organization of units that collectively serve to identify
appears to be favored, which a study of manipulating objects in space has demonstrated (Carroll 1999).4
The analysis of deictic and other directional prefixes in Serbo-Croatian is aimed
at drawing attention to the fact that deixis constitutes an important part of the
lexicalization process. The deictic meaning of certain prefixes in Serbo-Croatian
has not been of much interest, and it is hardly ever mentioned in some major descriptions of the system of prefixes5. The cline in prefix use we established is a reliable indicator that the relative frame is a preferred option in Serbo-Croatian.
The term deictic derives from a Greek root meaning to show or to point.
Deictic uses cannot be accounted for by language alone, but require additional
knowledge of certain details of the interactional situation in which the utterances
are produced (Fillmore 1982: 35). Lyons (1999: 170) states that the essential
property of deixis [] is that it determines the structure and interpretation of utterances in relation to the time and place of their occurrence, the identity of the
speaker and the addressee, and objects and events in the actual situation of utterance. Several kinds of deixis have been distinguished (cf. Lyons (1991)), notably
person, place and time, prototypically represented in language by I, here, and
now. For example, in place deixis, understanding the uses of this and that or
here and there require knowing where the participants in a discourse are, relative to the objects in a scene. Similarly, Miller and Johnson-Laird (1976: 396) define place deixis as the linguistic system for talking about space relative to a
speakers egocentric origin and coordinate axes.
Some of the subtlety of deixis comes from the fact that many deictic terms can
be used non-deictically, especially intrinsically, such as front and left (Tversky
(1999: 466)). If one says The tent is in front of the boulder, one is using the term
front deictically. The boulder has no front side, so one is stating that the tent is
located between the speakers front side and the boulder. In that case, the
interlocutor(s) must know where the speaker is located and how the speaker is
oriented with respect to the boulder to understand what the speaker means. In
contrast, if one says My pack is in front of the tent, one can be using the term
front either deictically, as in the example with the boulder, or intrinsically, i.e.
with respect to the objects natural sides. Thus, for the intrinsic use, the speaker
meant that his/her pack is located near the front side of the tent (ibid.). The absolute (or extrinsic) case is the clearest. Absolute uses of language rely on an external
4. Note that we take a broad view on spatial deixis, whereby movement from or to the speaker
or scene-setting is considered deictic because it draws narrative attention of the listener/reader
towards assuming the position in focus (i.e. positioned at the location of the speaker/scene).
5. Not mentioned in some major studies of prefixes in Serbo-Croatian (e.g. Beli (1964),
Stevanovi (1989)).
We also found examples when an OD-/DO- verb is used, although it would have
been possible just to use the verb that is prefixed by a prefix that expresses the desired direction, without adding the deictic element, as in:
6. Studies in sign language could be evoked as an illustration of the overall presence and importance of deictic reference in motion lexicalization (cf. Slobin and Hoiting 1994).
(17)
Dotrao
je
u sobu.
To-the-speaker/scene-run-PST-PFV-3SG-M be-COP into room
gde su sedeli gosti.
where the guests were sitting
He ran into the room where the guests were sitting.
Note that utrati ('into-run') exists in Serbo-Croatian, but still a deictic verb
(dotrati) is used instead. Similarly, the verb uteturati (se) (into-stagger) exists,
but a deictic doteturati (se) is used instead in the following example:
(18)
Izvukao se
iz svog skrovita, i
He
sneaked out of his shelter, and
doteturao
se
u
selo.
to-the-speaker/scene-stagger-PST-PFV-3SG-M REFL into village.
He sneaked out of his shelter and staggered into the village.
The point here is that even when verbs signaling different directions (non-deictic)
exist in the language, a deictic verb can be used, and the direction specified in the
preposition, as illustrated in the example above. It is understandable that when
there is no verb prefixed by the directional prefix that is needed to express the desired direction, a verb prefixed by a deictic OD-/DO- prefix would be used. What
we emphasize here is that even when an adequate non-deictically prefixed manner
verb exists (as in (17) and (18)), a deictic OD-/DO- verb is still opted for more
often. Since those verbs are used more frequently than verbs prefixed otherwise,
an additional piece of information is frequently found in translation from a language that does not have deixis as a strong feature of the system (e.g. English) into
one that does (e.g. Serbo-Croatian). Therefore we find numerous examples where
no deictic reference is found in the original, but is found in the translation (cf.
Filipovi (1999)). The reason for this could be an incompetent translator, but it can
be shown that on a number of occasions the translation would be strained if a
deictic expression is introduced every time in a translation into a language which
does not favour deictic expressions (e.g. from Serbo-Croatian into English).
The following example illustrates the same point that although a verb prefixed
by U- (into) exists, it is not used here. Rather, a deictic verb is used, thus providing a piece of information regarding the position of the speaker or the focus of the
attention of interlocutors or readers.
(19)
Drugog dana je
dobasao
Second day be-COP to-the-speaker/scene-trudged-PST-PFV-3SG-M
u
umu.
into woods.
On the second day he trudged into the woods.
Uto je
dobrzao
Then be-COP to-the-speaker/scene-speed-PST-PFV-3SG-M
neko
kroz
vinograd.
someone through vineyard.
Then somebody quickly arrived through the vineyard.
(21)
Berina majka je
dobrzala
Beras mother be-COP to-the speaker/scene-speed-PST-PFV-3SG-f
iz
kuhinje i
otvorila vrata.
out of kitchen and opened door.
In that moment the bell rang and Beras mother arrived quickly from the
kitchen and opened the door.
(22)
We will now analyze the situations including movement away from the speaker or
from the point where the attention of the audience is focused, and see where the
potential difficulty lies for translating the expressions of such situations into English. For example:
(23)
The particle off is a possible equivalent for the deictic OD-, but when this particle
is used in a motion expression, it can create the impression that the movement was
sudden or abrupt, which the deictic prefix in the Serbo-Croatian verb can, but
does not necessarily express (cf. examples (23), (24) and (25)):
(24)
(25)
Here the speaker does not necessarily express that the movement was sudden, but
rather that the Figure moved from the place where the speakers focus was at the
time of event observation and/or verbalization. In this way, off can be said to
convey the meaning initial phase of the movement, which is, together with the
final phase of movement, one of the meanings conveyed by the OD-/DO- prefixes
respectively in Serbo-Croatian, and as observed rightly by Verkuyl (1999), an important feature of Slavic languages in general (i.e. expressing initial/final stage of
events). The use of the particle off in English (e.g. the combination
verb+off+directional particle) is not even nearly as commonly present as the deictic prefix OD- is in Serbo-Croatian. Therefore, it cannot be considered as a potential equivalent in cases where deictic meaning away from the speaker/scene is
expressed in Serbo-Croatian. It does not render the complexity of meanings expressed by the prefix OD- in Serbo-Croatian. If we wanted to say that perhaps the
boundary-reaching prepositions from and to in English could be potential
equivalents to OD- and DO- in Serbo-Croatian respectively, we find immediate
Otrao
je
preko polja
From-the-speaker/scene-run-PST-PFV-3SG-M be-COP across field
i kroz
umu u
susedno
selo.
and through woods into neighboring village.
He ran across the field and through the woods into the neighboring village.
If we try using the same verb (trati run) prefixed by a different prefix, for example one of the prefixes related to the prepositions that follow in the directional
7. Shull (2003) argues that in Russian, the prefix combines almost exclusively with a single
preposition (e.g. OT-with the preposition ot) or with a few principal prepositions, whereas
Czech prefixes combine more flexibly with a number of prepositions in more even distributions
(ibid.: 81). Renee Perelmutter (p.c.) confirms that this claim is too restrictive for Russian, and it
would be interesting to see whether prefixed verbs+prepositions combinations reveal similar
behavior in the context of motion expressions as those in Serbo-Croatian.
phrases after the verb (e.g. PRO-, which means through), the expression is no
longer acceptable:
(27)
*Protrao
je
kroz
umu
Through-run-PST-PFV-3SG-M be-COP through woods
u
susedno
selo.
into neighboring village.
He ran through the woods into the neighboring village.
Manner verbs prefixed otherwise than with OD-/DO- cannot freely accumulate
directional phrases. They can sometimes be followed by more than one directional phrase, but they still express an event whereby only one boundary was crossed,
e.g. normally a quick change of location, for example:
(28) Istrao
je
iz
sobe na terasu.
Out-run-PST-PFV-3SG-M be-COP out of room onto terrace.
He ran out of the room onto the terrace.
We shall go back to this type of example later when we discuss IZ-/U- verbs (cf.
6.3.). It is worth pointing out that many of the verbs which are found prefixed only
by OD-/DO- and no other prefix, especially those that are found only in dictionaries and not confirmed in the corpus data, are strongly marked stylistically infrequently used (especially not in spoken language) or obsolete. Examples have not
been found for a number of manner verbs found in the dictionary, mainly prefixed
by OD-/DO-, which are semantically complex or considered old-fashioned and
not used in modern language (e.g. dobangati come limping, or dobavrljati
come with difficulty, doverugati come dragging oneself; with great difficulty,
etc.). Despite this, our proposed prefixed cline remains valid, because the number
of verbs that can be prefixed by prefixes down the cline diminishes progressively
downwards even if we exclude those marked verbs. The claim we made earlier and
repeat here with a detailed analysis goes as follows: if there is a verb prefixed by
U- or PRE-, there must be an OD-/DO- verb, while the reverse is not the case. By
the same token, OD-/DO- verbs are used on many occasions in the corpus data
when the verb used could have been prefixed otherwise.
6.3 Other prefixes
The next group of prefixes most frequently found in prefixed verbs are IZ- (out)
and U- (into). The verbs prefixed by those prefixes cannot be followed by all prepositions, but they can still be followed by more prepositions than verbs prefixed by
PRO-, PRE-, NA- or POD-. The number of types for the verbs prefixed by IZ-/U-
is 43 each, and the number of tokens is 169 for IZ-verbs and 117 for U-verbs. The
prepositions that follow those verbs are iz (out of ), u (into), kroz (through)
and na(onto)8. These results do not come as a surprise, because those verb and
preposition combinations cover quite a lot of possible directions of motion in situation types that one can refer to because of their combinability with other prepositions as well. The numbers are not as high as those for OD-/DO- verbs, but are
higher than those for the prefixes further down the cline. Although the accumulation of directional expressions is not possible the way it is with OD-/DO- verbs, it
is possible to use more than one directional phrase with IZ-/U- verbs, but only in
cases in which the moving Figure crossed only one boundary, as in:
(29) Uleteo
je
u
sobu kroz
prozor.
Into-fly-PST-PFV-3SG-M be-COP into room through window.
He flew into the room through the window.
In (29) the point A (the starting point of motion) is gapped, the point B (where the
moving Figure ended up) is the room, and through the window refers to what is
sometimes termed the medium, i.e. a kind of obstacle, barrier or space that the
moving Figure goes through. Similarly, in example (28), the starting point A is a
room, and the final point B is a terrace, the two spaces being in direct, immediate
contact (the same as in (25)). These expressions refer to the crossing of a single
boundary and events of very short duration, and the two Ground elements are in
immediate contact. It is not the same accumulation of prepositional phrases that
we find with OD-/DO verbs.
The verbs prefixed by PRO- can be followed by the prepositions kroz
(through) and pored (past). The number of types is 41, and the number of tokens 135. PRO- verbs have a high number of types and tokens (almost as high as
those of IZ- and U- verbs) even though they do not combine with that many directional prepositions. This is possibly due to their dual capacity to be used in expressions of two distinct directed motion schemas: motion through a space and motion past a Ground object. If we attempt to use a verb prefixed by PRO- and
8. There are quite a few other prepositions that are found in motion expressions in SerboCroatian, which we are not discussing here (e.g. ispred (in front of), iza (behind), niz (along),
etc.). We had to limit our corpus and focus on the crucial data that reveal further contrasts
between English and Serbo-Croatian. Therefore, we took into account the prepositions that have
a corresponding prefix, thus covering a significant number of cases.
different directional prepositions (except either pored or kroz) and try to accumulate directional phrases, the expressions are unacceptable:
(30)
?Protrao
je
kroz
dnevnu sobu
Through-run-PST-PFV-3SG-M be-COP through lounge
u kuhinju.
into kitchen.
He ran through the lounge into the kitchen.
Instead, we would have to use two verbs for every portion of the Path9:
(31)
Protrao
je
kroz
dnevnu sobu i
Through-run-PST-PFV-3SG-M be-COP through lounge
and
utrao
u kuhinju.
into-run-PST-PFV-3SG-M into kitchen.
He ran through the lounge and ran into the kitchen.
Here are examples of different prepositions that can follow verbs prefixed by IZ-,
U-, and PRO-:
(32)
Iza ponoi
pijanci
su
se izvaljali
After midnight drunkards be-COP REFL out-roll-PST-PFV-3PL-M
na ulicu i krenuli prema kasarni.
onto street and went towards barracks.
After midnight drunkards rolled out onto the street and went towards the
barracks.
(33)
(34)
i
na kraju izjahao
kroz
otvorena dvorska
and in the end out-ride-PST-PFV-3SG-M through open
courts
vrata
door
and in the end he rode out through an open door of the court
iz kue na terasu,
pa odmah odatle siao u batu.
out of house onto terrace, then immediately from there descended into garden.
he put the mask onto his face again and ran out of the house onto the terrace, and then from there immediately went down into the garden.
(36)
uletjeli
su
neoekivano
into-fly-PST-PFV-3PL-M be-COP unexpectedly
iz unutranjosti butika
u prednju sobu.
out of inside clothes shop into front room.
they rushed unexpectedly out of the clothes shop into the front room.
(39) Proetali
su
svojim rodnim gradom.
Through-walk-PST-PFV-3PL-M be-cop their home town.
They walked around their hometown for a while.
The number of verbs found prefixed by PRE- in the dictionary is 20. The number
of tokens is 74. PRE-verbs combine normally with the preposition preko
(across/over).10 The PRE-verbs can also be followed by the prepositions na(onto)
or u (into), but are restricted in that the expression always refers to situations
whereby the Figure crosses (i.e. passes over/across something) onto the other side
of e.g. a river or a street, as in:
(40) Preplivao
je
na
drugu obalu.
Across-swim-PST-PFV-3SG-M be-COP onto other bank.
He swam across to the other side.
by other elements although gapped and this is why the preposition na ('onto') can
follow a PRE-verb. It would not be possible to use a verb prefixed with PRE- and
followed by the preposition na if this reference is not understood.
By the same token, if the Ground element is not gapped, we notice the impossibility of accumulating Ground elements and combining freely with different
prepositions is illustrated in the following example:
(41) a. *Pretrao
je
ulicu u
komijinu bastu.
Over-run-PST-PFV-3SG-M be-COP street into neighbors garden.
He ran across the street into the neighbors garden.
b. Pretrao
je
u komijinu bastu.
Over-run-PST-PFV-3SG-M be-COP into neighbors garden.
He ran over into the neighbors garden.
The restriction here is that both prepositions iz (out of) and u (into) have to be used,
and therefore this use is rather limited. Here are some typical uses of PRE-verbs:
(43) Njegova erka prevalja
se preko praga
His daughter over-roll-PST-PFV-3SG-F REFL over threshold
His daughter rolled over the threshold
(44)
(45) Savu
smo
preplivali
za dvadesetak minuta.
Sava-ACC be-COP across-swim-PST-PFV-1PL-M in twenty minutes.
We swam the river Sava in twenty minutes.
The examples of verbs prefixed with NA- and POD- are really rare. The number of
types for NA-verbs is 5, and the number of tokens is 10. The number of verbs prefixed by POD- is 3 and the number of tokens is 2. We would like to add a reminder here that our types come from the dictionaries and our tokens mainly from the
corpus. It happened very often that types did not have any tokens in the corpus
data and in such cases we included tokens from the dictionaries. Three types were
found for POD-verbs and the only tokens for them are the examples from the
dictionary data. The corpus has no record of them (and for podvaljati (se) roll
under even the dictionaries offer no example, but only the explanation of the
verbs meaning):
(46)
The reason for this can be found in the fact that many verbs prefixed otherwise,
e.g. OD-/DO- verbs (and sometimes IZ-/U- verbs) can be followed by the prepositions na and/or pod, and thus express the relevant situation type without a particular need for verbs prefixed by NA- or POD-. On the other hand, the verbs
prefixed by NA- and POD- cannot be followed by any other preposition except na
and pod respectively. Therefore, their combinability with prepositions is very low;
they are at the end of the cline and cannot be used in many motion expressions.
The frequency of NA-verbs is slightly higher than that of POD-verbs. Two out
of five NA- verb types have no tokens in the corpus, and one type has 6 out of the
total of 10 NA- verb tokens. However, the verb with the greatest number of tokens
(naleteti onto-fly) is used in a different sense from a purely motion one, namely come across or bump into.
(48) ona je silno naletela
na staklo.
she forcefully onto-fly-PST-PFV-3SG-F onto glass.
she forcefully bumped onto broken glass.
(49)
as such, because the unprefixed form does not exist for most of the examples (as it
does in the cases of the other prefixed verbs discussed so far). In a number of cases
the initial S- looks like a prefix and in some cases we have the unprefixed form, but
this is not true of all cases. For example, we can say that strati (run down) and
trati (run) are related and that we get the former when we put the prefix S- in
front of the latter, imperfective form. However, we cannot say the same for a number
of verbs that express a downward movement, like: skljusiti (se) (sit down heavily,
skombrljati (se) (fall as a pile), strmoglaviti (se)(fall head first), strovaliti (se)
(fall heavily), survati (se)(fall like a part of a mountain chipped off ), stropotati
(se) (fall heavily and noisily). Therefore, the verbs of manner of motion that indicate movement downwards all begin with S-, but this S- is not necessarily a prefix,
because the imperfective forms of these verbs do not exist, and therefore we cannot
claim that derivation took place. This is a separate issue, which will not be tackled
at present. The verbs in which S- seems to be a prefix referring to the direction of
motion (downward) are manner verbs such as the following: trati (run), leteti
(fly), jahati (ride), etc., which become perfective when prefixed.
The conclusion that one can draw here is that the vertical scale of prefixed
manner of motion verbs is much less developed than the horizontal.Therefore, in
most cases where an upward or downward movement is to be described in SerboCroatian, a deictic OD-/DO- verb would be used, as in (cf. Filipovi (1999)).
(52)
(53)
examples of aspect developing from derivational morphology are found in SerboCroatian and Georgian, where locative prefixes generalize lexically and take on
aspectual meaning, coming progressively closer to being inflection (our emphasis).
Then almost immediately after, (ibid.: 146) she confirms that in Serbo-Croatian
and Georgian, the perfective, which is formed with prefixes, more closely resembles
derivation, because the prefixes often add meaning other than aspect (our emphasis). It is obvious that Bybee does not explicitly differentiate between what Slavicists term grammatical (pure) perfectivization, whereby no additional lexical
meaning is added to the original meaning of a verb in the process of prefixation,
and so-called lexical perfectivization on the other hand, whereby the meaning of
the prefix affects the meaning of the original item to the extent that the meaning of
this new unit is different from the meaning of the original root. It could be the case
that only a grammatical category is expressed (e.g. an imperfective verb turned
into perfective) (cf. Grickat (1966/67)), and this is what we mean by pure perfectivization, in which case prefixation might have some qualities of an inflectional
process. This is not the case with manner of motion verbs, in which the meaning
of the root changes (due to added information on the direction of motion or deixis) when prefixed, in addition to changing from imperfective to perfective. Therefore, we realize that defining something as derivation is difficult even within one
language, and processes related to different lexemes or classes of lexemes (e.g. motion verbs) should be analyzed individually.
More recently, there has been an attempt to reject the claim that Slavic verbal
prefixes are aspectual markers at all (Filip 2000). The author states that the grammatical category of aspect, as she understands it, has been used as a cover term for
formal categories on the level of inflectional morphology or syntax that fall under
the main perfective/imperfective distinction (Filip 2000: 39). She decided to argue
against this assumption, namely that prefixes are overt grammatical markers of
perfective aspect, and she states that the reason is that verbal prefixes clearly behave like derivational rather than inflectional morphemes. Verbal aspect in Slavic
languages is standardly taken to be a grammatical category, and if this also implies
that it is an inflectional category, then prefixes cannot be aspectual morphemes,
because such morphemes ought to have inflectional characteristics (Filip (2000:
41)). We consider the argument expressed in Filip (2000) easily falsifiable, because
she starts from an already heavily flawed formalist position that there is a neat
distinction between derivation and inflection, whereas we can see on numerous
examples from different languages that it is instead a continuum (cf. Bybee (1985)).
Moreover, it is not a novelty that the prefixes in Slavic languages are derivational in
nature, and this does not prevent them from being used to express the grammatical category of aspect among other roles they play (cf. Bybee (1985: 101)). Filips
problem seems to stem from the fact that prefixes are applicable to already
perfectivized prefixed verbs. She apparently argues that if prefixes were markers of
perfective aspect, they ought to be applicable only to imperfective verbs, and applying prefixes to perfective verbs, simple or prefixed, ought to be in principle excluded, because it would amount to perfectivizing already perfective verbs (Filip
(2000: 74)). However, once again, she disregards the fact that perfectivization is
only one of the functions of the prefixes in most cases and sometimes more than
one prefix is needed to express the exact meaning required. There should be no
problem in arguing that although one prefix is needed to make a verb perfective,
two are needed to express the required meaning that neither of the two prefixes
can do on their own. This still does not impede the understanding of the process
of derivation in verbs. It is enough to establish that prefixes have multiple meanings and not all of the meanings have to be realized in the derivation process.
Thus, we can conclude that prefixes in Serbo-Croatian do not behave inflectionally, as it were, being attached to verbs and used without restrictions, which in
effect strengthens our claims related to the prefix cline and combinatory potential.
6.6 In need of direction: directional verbs and pattern frequency
First there has to be an agreement on what exactly the preferred pattern means.
Frequency of use? More natural-sounding expression? It has been shown here that
imperfective directional verbs are necessary in expressions of boundary-crossing/
moment-of-change situation types, because neither prefixed nor unprefixed manner verbs can be used there. Moreover, perfective directional verbs are still much
more frequent than perfective manner verbs in the corpus data of motion expressions in Serbo-Croatian. A reminder would not come amiss here, namely that of
initial conditions posited by Talmy (1985: 62) regarding what is considered to be a
characteristic expression of motion in a language:
Here characteristic means that: (i) It is colloquial in style, rather than literary,
stilted, etc. (ii) It is frequent in occurrence in speech, rather than only occasional.(iii) It is pervasive, rather than limited, that is, a wide range of semantic notions
are expressed in this type.
frequent in use and more colloquial in style.11 The most frequent verbs overall in
the corpus are perfective directional verbs. The directional verb +preposition is
also the habitual pattern in the expression of motion events spontaneously elicitied in spoken Serbo-Croatian, as demonstrated in Vidakovi (2006). SerboCroatian speakers have a choice of using either prefixed manner verbs or directional verbs in boundary-crossing/change-occurred situation type, and what they
opt for more often is the no-frills pattern, as it were, i.e. the one which is more
economical and less restrictive. The conclusion emerging from this discussion is
that in Serbo-Croatian, the characteristic pattern in motion expressions in cases
when a perfective verb is needed would be a directional verb or a first-tier manner
verb, the most numerous and frequent ones within the latter group being the deictic OD-/DO- verbs. In situation types where an imperfective verb is needed, directional verbs would be used in moment-of-change situations, and manner verbs in
no-change situations. The most frequent and semantically simplest verbs are more
likely to occur with a greater variety of prefixes in Serbo-Croatian (e.g. trati
run can be prefixed by all prefixes, which is not the case with semantically more
complex verbs like ljuljati (se) sway (REFL)) (cf. appendix 2).
Finally, the frequency claim can be confirmed by citing the frequency data
from the corpus, which prove that there are significantly more examples of motion
expressions with directional verbs even in boundary-crossing/change-occurred
situations (where prefixed manner verbs can also be used with restrictions). The
frequency of directional verbs in motion expression of the boundary-crossing/
change-occurred type is considerably higher (Table 3) in comparison to that of
manner verbs in the same situation type (cf. Table 2):
Table 3. Directional perfective verbs
Directional Verbs
Doi (come to)
Otii (go away)
Izai (go out)
Ui (go in)
Proi (go past)& (go through)
Prei (go across)
Total
Types
1
1
1
1
1
1
6
Tokens
747
693
274
228
339
202
2483
(30.1%)
(27.9%)
(11%)
(9.2%)
(13.7%)
(8.1%)
(100%)
11. See Slobin (1996); cf. also ic-Fuchs (1991). First-tier manner verbs are those that are semantically simplest, also referred to as prototypical or central category members (e.g. walk,
run, jump, fly etc.).
(55)
12. There are very few prefixed imperfective manner verbs in Serbo-Croatian (the imperfective
prefixed versions of run, jump fly, and swim, and, in limited use, sail). The corpus data
contained no tokens of them; they are rarely used, mainly to express iterative or habitual activities, which involves a separate discussion, not entered into here.
extremely unlikely to use prefixed manner verbs, probably due to the difficulty of
acquiring their dual function (carrying spatial and aspectual information) and low
input from L2 (i.e. Serbo-Croatian). On the other hand, English controls provided
more diverse manner distinctions, while those were systematically omitted in Serbo-Croatian, in tasks that contained both depictions of inferrable manner of motion (e.g. canonical, unmarked walking) and non-inferrable manner of motion
(e.g. dancing or crawling). We argue that this tendency is motivated by morphological complexity and the combinatorial restrictions that manner verbs are conditioned by in Serbo-Croatian.
Summary
Our central discussion featuring the contrastive analysis of motion event lexicalization in English and Serbo-Croatian has confirmed our starting assumptions: English and Serbo-Croatian have comparable but not identical lexicalization patterns,
and the differences affect the processing of verbalized events as well as the information content of the message. While understanding of what an expression refers to
occurs at the level of the syntax/semantics interface in English, in Serbo-Croatian
this happens at the level of morphosyntax. Furthermore, even just selecting the
prefix in description of motion in Serbo-Croatian immediately conditions the possible Path segmentation due to the combinatory potential of the individual prefixed
verbs. The frequency of prefixed verb use in Serbo-Croatian is restricted due to
morphological blocking, so manner verbs are not used as freely as in English. Finally, this study has proved that a comprehensive analysis of domain lexicalization
has to include all levels where meaning is conveyed in order to provide the correct
picture of how events are rendered into a language. The use of corpora in this analysis is a significant methodological contribution because it shows that attested examples and their frequencies may provide a different angle on crucial claims that
are noticeably different and inadequate if constructed examples are used.
chapter 7
Moving on
Issues for further reflection and research
Chapter 7. Moving on
the aim should be to show how the universal leads to the language-particular (e.g.
the same components of motion events being lexicalized in all languages but in different lexicalization patterns that form a typology), and back: the way languageparticular surface realization affects information content, language use and perhaps
habitual activation of certain conceptual features more frequently than others. Even
though our study did not venture into the level of conceptualization, we suggest
here that although it would be exciting to make sense of explanations offered within I-semantics (i.e. conceptual semantics), our interest in the workings of language
should not stop there. Perhaps some insights could be obtained from working our
way back, and looking into the language-particular effects that go beyond surface
forms as vehicles for universal concepts.
What has always been more controversial is whether the fact that our language
makes certain semantic distinctions could have anticipatory effects on the ways in
which we would store the experience of events. That, in effect, would mean that
languages prepare us to concentrate on particular aspects of events in advance,
which have to be lexicalized in the language we speak. Even though a Kwakiutl
speaker has the availability of different verbs meaning put on depending on the
shape of the object in question, it may, but does not have to, mean that (s)he would
store the event differently in memory from a speaker of English, for example, who
does not have this availability. We will not even start to explore this possibility at
present, but we can just mention that although language is not necessary for the
thinking process, on most occasions it is a part of it. Some people (especially visual
artists) claim they think in visual images rather than words, but the fact is that
events are most accurately described by using language. Bringing these issues closer to home, we can neither confirm nor deny lexicalization patterns in different
languages any kind of anticipatory status. We thus have no claims that concern
conceptualization, but only indicate that lexicalization patterns can be used in psycholinguistic studies in order to test some general and crucial hypotheses regarding
language and cognitive processing. Whether these effects that Levinson and others
describe can also be detected in the domain of motion lexicalization remains to be
seen. The present study offers no answer to this, but the presence (or absence) of
language effects on memory in the domain of motion events is under current investigation (Filipovi (in progress), Gennari et al. (2002); Malt et al. (2003)).
Recently, there has been a revival of relativistic ideas in a way that is not
detrimental to the theory of linguistic relativity as it was presented and understood in the past. Slobin (1997b) introduced the term thinking for speaking (as well
as thinking for listening, writing, translating, etc.), and the notion behind the term
tends to be identified with conceptualization occasionally, in which case it is highly context-sensitive. The main idea of the thinking-for-speaking hypothesis is that
experience cannot be verbalized without taking a specific perspective influenced,
Chapter 7. Moving on
Munnich and Landau (2003) also point out that Levinsons tasks are languagemediated. Moreover, in another study, which tackles a different kind of typological
dichotomy, namely between languages that have a salient Manner component in
motion expressions and those that do not, there was no difference in results when
instantaneous responses were elicited. When, instead, time for linguistic coding
was allowed, differences were observed (Malt et al.(2003)). It may be that the distinctions drawn within frames of reference have a more profound effect on the
relevant cognitive processes than the crosslinguistic variation in Manner/Path salience, but this certainly requires further confirmation. This, however, is not completely detrimental to Levinsons results. It means that whenever possible, language
is activated and used even when not needed, and then it has the potential to influence problem-solving, or some aspects of thinking, to put it boldly. On most occasions under normal circumstances (i.e. in a non-experimental environment) language can and will be used.
A related issue is the universality and innateness of concepts, and it is very
hard to sustain both. Even Fodor has given up the notion of complete innateness
in favor of a certain amount of mind-dependence (Fodor (1998)), which is a notion that manages to obscure the argument even more. Wierzbickas (1996) search
for primitives illustrates just how hard it is to find a suitable universal definition
without being misguided by the medium, i.e. the particular language one is using
to define them. Having all this in mind, Levinson opts for a middle route: simple
conflation of semantics and conceptual structure is not defensible, but still if we
assume a kind of partial isomorphism, decompositional theories would explain
how it is possible to learn a language by building up complex constructs from
more elementary concepts. He differentiates between two levels of representation:
decompositional and non-compositional.Mapping lexemes onto unitary concepts
occurs at one level (the level of routine language processing) and these in turn
onto a level where the unitary molar concepts are broken down into formulae of
composed atomic concepts. The generative capacity and the universals (if any) lie
at the atomic level, while all advantages that accrue to us by virtue of thinking in
high-level chunks are reaped on the molar level (2003a: 298). Such a dual-level
theory allows us to consider seriously the possibility of Whorfian effects of language on cognition while simultaneously buying into the psychic unity of mankind (ibid.: 300).
Research within language pathology has shown that language function can
remain intact while other cognitive functions are disabled, and vice versa. These
findings might lead us to the conclusion that the language faculty is one of the independent modules in the mind. On the other hand, we have witnessed many examples provided by linguists and anthropologists that point out the ways in which
certain aspects of linguistic behavior are highly interrelated with some cognitive
and cultural functions. The influence of cognition and culture on language is indisputable, but the controversy lies the other way around: the influence of a language on cognition and culture. We can see that speaker behaviour is affected both
by the universal conceptual space and the language-specific semantic maps onto
conceptual space. The balance between the two is still not resolved fully, and is
theory-dependent. More evidence is craved for in all camps.
To sum up briefly, the question was the following: do these differences in languages have any effect beyond the use of languages themselves? Slobin (2000b)
would say a restricted yes, in thinking for speaking, listening, remembering, translating, etc. So would Lakoff (1987), in his linguistic relativism evocative of Wittgenstein, and revealed in his discussion of the Kay and Kempton (1984) experiment. Wittgensteins example of a possibility of there being an undiscovered tribe
in a far-flung corner of the world, in a distant part of a remote jungle, in which
descriptions of shrubs or berries or cooking pots as red and green all over (in a
single term) is discovered to be more than just a figment of imagination; it is in fact
commonplace (Edmonds and Eidinow 2000: 183). Discussing the color terms
would require a huge detour in our discussion, but the important arguments can
be found in Davidoff et al.(1999). Finally, the unveiling of the Pirah language and
culture is apparently opening a new window into human language, culture and
cognition, which threatens to shake the foundations of many theories of meaning,
grammar and classification. Everett (2005) argues that Pirah has no basic color
terms, but that they are formed on-line, as it were, depending on contextual circumstances. Since this is very much work in progress, we will not comment further on it here.
On the whole, many languages do not draw the same distinctions, but this
does not mean that the mind is not capable of detecting and processing them.
Learning a foreign language is about learning the distinctions that different languages draw. And the fact that languages are acquired and learned says enough
about the ability of the mind to accept, process and analyze different distinctions
that are drawn. However, certain distinctions are habitually drawn in some languages but not in others and thus language-specific habitual ways of thinking and
talking about certain facets of events may become entrenched and dominant in
communicative exchange and storage of experience in memory via language. The
interesting point is that the number of possibilities in terms of distinctions that
could be drawn in a language is potentially limitless. Still, the languages of the
world do not draw a limitless number of distinctions. Rather, all languages express
either Manner or Path of motion in the verb, while there is no language in which
color terms are distinguished morphologically (i.e. where the relevant distinctions
are grammaticalized).
Chapter 7. Moving on
More intriguing evidence comes from psycholinguistic research in spatial language and cognition, where it has been suggested that the semantic maps of a
language affect speakers non-linguistic behavior (Choi and Bowerman (1992),
Bowerman (1997)). Children use spatial terms of their language semantically appropriately from very early ages (i.e. English-speaking children typically use prepositions alone in their earliest utterances about motion; cf. Choi and Bowerman
(1992: 96)). English children consistently differentiate containment from surface
contact/attachment in their earliest uses of in and on (Bowerman (1997: 166)).
Korean children, on the other hand, consistently differentiate tight fit from loose
fit in their earliest uses of kkita and nehta (ibid.). In addition, Choi and Bowerman observed that Korean children differentiate spontaneous from caused motion
in their earliest utterances, while English children used in and other Path expressions for both spontaneous and caused motion in their earliest utterances, because
in English they are not lexicalized separately. Similarly, English children use up
and down for vertical motion in a wide variety of contexts, while Korean children
differentiate vertical motion depending on the Manner or Path of motion, in accordance with the earliest verbs they learn; Korean children do not learn general
verbs meaning go up (olla katta or causative ollita) and go down (naylye kata
or causative naylita) until quite late compared to English childrens learning of up
and down (Choi and Bowerman (1992: 107)).3
In other words, there is a wide range of evidence that English and Korean
children do not categorize spatial situations in accordance with a universal set of
semantic primitive concepts which, when proposed, usually look suspiciously
similar to English prepositional semantics onto which they map their languagespecific semantics. Instead, English and Korean speakers categorize spatial situations differently and in accordance with the specific categories of their language.
Or is it just the case of spatial semantics not being decomposed enough to reach
the fine conceptual primitives that would be the common denominator for all?
Jackendoff (1991) says that it is not uncommon to come up with finer grained
components in physics all the time, which do not exist independent of each other,
and the case of phonemes may be a related example in linguistics. Bowerman and
Choi (2003), analyzing prelinguistic children, also draw an analogy with phonology and argue that semantic competence closely mirrors phonological competence: just as infants are geared from the beginning to discover underlying
3. This is very much in line with recent developments in syntactic theory. For example, Croft
(2001) contends that all aspects of the formal representation of grammatical structure are language-specific (ibid.: 4). He discusses some previous approaches in which categories from one
language (mainly English) were superimposed onto others (e.g. one approach to the category
AUX proposed that auxiliary was a part of Universal Grammar, but not every language has that
category) (ibid.: 10).
phonological regularities in the speech stream, so they are born prepared to zero
in on language-specific patterns in the organization of meaning. They also show
that adult speakers of English and Korean demonstrate differences in sensitivity to
certain concepts that closely mirror their respective language patterns. Bowerman
(1997: 160) points out that certain non-linguistic spatial concepts claimed to underlie spatial prepositions (e.g. containment or support) lend themselves much
more easily to shaping the spatial categories of English than, for example, of Tzeltal.
In other words, our ideas about primitives in the language of thought may themselves be conditioned by the language we have learned. She argues (ibid.: 168) that
English and Korean acquisition patterns testify to the contribution of both nonlinguistic spatial cognition and the categorization system of the input language to
the process of acquiring spatial words. Many linguists that are cognitively oriented
(e.g. Langacker (1987), Talmy (1985), Croft (1991)) seem to agree that the lexicon
and the grammar of a language provide a conventionalized way of conceptualizing
scenes for given purposes (Bowerman (1997: 151)). Thus, by following this line we
can understand lexicalization patterns as indicators of the ways in which the lexicons and grammars of different languages conventionalize the conceptualization
of certain domains. By stating this, we would only refer to a languages most neutral and pragmatically unmarked pattern.4
However, the fact that English children use the prepositions in and on in the
situations when Korean children use words referring to tight fit or loose fit would
not prevent either from understanding their respective ways of referring to objects
or activities, if not at the early stage, then certainly later, once they have grown up
and have fully acquired their mother tongue. There is ongoing research (cf. Bowerman and Levinson (2001)) that points out the role of languages in non-linguistic
tasks in adults and the way children acquire, or rather make sense of, words, their
meanings, the culture-specific semantic content of those words and the potential
universal underlying concepts expressed by them. Those aspects of acquisition are
beyond our scope at present, but the results regarding adult performance in those
tasks are indicative of the presence of language-specific ways of organizing spatial
data (cf. Levinson (1999b), (2001) and (2003a) on the frames of reference).
This is an illustration of the kind of research that typological insights into a
domain (e.g. spatial relations, causation, motion, etc.) can lead to. We have presented some arguments in which a mild relativistic flavor can be noticed, but once
again we have to prevent any confusion regarding the possibility of seeing any of
those factors as something that can potentially limit thought. Our interest lies in
Chapter 7. Moving on
the extent to which information content is limited, or rather habitually shaped. Gell
(1992: 131) summarizes the rifts and strife of (neo-)Whorfian inclinations:
What is wrong with Whorfism is not that language imposes a barrier, facilitating
the expression of certain ideas and inhibiting the expression of others (it surely
does) but to imagine, as a consequence of this admissible fact, that thought is
determined by language? On the contrary, thinking (discovery of new ideas)
typically goes against the grain of language, tortures it, deforms it (paradoxes and
neologisms in the writings of philosophers and sages filled with paradoxes and
neologisms). These denaturings of language in the service of the creation of new
meanings, or more expressive communication of old meaning, provide the psychological underpinnings of language change as a global impersonal revolution.
Yesterdays trope is todays grammar, and as repositories of tropes, languages are
culturally relative entities. But, by the same token, languages, as the raw materials
for destructive restructuring are what sets cognition free to pursue its unfettered
path through history.
7.2 Between a rock and a hard place: lexical and/or construction meaning
A related area of research where lexicalization of domains crosslinguistically could
be tackled is verb vs. construction meaning. We shall now look into related claims
made by projectionists and constructionalists.
Levin and Rappaport Hovav (1998b: 127) suggest that two models are detectable in the treatment of what they term verbal polysemy. Those two models are
not necessarily completely opposed, but there are still quite a few differences worth
pointing out. What they call a projectionist model, to which they subscribe, is
based on the claim that verbs with multiple meanings must have multiple lexical
semantic representations, one for each meaning (ibid.). These meanings accordingly determine the various syntactic structures that the verb can be found in.
They term an alternative model the constructional approach, although they note
that there are different proposals within this model (e.g. Hoekstra (1992), Goldberg (1995)5). Proponents of the constructional approach claim that only some
aspects of meaning reside in verbs themselves. Certain syntactic constructions or
syntactic positions are also associated with elements of meaning (cf. Hoekstra
(1992)). Under the constructional approach, verbs name basic concepts, which are
then inserted into syntactic structures, whose meanings are then combined with
the core meanings of the verbs. The meaning of a verb in a given use is determined
5. Hoekstra (1992) claims that the constraints on the syntactic structures that verbs can appear in can be reduced to well-known syntactic constraints, although Goldberg (1995) shows
that the constraints do not have to be syntactic.
compositionally from the meaning of the verb and the meaning of the construction. The major constraint on integrating a verb into a construction is the compatibility between the meaning of the verb and the meaning associated with the
syntactic structures into which the verb is inserted. The difference in the treatment
of verb meaning by the two approaches is briefly explained next.
Levin and Rappaport Hovav claim that run type verbs (cf. Levin (1993) and
appendix 1) change their status in the presence of a directional phrase, which turns
them into unaccusative, as in the following examples (marked as ??,? and * by
Levin and Rappaport Hovav): 6
(1) a. The soldiers marched (to the tents).
b. The general marched the soldiers to the tents.
c. ??The general marched the soldiers.
(2) a. The horse jumped (over the fence).
b. The rider jumped the horse over the fence.
c. ?The rider jumped the horse.
(3) a. The mouse ran (through the maze).
b. We ran the mouse through the maze.
c. *We ran the mouse.
This claim is not a novelty in itself. The same was independently noticed by icFuchs (1991). A directional phrase is necessary for this change in meaning of expressions when the same verbs are used unergatively or unaccusatively. However,
ic-Fuchs points out that there is more than just a mere change of argument structure. She supports her claims by examples showing that not all of the components
of verb meaning are equally important in all the constructions in which those
verbs appear (if they can appear in more than one construction type). According
to Levin and Rappaport Hovav, it seems that all is encoded in the verb, and it is up
to the verb meaning to determine the meaning and the shape of the whole expression. ic-Fuchs also concentrates on verb meaning as a central and decisive element, and is inclined towards an approach which would acknowledge components
of meaning, not only those relevant for syntax and argument structure, but also
those that are responsible for the difference in the hierarchy of components within
the lexical meaning of the verb, which is then put in an adequate construction
6. In some languages (e.g. Dutch), the unergative/unaccusative alteration is marked by different auxiliaries (be vs. have in Dutch). The validity of auxiliary selection as an unaccusative
diagnostic is under debate. Theoretically, it is unclear why unergative and unaccusative patterns
should correlate with hebben (have) and zijn (be) auxiliaries, respectively (and not vice versa). The empirical argument, however, is that in languages that have the auxiliary distinction,
this is what they seem to do (van Hout (2000: 247)).
Chapter 7. Moving on
As Ritter and Rosen (1998: 157) confirm, there are few verb pairs like walk
and walk the dog, and we assume that the process which derived this verb is not a
productive one. They contend that this use of walk is not derived from basic
walk by a productive process of syntactic insertion of an internal argument. Rather, this constitutes a distinct (but related) lexical verb, which selects two thematic
arguments instead of one, and has its own lexical semantic representation (ibid.).
Still, we have to avoid multiplying verb meanings beyond necessity (Modified Occams Razor). Although there are not many examples like this in the expressions of
the domain we are considering, we still have to explore other options and see
whether we can come up with an explanation that would not be based on a process
that overburdens the system, which multiple meaning of lexical items certainly do.
The different instances of walk in He walked and walk in He walked the dog
are certainly not separate lexical items; we cannot but agree they are more related
than walk and run are, for example. However, they are still semantically different
and the difference does not lie only in the argument structure of the verb. Finally,
these examples seem to be highly context-dependent. They are not attested in the
BNC, but even if they were attested, how often does one hear a sentence like Mark
jumped Peter over the fence, meaning that Mark made/caused Peter to jump over
the fence? If these uses occur, they do so because the whole scenario is productive,
evoking or mapping the whole context of the typical causative use of march and
jump, rather than just the alteration in the argument structure of the verb (e.g.
The husband marched his disobedient wife into the kitchen (military style, hopefully as a joke!)). Similarly to march, the following context for jump could be
imaginable: Mark and his dad Peter were playing horse-racing and Mark jumped
Peter over the fence (i.e. the dad was playing the role of the horse, as it were). In
the case of run meaning cause to run, only the experimental context involving a
mouse and a maze seems to be plausible, and it seems hard to see it becoming
productive. This argument originally given in Filipovi (2002) is also confirmed in
Erteschik-Shir and Rapoport (2005: 72), where the two authors quote an example
with march without the PP in its causative use and explain that Levin and Rappaport Hovavs account does not necessarily hold in such cases.
Another proposal how to deal with verb meaning is given in ic-Fuchs (1991).
This study provides an exhaustive analysis of motion verbs in English, as well as an
engaging analysis of the intriguing interface between encyclopedic and linguistic
knowledge in speakers. ic-Fuchs (1991: 7374) provides examples that emphasize the way in which a speakers knowledge about the world and referents of lexemes are used in expressions can be crucial in accepting some and cancelling
other constructions. For example, The bear trudged through the woods is acceptable, and *The snake trudged through the woods is not. This is due to the fact that
speakers of English who know the meaning of the verb trudge know that it refers
Chapter 7. Moving on
7. Dowty (1979: 69) terms the kind of examples in (4b) pseudo-transitive. They seem to be
inherently intransitive because they cannot passivize.
ic-Fuchs then goes on to discuss more categories, such as verbs of flying, crawling,
running, etc., and lists sub-groups within them. Thus, her analysis starts by establishing the syntagmatic relations that motion verbs form with other elements in the
structures they participate in, and then goes on to establish the paradigmatic relations within the semantic field and sift all the verbs grouped around the prototypical representatives in each group through all three syntactic frames. She emphasizes that the meaning of verbs allows or prevents their appearance in those
three constructions. She does not establish a construction meaning per se, but rather contends that it is the individual verb meaning that is decisive. The expression in
(4c) has a different meaning depending on what the direct object refers to (e.g. human, animal, or an inanimate object). Thus we can either talk about the multiplicity of meaning of a lexical item in different constructions, or even in a same construction (e.g. the construction (4c)), or talk about the multiplicity of meaning of
constructions themselves. This analysis indicates that the interplay between syntagmatic and paradigmatic hierarchies offers the possibility to reconcile the projectionist and the constructionalist views. So far we have explored different arguments
based on differences in verb meaning. We will now turn to construction meaning.
As we will see next, it is also difficult to posit a unified meaning of a construction
and to avoid running into the problem of polysemy of constructional meaning.
At this stage, we have to point out that the argument seems to revolve around
the question of what should be considered decisive individual meanings of verbs,
which are multilayered, or the meaning of constructions, which can be individuated but also multilayered. Goldberg (1995: 9) emphasizes that the constructional
approach is based on the recognition that constructions and verbs are interrelated
but independent, and one should concentrate on studying the principles that relate
verbs and constructions and the relations among constructions. Somehow, it
seems that one can detect certain components of verb meaning that are responsible for explaining why certain verbs appear in some constructions and others do
not. One is more likely to imagine the situation whereby one would say He walked
two miles, and less likely would be the situation whereby one would say He
pranced two miles, precisely because of our knowledge of the meaning of those
two verbs and about what they refer to. We can still say, for example, that the
pseudo-transitive construction has a definite general meaning, but it is the meaning of individual verbs and the kind of activity to which they refer in reality that
are equally important in deciding whether a particular verb would be applicable in
the construction.
Even though Construction Grammar is not a completely unified framework
either (Kay and Fillmore (1999), Goldberg (1995), Croft (2001)), most authors
working within it agree on a few basic postulates, the central one being that meanings of constructions are individual entities, a kind of closed-class item group.
Chapter 7. Moving on
Goldberg (1995: 62) found out that while (5a) is fully acceptable, (5b) is rejected
by many. The difference seems to be that in (5a) the sound is caused by motion,
whereas in (5b) the sound is not caused by motion but is simply a co-occurring
event. Similarly, not many speakers find the following relation possible: He whistled out of the room. However, the non-causally related co-occurring activity is
normally expressed by using the way construction in English (e.g. He laughed
his way out of the room), which is the only construction that can definitely be
used in motion expressions containing verbs of sound emission, whereby the
emission of sound is not causally related to motion. According to Levin and Rappaport Hovav (1995), in order for a verb of sound emission to be used as a verb of
directed motion, the sound must be emitted as a necessary concomitant of the motion. Jackendoff (1990: 213) posits two semantic constraints on the verbs that can
appear in this construction: a verb must be capable of being construed as a process, and, furthermore, a verb must express a process with some kind of internal
8. Frege (1879) is generally acknowledged to have originally formulated the idea of compositionality: the meaning of every expression in a language must be a function of the meaning of its
immediate constituents.
structure. These properties of the construction would predict that agentive verbs
of manner of motion and internally caused verbs of sound emission could appear
in this construction. Jackendoff (1990) provides evidence that verbs do not exclusively determine complement configuration. He chooses to talk of the construction as a kind of constructional idiom (ibid.: 221). Levin and Rapoport (1988)
suggest instead that each verb in the construction has a special motion sense, but
we can see that this pattern occurs with an enormous variety of verbs. Therefore,
if we accept their proposal, we would need to posit a motion sense for verbs such
as laugh, joke, munch, etc. to account for examples such as:
It seems more plausible to say that the verbs used above should not be analyzed as
verbs with a motion sense, but rather verbs used in a particular construction that
is used to express motion. In order to show that a distinct construction is a reality,
it is necessary to show that its meaning is not compositionally derived from other
constructions existing in grammar.
It may seem justifiable to posit certain construction meanings in motion expressions in English (e.g. the agentive motion construction, the way construction, and the caused motion construction; cf. Goldberg (1995)), because there are
different kinds of verbs or verb classes that can be inserted in them, and the meaning of the construction seems preserved, i.e. the idea of motion is always present.
Some verbs of sound emission could probably be used under certain circumstances, but is this enough to posit a construction? Considering the intensity with which
English is taking advantage of capitalization upon language economy, perhaps the
template that motion verbs are used in and their argument structure become frequently adopted by some other kinds of verbs, and the construction becomes the
common denominator. Goldberg (2005: 229) argues against the possibility of positing separate lexical entries by saying that positing additional lexical entries or
verb senses fails to account for the generalization within and across verb classes.
Lexical stipulation also fails to capture the open-ended nature of the examples
(ibid.). This view opens a further perspective into an investigation regarding the
motivation for constructions, applicable crosslinguistically. Such potential and
variation in lexical insertion is perhaps not so easy to find elsewhere, or at least not
to this extent, and certainly there is none of it in the language we contrast with
English, i.e. Serbo-Croatian. We proposed two constructions in Serbo-Croatian
which we feel are good candidates for units of construction meaning (cf. chapter
3). These constructions are in line with Crofts understanding of constructional
Chapter 7. Moving on
Finally, Thompson (2001) proposes a view on constructions whereby lexical skewing and smaller, language-specific, local templates are sources of construction
meaning rather than broad syntactic templates in the sense of Goldberg (1995).
She accounts for their properties in terms of interactional features such as turntaking, floor-holding, subjectivity, etc. She emphasizes the importance of conversational data, and insists on features such as routinization and frequency. Frequency effects based on this lexical skewing cannot be discovered with constructed
data. For example, pseudoclefts in English are often suggested to look like What
John lost was his keys. However, Thompson argues that they are in fact formulaic
prefabs used for floor-holding and rhetorical deferral of the main point (88% of
the data), and occur mainly with low-content high-frequency verbs, such as do,
happen and say, which are highly skewed lexically and genre-specifically (Thompson (2001)). Goldberg (2005: 230) has argued recently that we need to recognize
classes of verbs that are conventionally allowed. Thus the interplay of syntax and
the lexicon should be sought on smaller scales, internal to a particular language,
and then checked for wider applicability. In our case, starting from classes of verbs
(i.e. verbs of manner of motion) and attesting their appearance in contexts beyond
the VP was both theoretically and methodologically justified.
Summary
In this chapter we tackled a selection of topics from different theoretical and applied domains in linguistics and related disciplines that bear relevance to the way
we understand the relationship between events, our experience of events and our
event descriptions. Our caution comes from the argument that we also include,
namely that language may not be the ideal tool for one-to-one mapping onto reality, but it is the best one we have and it mainly caters for our need to know what
expressions refer to in reality. We reiterated our main aim, which is to account for
the effect of lexicalization patterns on the information content of expressions, and
thus our research mainly steers clear of the level of conceptualization. However, we
felt the need to comment on previous, current and future research related to
processing that is closely related to crosslinguistic differences in the lexicalization
of cognitive domains. We did not give a definitive answer about the nature of the
interplay of language and conceptualization, but we critically discussed some results available in the literature and explained how a study of domain lexicalization
can be carried out within this context. We expressed our view that verbalization of
events should be further tested and that lexicalization patterns are certainly an
area for further research with regard to the relationship of events, their cognizing
and their linguistic rendering. Finally, the verb-centered and construction-centered approaches are reconciled in our study by bringing the two camps closer
(which seems to be a general tendency among researchers on both sides, recognizing the good things in their opponents work). We explicitly favored research in
language-specific variability in the contribution to the meaning of the whole via
verbs and constructions. When it comes to lexicalization patterns in motion expressions, verb and construction meanings are very closely knit, and this is especially pronounced in English. We also saw that it makes sense to evoke construction
Chapter 7. Moving on
chapter 8
Conclusion
Moving forward
It is time to make the final summary of our findings, and in order to do that, we
have to go back to the introductory promises that this research was set to fulfill.
First, we showed why it is essential to establish how different levels of the language
structure (e.g. morphology, syntax and lexical semantics) interact in rendering
events into a linguistic expression. It was obviously not enough only to establish
whether a component of an event is lexicalized in a verb or in a particle in a particular language. The fact that the two languages in focus (Serbo-Croatian and
English) show a certain degree of similarity in the way they express a certain component of an event (e.g. the Manner component of motion events expressed in the
verb) was not a solid base for the claims regarding the whole process of lexicalization of an experiential domain.
The theoretical background for this research was eclectic by choice and we
critically positioned ourselves towards major frameworks and relevant approaches
to meaning without siding completely with any particular one. This is the kind of
independence we are particularly proud of, because much linguistic research nowadays is unnecessarily shrouded in mystery because of theoretical dispute, and our
multifaceted, theoretically unbiased approach hopefully signals the need of all linguistic (and related) disciplines to cooperate without limiting themselves by selfimposing theoretical boundaries. We demonstrated that our data-driven approach
has advantages over a theory-driven one. Our network of spatial and temporal
parameters was a great help in achieving our goals. It enabled us to detect language
features that are relevant in the lexicalization of the experiential domain of motion
and explain how they find their way into lexicalization patterns. Different interactions of language-specific systems of lexical semantics, syntax and morphology
may compel speakers of a particular language to refer to some aspects of events
more often than speakers of other languages. We by no means neglected the fact
that the universal human capacity to perceive events and talk about them is evident, and we did not delve deeper into the level of conceptualization (events in the
mind) as an intermediate level between events in reality and events in language,
the latter being our focus. We limited ourselves to showing that the information
content of an expression is affected by the differences in lexicalization patterns. We
drew attention to the hurdles in understanding the relevant crosslinguistic differences, especially when learning, teaching or translating from and into a foreign
language. We make no predictions regarding any cognitive consequences, but discuss the ways in which lexicalization mechanisms could be used further in order
to carry out tests that could reveal the nature of event representation. We demonstrated how those universally perceivable features of motion events (e.g. whether
there was a boundary in the way of the moving Figure and whether it was crossed
or not) and language-specific patterns interact and differ depending on what kind
of events are described.
Finally, even though we did not explore issues related to processing (because
our study was not aimed at it) it seems worthwhile to comment that lexicalization
studies can serve as a solid base for exploring the potential of processing models.
Our inclination is towards the usage-based model, whereby the crucial importance is given to two usage-based properties: type/token frequency of occurrence
of particular grammatical forms and structures, and the meaning of the words and
constructions in use (cf. Bybee and Slobin (1982), Bybee (1985), Bybee (1995),
Croft and Cruise (2004)). Studying lexicalization of a domain can serve as a testing
ground for hypotheses related to frequencies. In such a way, a productive pattern
may be shown to be less frequent than assumed just on the basis of its productivity. For example, Goldberg (1995) compares two constructions, the caused motion and the ditransitive construction, which overlap in their distribution (i.e.
some verbs allow both constructions). She states that the ditransitive construction
is used with many fewer verbs than the caused motion construction, and hence is
much less productive than the caused motion construction (Goldberg (1995:
124)). However, the prototypical ditransitive construction has the highest type frequency of any ditransitive subconstructions. By the same token, manner verbs in
Serbo-Croatian have much higher type frequency than directional verbs (cf. Tables 2 and 3), but directional verbs have higher token frequency (see Vidakovi
(2006) for some recent results in support of our claims). Further inquiry into how
much manner detail is still present in expressions that contain directional verbs
(e.g. the presence of manner adjuncts) should be carried out in order to reveal
more details about the Serbo-Croatian lexicalization pattern. The type/token frequencies presented are a good indication of the typological cline proposed here.
Also, further corpus analysis and psycholinguistic evidence may reveal the difference between productive syntactic schemas and default syntactic schemas (cf.
Croft and Cruise (2004: 312)).
Finally, typological evidence, to which we also contribute, is crucial in a more
general sense. Croft explains (Croft and Cruise (2004: 322)) that typological
Chapter 8. Conclusion
Chapter 8. Conclusion
crucial meaning distinctions constant, while examining the language-specific devices that speakers use to express them. At the same time, when speakers (or translators) use these language-specific devices, additional meanings may be conveyed,
which, as we showed, is important to look out for.
We recognize that the domain we analysed is part of universal human experience, and the capability to distinguish the relevant components of events is part of
its common conceptual core. On the other hand, we demonstrated that although
more than one option is available in a language to lexicalize motion events, there
are certain systemic restrictions which condition the choice of a pattern. The consequence of a certain pattern being consistently preferred and established as dominant can be seen in the importance and the early acquisition of certain strong
features of a system (e.g. causation in Korean). Language-specific systemic features
(e.g. morphosyntactic constraints in Serbo-Croatian and the pronounced use of
deictically prefixed manner verbs) impose certain restrictions on the final output
regarding linguistic expression, and we could see that languages need not be just
different means for expressing the same meanings all the time.
We were concerned with systemic differences, which are based on language
rules that determine what can or cannot be expressed by the means available to the
system, and not with stylistics, which deals with aspects which may or may not be
expressed and depend on the choice of a number of possible combinations.1 The
fact that there is a particular combination allowed in English does not mean that it
will be used in all contexts. Still, we have seen that it is possible to determine that
certain patterns are more dominant in a language and therefore represent a typical,
habitual pattern in expressions of events. The typical pattern in motion expressions in English is manner verb+directional particle. Expressing direction in the
verbs and manner in an adjunct is possible, but not used as a typical way of expressing motion events, and therefore is a marked option in English. Thus, in order to be able to explain the underlying mechanisms that condition the kind of
expression that will be used in specific situation types, we have to look into the
interactions among all levels where meaning is conveyed in a language. Language
processing consists of speaking or writing and understanding, whereby all means
available within a language convey meaning as a joint venture. The explanation
must be sought within the whole system and must include all levels where meaning is conveyed, namely morphology, syntax and lexical semantics, and the way
they all complement one another. Our analysis pointed out the way all those levels
function in English and Serbo-Croatian, and highlighted both the similarities and
the differences on this occasion.
1. We note, though, that stylistics is another area where our findings could have further applications.
Chapter 8. Conclusion
We may be frivolous for a moment and think of conceptual atoms as free radicals, waiting to be bound. And if this sounds too reminiscient of Plato and his
floating ideas, think of 1984. Not lexicalizing concepts does not mean they do not
exist somewhere, somehow and that they cannot be thought. No newspeak (like
the fantasy one in George Orwells 1984) could eliminate certain thoughts and
concepts by eliminating words for them. Therefore, there is a need to search for the
way to establish the right balance in the study within the humanities and social
sciences: all culture or language-specific varieties can, but need not, have transparent universal qualities. The potential to grasp diversity is the best proof of universal capabilities in humans. In spite of everything, language is the way to the brain
at the moment, and fathoming the ways in which language works can be indicative
of what might be happening in the multicoloured black box where colorless green
ideas sleep furiously. It may seem at times as if we are only pecking at the perimeter,
but nevertheless it is a start.
Bibliography
Dictionaries:
Renik srpskohrvatskog knjievnog i narodnog jezika (SANU), vols. 115
Institut za srpskohrvatski jezik
Beograd 19591989
Renik sprskohrvatskoga knjievnog jezika, vols. 16
Matica srpska
Novi Sad 19671976
Corpora:
British National Corpus on-line (for English): www.natcorp.ox.ac.uk
Croatian National Corpus on-line (for Serbo-Croatian): www.hnk.ffzg.hr
(Both corpora were consulted between October 2000 and April 2002)
References:
Aristotle. 1970. Physics (I-IV). Translated by O.H.Wicksteed & F.M. Cornford, London: William
Heinman.
Asher, N. & Sablayrolles, P. 1996. A typology and discourse semantics for motion verbs and
spatial PPs in French. In Lexical Semantics, J. Pustejovsky & B. Boguraev (eds.), 163209.
Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Aske, J. 1989. Path predicates in English and Spanish: A closer look. Proceedings of the Fifteenth
Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, 114.
Baicchi, A. 2005. Translating phrasal combinations across the typological divide. In Studies in
the Semantics of Lexical Combinatory Patterns, M. Bertuccelli Papi (ed.), 487519. Pisa: Pisa
University Press.
Beli, A. 1964. Savremeni srpskohrvatski knjievni jezik II. Beograd: Nauna knjiga
Berthele, R. 2004. The typology of motion and posture verbs: A variationist account. In Dialectology
meets Typology: Dialect Grammar from a Crosslinguistic Perspective [Trends in Linguistics. Studies Monographs 153], B. Kortmann (ed.), 93126. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Bibliography
Croft, W. 2003. Lexical rules vs. constructions: A false dichotomy. In Motivation in Language:
Studies in Honour of Gnter Radden, H. Cuyckens et al.(eds.), 4968. Amsterdam: John
Benjamins.
Croft, W. & Cruise, A. 2004. Cognitive Linguistics. Cambridge: CUP.
Danchev, A. 1992. An outline of aspectuality in English within a compromise linguistic model.
In Current Advances in Semantic Theory, M. Stamenov (ed.), 321337. Amsterdam: John
Benjamins.
Davidoff, J., Davies, I. & Roberson, D. 1999. Colour categories in a stone-age tribe. Nature 398:
203204.
Depraetere, I. 1995. On the necessity of distinguishing between (un)boundedness and (a)telicity. Linguistics and Philosophy 18(1): 119.
Dickey, S. M. 2000. Parameters of Slavic Aspect: A Cognitive Approach. Stanford CA: CSLI.
Doron, E. 2005. The aspect of agency. In The Syntax of Aspect: Deriving Thematic and Aspectual
Interpretation, N. Erteschik-Shir & T. Rapoport (eds.), 154173. Oxford: OUP.
Dowty, D. 1979. Word Meaning and Montague Grammar. Dordrecht: Reidel.
Edmonds, D. & Eidinow, J. 2001. Wittgensteins Poker. London: Faber and Faber.
Egerod, S. 1994. Aspect in Chinese. In Tense, Aspect, and Action, C. Bache, H. Basboll & C-E.
Lindberg (eds.), 279309. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Erteschik-Shir, N. & Rapoport, T. (eds.). 2005. The Syntax of Aspect: Deriving Thematic and Aspectual Interpretation. Oxford: OUP.
Erteschik-Shir, N. & Rapoport, T. 2005. Path predicates. In The Syntax of Aspect: Deriving Thematic
and Aspectual Interpretation, N. Erteschik-Shir & T. Rapoport (eds.), 6586. Oxford: OUP.
Everett, D.L. 2005. Language tutorial on Pirah. LAGB Annual Meeting 31st August-3rd September 2005. University of Cambridge.
Filip, H. 2000. The quantification puzzle. In Events as Grammatical Objects: The Converging Perspectives of Lexical Semantics and Syntax, C. Tenny & J. Pustejovsky (eds.), 3996. Stanford
CA: CSLI.
Filipovi, L. 1999. Language-specific expression of motion and its use in narrative texts. MPhil
Dissertation. Department of Linguistics, University of Cambridge.
Filipovi, L. 2001 Language-specific use of verbs in motion expressions. In El verbo entre el lxico y la gramtica, A.Veiga et al.(eds.), 5362. Lugo: Tris-Tram.
Filipovi, L. 2002. Verbs in Motion Expressions: Structural Perspectives. PhD Dissertation. Department of Linguistics, University of Cambridge.
Filipovi, L. 2003. Moving in mysterious ways: On the nature of lexical patterning. In Jezik,
drutvo, saznanje, D. Klikovac & K. Rasuli (eds.), 103117. Beograd: Filoloki fakultet.
Filipovi, L. 2006a. Weaving the web of meaning. Languages in Contrast 6(1): 151175.
Filipovi Kleiner, L. 2006b. Reply to Tyler: Discussion. Journal of Pragmatics 38: 975978.
Filipovi Kleiner, L. 2006c. Time and quantity revisited. In ELLSII Conference Proceedings Vol.1,
K. Rasuli & I. Trbojevi (eds.), 205217. Belgrade: Faculty of Philology.
Filipovi, L. In press. Language as a witness: Insights from cognitive linguistics. Speech, Language and the Law.
Filipovi, L. In progress. Language effects on memory of events (ms.). University College London.
Fillmore, C.J. 1982. Toward a descriptive framework for spatial deixis. In Speech, Place and Action, R. J. Jarvella & W. Kelin (eds.), 3159. London: Wiley.
Fillmore, C.J. & Atkins, B. T. 1992. Toward a frame-based lexicon: The semantics of RISK and its
neighbours. In Frames, Fields, and Contrasts, A. Lehrer & E.F. Kittay (eds.), 75102. Hillsdale NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Bibliography
Ibarretexte-Antuano, I. 2001. Path and manner in motion events: a comparative study (ms.).
University of California at Berkeley.
Ikegami, Y. 1970. The Semiological Structure of the English Verbs of Motion A Stratificational
Approach. Tokyo: Sanseido.
Ivi, M. 1982. O nekim tipovima prefiksacije. Junoslovenski Filolog XXXVIII: 5160.
Iwasaki, N., Vinson, D.P. & Vigliocco, G. In preparation. Testing effects of the grammatical
count/mass distinction upon semantic representations: Evidence from experiments in English and Japanese.
Jackendoff, R. 1983. Semantics and Cognition. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.
Jackendoff, R. 1990. Semantic Structures. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.
Jackendoff, R. 1991. Parts and boundaries. Cognition 41: 945.
Jackendoff, R. 2002. Foundations of Language: Brain, Meaning, Grammar, Evolution. Oxford:
OUP.
Janda, L. 2004. A metaphor in search of a source domain. Cognitive Linguistics 15(4): 471 527.
Jarvis, S. & Odlin, T. 2000. Morphological type, spatial reference, and language transfer. Studies
in Second Language Acquisition 22: 535556.
Jaszczolt, K.M. 1999. Discourse, Beliefs, and Intentions. Oxford: Elsevier Science.
Jaszczolt, K. 2005. Default Semantics. Oxford: OUP.
Johnson, M. 1987. The Body and the Mind: The Bodily Basis of Meaning, Imagination, and Reason. Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press.
Kamp, H. 1979. Events, instants and temporal reference. In Semantics from Different Points of
View. R. Buerle et al.(eds.), 376417. Berlin: Springer.
Kamp, H. 1980. Some remarks on the logic of change. In Time, Tense and Quantifiers, C. Rohrer
(ed.), 103114.Tbingen: Niemeyer.
Kay, P. 1997. Intra-speaker relativity. In Rethinking Linguistic Relativity [Studies in the Social and
Cultural Foundations of Language 17], J.J. Gumperz & S.C. Levinson (eds.), 97114, Cambridge: CUP.
Kay, P. & Fillmore, C.J. 1999. Grammatical constructions and linguistic generalisations: The
Whats X Doing Y? construction. Language 75: 133.
Kay, P. & Kempton, W. 1984. What is the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis? American Anthropologist
86(1): 6579.
Krifka, M. 1992. Thematic relations as links between nominal reference and temporal constitution. In Lexical Matters, I. Sag & A. Szabolcsi (eds.), 2954. Stanford CA: CSLI.
Lakoff, G. 1987. Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal about the Mind.
Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press.
Landman, F. 2000. Events and Plurality: The Jerusalem Lectures. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Langacker, R.W. 1976. Semantic representation and the linguistic relativity hypothesis. Foundations of Language 14: 307357.
Langacker, R.W. 1987. Foundations of Cognitive Grammar Vol.1. Stanford CA: Stanford University Press.
Langacker, R.W. 1991a. Foundations of Cognitive Grammar Vol 2. Stanford CA: Stanford University Press.
Langacker, R.W. 1991b. Concept, Image, and Symbol: The Cognitive Basis of Grammar. Berlin:
Mouton de Gruyter.
Langacker, R.W. 1999 [1997]. The contextual basis of cognitive semantics. In Language and Conceptualization, Nuyts, J. & E. Pederson (eds.), 229252. Cambridge: CUP.
Bibliography
Naigles, L., Fowler, A. & Helm, A. 1992. Developmental shifts in the construction of verb meanings. Cognitive Development 7: 403428.
Narasimhan, B. 2003. Motion events and the lexicon: A case study of Hindi. Lingua 113: 123160.
Nuyts, J. 2001. Linguistic paradigms and the nature of conceptual representation. Presentation
at the 7th International Cognitive linguistics Conference, University of California at Santa
Barbara, 22nd 27th July.
Packard, J. L. 2000. The Morphology of Chinese. Cambridge: CUP.
Palmer, F. R. 1987. The English Verb. London: Longman.
Parsons, T. 1990. Events in the Semantics of English. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.
Pianesi, F. & Varzi, A.C. 2000. Events and event talk. In Speaking of Events, J. Higginbotham,
F. Pianesi & A.C. Varzi (eds.), 349. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Ritter, E. & Rosen, S.T. 1998. Delimiting events in syntax. In The Projection of Arguments: Lexical
and Compositional Factors, M. Butt & W. Geuder (eds.), 135164. Stanford CA: CSLI.
Rooryck, J. 1996. Prepositions and minimalist case marking. In Studies in Comparative Germanic Syntax Vol.2, H. Thrainsson, S.D. Epstein & S. Peter (eds.), 226256. Dordrecht:
Kluwer.
Rothstein, S. 2004. Structuring Events. Oxford: Blackwell.
Rudzka-Ostyn, B. 1988. Semantic extensions into verbal communication. In Topics in Cognitive
Linguistics [Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 50], B. Rudzka-Ostyn (ed.), 507553. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Saeed, J.I. 2001 [1997]. Semantics. Oxford: Blackwell
Serra-Borneto, C. 1997. Two-way prepositions in German: Image and constraints. In Lexical and
Syntactical Constructions and the Construction of Meaning, Proceedings of the bi-annual ICLA
meeting in Albuquerque, July 1995, M. Verspoor, K.D. Lee & E. Sweetser (eds.), 187204.
Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Shibatani, M. 1973. A Linguistic Study of Causative Constructions. PhD dissertation, University
of California, Berkeley.
Shull, S. 2003. The Experience of Space. Mnchen:Verlag Otto Sagner
kiljan, D. 2000. From Croato-Serbian to Croatian: Croatian linguistic identity. Multilingua 19
(1/2): 3-20.
Slobin, D.I. 1996. Two ways to travel: Verbs of motion in English and Spanish. In Grammatical
Constructions Their Form and Meaning, M. Shibatani & S.A. Thompson (eds.), 195219.
Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Slobin, D.I. 1997a. Mind, code, and text. In Essays on Language Function and Language Type, J.
Bybee et al.(eds.), 437467. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Slobin, D. I. 1997b. From thought and language to thinking for speaking. In Rethinking Linguistic Relativity [Studies in the Social and Cultural Foundations of Language 17], J.J.
Gumperz & S. C. Levinson (eds.), 7096. Cambridge: CUP.
Slobin, D. I. 2000a. Saturation of a semantic domain: The case of motion events. Presentation at
Language, Culture, and Cognition conference, Leiden University.
Slobin, D.I. 2000b. Verbalised events: a dynamic approach to linguistic relativity and determinism. In Evidence for Linguistic Relativity. S. Niemeier & R. Dirven (eds.), 107138. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Slobin, D.I. 2003. Language and thought online: Cognitive consequences of linguistic relativity.
In Language in Mind, D. Gentner & S. Goldin-Meadow (eds.), 157192. Cambridge MA:
The MIT Press.
Bibliography
Vigliocco, G. & Filipovi Kleiner, L. 2003. From mind in the mouth to language in the mind: A
review of Language in Mind edited by D. Gentner & S. Goldin-Meadow. Trends in Cognitive
Sciences 8 (1): 57.
Ungerer, F. & Schmid, H. 1996. An Introduction to Cognitive Linguistics. London: Longman.
Wierzbicka, A. 1972. Semantic Primitives. Frankfurt: Athenum Verlag.
Wierzbicka, A. 1996. Semantics: Primes and Universals. Oxford: OUP.
ic-Fuchs, M. 1991. Znanje o jeziku i znanje o svijetu: semantika analiza glagola kretanja u engleskom jeziku. Zagreb: SOL.
Appendix 1
Verbs in English
1. Levin (1993) classifies certain verbs in more than one category; the corpus occurrences way
categories are defined is not always clear-cut, but this is not of relevance for our selection of
verbs since our aim in using this source was to compile the verbs that are used in motion expressions to refer to manner of motion.
b) Run verbs
amble, backpack, bolt, bounce, bound, bowl, canter, carom, cavort, charge, clamber,
climb, clump, coast, crawl, creep, dart, dash, dodder, drift, file, float, fly, frolic, gallop,
gambol, glide, goosestep, haste, hike, hobble, hop, hurry, hurtle, inch, jog, journey,
jump, leap, limp, lollop, lope, limber, lurch, march, meander, mince, mosey, nip, pad,
parade, perambulate, plod, prance, promenade, prowl, race, ramble, roam, roll, romp,
rove, run, rush, sashay, saunter, scamper, scoot, scram, scramble, scud, scurry,
scutter, scuttle, shamble, shuffle, sidle, skedaddle, skip, skitter, skulk, sleepwalk, slide,
slink, slither, slog, slouch, sneak, somersault, speed, stagger, stomp, stray, streak,
stride, stroll, strut, stumble, stump, swagger, sweep, swim, tack, tear, tiptoe, toddle,
totter, traipse, tramp, travel, trek, troop, trot, trudge, trundle, vault, waddle, wade,
walk, wander, whiz, zigzag, zoom
6. Waltz verbs
boogie, bop, cancan, clog, conga, dance, foxtrot, jig, jitterbug, jive, pirouette, polka,
quickstep, rumba, samba, shuffle, squaredance, tango, tapdance, waltz
Appendix 2
Verbs in Serbo-Croatian
1. OD-/DO- Verbs
DOBAVRLJATI
DOBAZATI
DOBANGATI
DOBASATI
DOBASRLJATI (DOBAVRLJATI)
DOBATATI
DOBATRGATI
DOBAULJATI
DOBESNETI
DOBLATATI
DOBREKTATI
DOBRZATI
DOBRODITI
DOVALJATI (SE)
DOVERUGATI
DOVESLATI
DOVIJUGATI SE
DOVRVETI
DOVRLJATI
DOVUKLJATI/DOVUKOVATI SE/
DOVULJATI SE
DOGAZITI
DOGALAMITI
DOGALOPIRATI
DOGAMBATI
DOGAMBULJATI
DOGAMIZATI
DOGEGATI (SE)
DOGERLJATI
DOGREZATI
DOGLAVINJATI
DOGRMETI
DOGRCATI
DOZVIDATI
DOZIBATI SE
DOZUJATI
DOJAHATI
DOJEDRITI
DOJEZDITI
DOJUNJATI
DOJURITI
DOKASATI
DOKIHATI
DOKLANCATI
DOKLAPATI
DOKLATARITI (SE)
DOKLATITI (SE)
DOKLECATI
DOKLIZITI
DOKLIMATI
DOKLIPSATI
DOKLOPARATI
DOKOBELJATI SE
DOKONDRLJATI (SE)
DOKOPRCATI SE
DOKOTRLJATI (=DOKOTURATI) (SE)
DOKRAKATI
DOKRASTI SE
DOKRCATI
DOLANDARATI
DOLEBDETI
DOLEPETATI
DOLEPRATI
DOLETETI
DOLUNJATI
DOLUTATI
DOLJULJATI (SE)
DOMARSIRATI
DOMIGOLJITI
DOMILETI
DOMUVATI (SE)
DOPAUNITI
DOPEVATI
DOPENTRATI (SE)
DOPERJATI
DOPEACITI
DOPIRITI
DOPLAVITI
DOPLAZITI
DOPLAKATI
DOPLIVATI
DOPLESATI
DOPLITATI
DOPLOVITI
DOPLUTATI
DOPLJESKATI
DOPRTETI
DOPUZATI
DOPUHATI
DOSKOITI
DOSKAKUTATI
DOTAVRLJATI
DOTALASATI
DOTALJIGATI
DOTANDRKATI
DOTAPKATI
DOTETURATI (SE)
DOTRABUNJATI
DOTRALJATI
DOTRAPATI
DOTREPTATI
DOTRATI
DOTUMARATI
DOTUTNJATI
DOHITATI
DOHRAMATI
DOHRLITI
DOHUJATI
DOHUKTATI
DOCVLETI
DOCUNJATI SE
DOCUPKATI
DOANTATI
DOTAPATI
DOTRKLJATI
DOULJATI SE (=DOUNJATI SE)
DOUMITI
DOUMORITI
(total: 118)
2. IZ-/U- Verbs
IZBASATI
IZBATRGATI
IZBAULJATI
IZBRODITI
IZVALJATI (SE)
IZVESLATI
IZVIJUGATI
IZVRVETI
IZGALOPIRATI
IZGAMBATI (=IZGAMBULJATI)
IZGEGATI SE
IZGERLJATI
IZGLAVINJATI
IZGMIZATI
IZJAHATI
IZJEDRITI
IZJEZDITI
IZJURITI
IZLEPRATI
IZLETETI
IZLUNJATI
IZMARIRATI
IZMIGOLJITISE
IZMILETI
IZKLIZNUTI
ISKOTRLJATI (=ISKOTURATI) (SE)
ISKASATI
ISKLATITI
Appendix 2
ISKLIZNUTI
ISKOPRCATI SE
ISKOITI
ISKRMANITI
ISPLIVATI
ISLPOVITI
ISPLUATI
ISPRTETI
ISPRHNUTI
ISPUZATI
ISTETURATI SE
ISTRATI
ISTUTNJETI
IEPATI
IETATI
(total: 43)
3. PRO-Verbs
PROBAZATI
PROBRZATI
PROVALJATI (SE)
PROGAVELJATI
PROGALOPIRATI
PROGAMIZATI
PROGAMBATI
PROGEGATI
PROGMIZATI
PROGRMETI
PRODRNDATI
PROZVECATI
PROJAHATI
PROJEDRITI
PROJEZDITI
PROKASATI
PROKLIZITI
PROKOTRLJATI SE
PROKRSTARITI
PROLEBDETI
PROLEPRATI
PROLETETI
PROLUNJATI
PROLUTATI
PROMARSIRATI
PROMIGOLJITI
PROMILETI
PROPUZATI
PROPLIVATI
PROPLOVITI
PROTABATI
PROTANDRKATI
PROTAPKATI
PROTRATI
PROTUMBATI
PROHUJATI
PROHUKTATI
PROUNJATI SE
PROEPURITI SE
PROVRLJATI
PROETATI (SE)
(total: 41)
4. PRE- Verbs
PREBRODITI
PREVALJATI SE
PREVESLATI
PREGAZITI
PREGALOPIRATI
PREGMETI
PREJEDRITI
PREJEZDITI
PREJAHATI
PREJURITI
PREKASATI
PREKLIZITI
PREKOTRLJATI (SE)
PRELETETI
PREPLIVATI
PREPLOVITI
PREPUZITI
PRESKOITI
PRETRATI
PREETATI
(total: 20)
5. NA-Verbs
NAVALJATI
NALETETI
NAJAHATI
NATRATI
NASKOITI
(total: 5)
6. POD- Verbs
PODVALJATI SE
PODLETETI
PODTRATI
(total: 3)
Index
Parsons, T. 51
perfectivization 130
Perkins, R. 13, 99, 100
Pianesi, F. 50, 58
Poulin, C. 2326, 28, 103
R
Rapoport, T. 58, 148, 152
Rappaport-Hovav, M. 18, 23, 29,
37, 103, 109, 146148, 151, 153
Ritter, E. 148
Roberson, D. 142
Rooryck, J. 72
Rosen, S. T. 148
Rothstein, S. 51, 5758
Rudzka-Ostyn, B. 5
Russian 2122, 6162, 108
S
Saeed, J. I. 114
satellite-framed languages 1819
scenarios 148
conventionalized scenarios 55, 102
Schmid, H. 7
semantics 7
Serbo-Croatian 43
algorithm 7274
aspect 6064
directional verbs 1516, 77,
11011, 132133
verb forms 13
prefix cline 7374
prefixes 14
Serra-Borneto, C. 42, 59
Shibatani, M. 102, 147
Shull, S. 21, 75, 121
kiljan, D. 2
Slobin, D. I. 5, 13, 1925, 2831,
43, 55, 71, 7477, 107, 117, 121,
131, 139, 140, 142, 158
Smith, C. S. 58, 60
69 Tanaka, Lidia: Gender, Language and Culture. A study of Japanese television interview discourse. 2004.
xvii,233pp.
68 Moder, Carol Lynn and Aida Martinovic-Zic (eds.): Discourse Across Languages and Cultures.
2004. vi,366pp.
67 Luraghi, Silvia: On the Meaning of Prepositions and Cases. The expression of semantic roles in Ancient
Greek. 2003. xii,366pp.
66 Nariyama, Shigeko: Ellipsis and Reference Tracking in Japanese. 2003. xvi,400pp.
65 Matsumoto, Kazuko: Intonation Units in Japanese Conversation. Syntactic, informational and
functional structures. 2003. xviii,215pp.
64 Butler, Christopher S.: Structure and Function A Guide to Three Major Structural-Functional
Theories. Part 2: From clause to discourse and beyond. 2003. xiv,579pp.
63 Butler, Christopher S.: Structure and Function A Guide to Three Major Structural-Functional
Theories. Part 1: Approaches to the simplex clause. 2003. xx,573pp.
62 Field, Fredric: Linguistic Borrowing in Bilingual Contexts. With a foreword by Bernard Comrie. 2002.
xviii,255pp.
61 Goddard, Cliff and Anna Wierzbicka (eds.): Meaning and Universal Grammar. Theory and
empirical findings. Volume 2. 2002. xvi,337pp.
60 Goddard, Cliff and Anna Wierzbicka (eds.): Meaning and Universal Grammar. Theory and
empirical findings. Volume 1. 2002. xvi,337pp.
59 Shi, Yuzhi: The Establishment of Modern Chinese Grammar. The formation of the resultative construction
and its effects. 2002. xiv,262pp.
58 Maylor, B. Roger: Lexical Template Morphology. Change of state and the verbal prefixes in German.
2002. x,273pp.
57 Meluk, Igor A.: Communicative Organization in Natural Language. The semantic-communicative
structure of sentences. 2001. xii,393pp.
56 Faarlund, Jan Terje (ed.): Grammatical Relations in Change. 2001. viii,326pp.
55 Dahl, sten and Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm (eds.): Circum-Baltic Languages. Volume 2: Grammar
and Typology. 2001. xx,423pp.
54 Dahl, sten and Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm (eds.): Circum-Baltic Languages. Volume 1: Past and
Present. 2001. xx,382pp.
53 Fischer, Olga, Anette Rosenbach and Dieter Stein (eds.): Pathways of Change.
Grammaticalization in English. 2000. x,391pp.
52 Torres Cacoullos, Rena: Grammaticization, Synchronic Variation, and Language Contact. A study of
Spanish progressive -ndo constructions. 2000. xvi,255pp.
51 Ziegeler, Debra: Hypothetical Modality. Grammaticalisation in an L2 dialect. 2000. xx,290pp.
50 Abraham, Werner and Leonid Kulikov (eds.): Tense-Aspect, Transitivity and Causativity. Essays in
honour of Vladimir Nedjalkov. 1999. xxxiv,359pp.
49 Bhat, D.N.S.: The Prominence of Tense, Aspect and Mood. 1999. xii,198pp.
48 Manney, Linda Joyce: Middle Voice in Modern Greek. Meaning and function of an inflectional category.
2000. xiii,262pp.
47 Brinton, Laurel J. and Minoji Akimoto (eds.): Collocational and Idiomatic Aspects of Composite
Predicates in the History of English. 1999. xiv,283pp.
46 Yamamoto, Mutsumi: Animacy and Reference. A cognitive approach to corpus linguistics. 1999.
xviii,278pp.
45 Collins, Peter C. and David Lee (eds.): The Clause in English. In honour of Rodney Huddleston. 1999.
xv,342pp.
44 Hannay, Mike and A. Machtelt Bolkestein (eds.): Functional Grammar and Verbal Interaction. 1998.
xii,304pp.
43 Olbertz, Hella, Kees Hengeveld and Jess Snchez Garca (eds.): The Structure of the
Lexicon in Functional Grammar. 1998. xii,312pp.
42 Darnell, Michael, Edith A. Moravcsik, Michael Noonan, Frederick J. Newmeyer and
Kathleen M. Wheatley (eds.): Functionalism and Formalism in Linguistics. Volume II: Case studies.
1999. vi,407pp.
10 Dressler, Wolfgang U., Willi Mayerthaler, Oswald Panagl and Wolfgang Ullrich Wurzel:
Leitmotifs in Natural Morphology. 1988. ix,168pp.
9 Lang, Ewald and John Pheby: The Semantics of Coordination. (English transl. by John Pheby from the
German orig. ed. 'Semantik der koordinativen Verknpfung', Berlin, 1977). 1984. 300pp.
8 Barth, E.M. and J.L. Martens (eds.): Argumentation: Approaches to Theory Formation. Containing the
Contributions to the Groningen Conference on the Theory of Argumentation, October 1978. 1982. xviii,333pp.
7 Parret, Herman, Marina Sbis and Jef Verschueren (eds.): Possibilities and Limitations of Pragmatics.
Proceedings of the Conference on Pragmatics, Urbino, July 814, 1979. 1981. x,854pp.
6 Vago, Robert M. (ed.): Issues in Vowel Harmony. Proceedings of the CUNY Linguistics Conference on Vowel
Harmony, May 14, 1977. 1980. xx,340pp.
5 Haiman, John: Hua: A Papuan Language of the Eastern Highlands of New Guinea. 1980. iv,550pp.
4 Lloyd, Albert L.: Anatomy of the Verb. The Gothic Verb as a Model for a Unified Theory of Aspect, Actional
Types, and Verbal Velocity. (Part I: Theory; Part II: Application). 1979. x,351pp.
3 Malkiel, Yakov: From Particular to General Linguistics. Selected Essays 19651978. With an introduction by
the author, an index rerum and an index nominum. 1983. xxii,659pp.
2 Anwar, Mohamed Sami: BE and Equational Sentences in Egyptian Colloquial Arabic. 1979. vi,128pp.
1 Abraham, Werner (ed.): Valence, Semantic Case, and Grammatical Relations. Workshop studies prepared for
the 12th International Congress of Linguists, Vienna, August 29th to September 3rd, 1977. xiv,729pp. Expected
Out of print