Talking About Motion: A crosslinguistic investigation of lexicalization patterns (Studies in Language Companion Series)

Talking about Motion

Studies in Language Companion Series (SLCS) This series has been established as a companion series to the periodical Studies in Language.

Editors Werner Abraham University of Vienna

Michael Noonan

University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee

Editorial Board Joan Bybee

Christian Lehmann

Ulrike Claudi

Robert E. Longacre

Bernard Comrie

Brian MacWhinney

William Croft

Marianne Mithun

Östen Dahl

Edith Moravcsik

Gerrit J. Dimmendaal

Masayoshi Shibatani

Ekkehard König

Russell S. Tomlin

University of New Mexico University of Cologne Max Planck Institute, Leipzig University of New Mexico University of Stockholm University of Cologne

Free University of Berlin

University of Erfurt

University of Texas, Arlington Carnegie-Mellon University University of California, Santa Barbara University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee Rice University and Kobe University University of Oregon

Volume 91 Talking about Motion. A crosslinguistic investigation of lexicalization patterns Luna Filipović

Talking about Motion A crosslinguistic investigation of lexicalization patterns

Luna Filipović University College London

John Benjamins Publishing Company Amsterdam / Philadelphia

8

TM

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Filipović, Luna. Talking about Motion : A Crosslinguistic Investigation of Lexicalization Patterns / Luna Filipović. p. cm. (Studies in Language Companion Series, issn 0165-7763 ; v. 91) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Motion in language. 2. Lexicology. 3. Grammar, Comparative and general-Verb. I. Title. 2007 P120.M65F55 401'.4--dc21 2007030697 isbn 978 90 272 3101 7 (Hb; alk. paper)

© 2007 – John Benjamins B.V. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publisher. John Benjamins Publishing Co. · P.O. Box 36224 · 1020 me Amsterdam · The Netherlands John Benjamins North America · P.O. Box 27519 · Philadelphia pa 19118-0519 · usa

Mami & Luzzi

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

1

9

37

69

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5.4.1 5.4.2 5.4.3 5.4.4

Object of the preposition  92 Sentence complex  96 Defaults  99 Narrative context  105

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

I hereby express my gratitude to the Economic and Social Sciences Research Council UK, whose generous support in the preparation of this study for publication was granted in the form of a postdoctoral fellowship, award number: RES-000–27–0143. My PhD research, on which the study is based, was supported by a number of institutions, which I would also like to thank on this occasion: Cambridge Overseas Trust, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Open Society Institute, Leventis Foundation, Studenica Foundation, Churchill College Cambridge and Cambridge University Board of Graduate Studies. My special thanks to the three distinguished scholars who shaped my development as a linguist, Professors Ranko Bugarski (Belgrade), Peter Matthews (Cambridge) and Dan Slobin (Berkeley). On a more personal note, I am infinitely grateful to my family and friends, who are my main source of strength and inspiration in life and work.

Language – human speech – is an exhaustible abundance of manifold treasures. Louis Hjemslev Prolegomena to a Theory of Language

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,

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Talking about Motion

prepositions, prefixes, verb phrases, prepositional phrases, external and internal arguments and specific constructions will be dealt with and it will be proved that a comprehensive systemic overview is necessary in order to provide an adequate analysis of the lexicalization process in different languages. Our analysis is aimed at making and supporting three major general claims: i. In fathoming the way lexicalization processes work it is essential to establish how different levels of language structure (e.g. morphology, syntax and lexical semantics) interact in rendering events into a linguistic expression. It is not enough, and can often be misleading, just to establish whether a component of an event is lexicalized in a verb or in a particle in a particular language. ii. The fact that two languages 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) does not provide enough predictive power for potential hypothesizing about the whole process of lexicalization of a particular experiential domain. iii. It is next to impossible for any theoretical approach to provide adequate explanations for all phenomena in all languages. Certain theories fare better when accounting for a number of phenomena in certain languages, but there is hardly an all-encompassing theory on offer on the “linguistic market” – and why should there be any theory of this kind at all? We will demonstrate that in accounting for important natural language phenomena theoretical quibbles prove to be impeding rather than revealing. We will try to come up with an eclectic approach, not limited by any single theory in particular, but rather drawing on a number of sources, combining, selecting and dynamically formulating general principles that can guide the study of meaning in language. Apart from these general claims, our research aims at proving these major points regarding the two particular languages that we will focus on, namely English and Serbo-Croatian:1 i. The two languages have been said to demonstrate the same lexicalization patterns when it comes to the domain of motion events. We will prove that noticing only the similarities between the two while disregarding the noticeable differences in this lexicalization process proves to be detrimental to the analysis of the way the two languages function when it comes to expressing motion events. 1. We use the term ‘Serbo-Croatian’ because linguistically Serbian and Croatian are still one and the same language, although it is nowadays more politically correct to refer to them as two separate languages. We used sources from both Serbia and Croatia, and the issue is in essence a political one, irrelevant for our purposes (see Bugarski (1997) for more detailed explanations on language policies and tendencies in the Balkans; cf. also Škiljan (2000)).



Chapter 1.  Introduction

ii. Although English and Serbo-Croatian show certain undeniable similarities in the lexicalization patterns, the differences are equally noticeable and prevent the two from being classified as the same type within the typology suggested in Talmy (1985). We explain the importance of taking into consideration and further analyzing intratypological variation as well as interactions among different typological dimensions. iii. When starting from experiential data, we should not only focus on the components of events and their expression in languages, but also on the complete network of more finely grained spatial and temporal relations, extracting features that are relevant for speakers, and explaining how they find their way into linguistic expressions. We assume that there is a certain number of features that are universally perceivable and thus potentially likely to be expressed in all languages. However, different interaction patterns of language-specific systems of lexical semantics, syntax and morphology may coerce speakers of a particular language into referring to some aspects of events more often than speakers of some other languages. This, in effect, affects the information content of an expression. We make no predictions regarding any cognitive consequences at present, but discuss the ways in which our study of lexicalization mechanisms can be used further in order to carry out tests that could reveal the nature of event representation. We will look into how those universally perceivable features of motion events (e.g. whether there was a boundary in the way of a moving Figure and whether it was crossed or not) and language-specific patterns interact and vary depending on what kind of events are described. Some languages have restrictions when it comes to using manner verbs to refer to situations in which a moving Figure crossed a boundary, and speakers can use manner verbs only when describing an event where no boundary was crossed. Other languages allow certain manner verbs to be used when location has already been changed but not in expressions referring to the exact moment when the moving Figure was changing location. We intend to look into reasons behind, and the consequences of, this kind of different patterning. Although we stated that we would mainly focus on two languages, English and Serbo-Croatian, we will also illustrate the main points in support of our argument with examples from Spanish, Italian, French, Russian, Albanian and Mandarin Chinese. We will analyze accounts of motion events that have past reference, and we will explain the choice of tenses in those expressions as we progress with our analysis. The way in which we analyze lexicalization patterning crosslinguistically here bears relevance to the study of lexicalization of domains in general. We look for the important spatial and temporal features of motion events and patterns that are used in different languages to express them while taking in consideration all levels at

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Talking about Motion

which meaning is conveyed (namely morphology, syntax and lexical semantics), and not just meanings of certain lexical classes, e.g. verb meaning or preposition meaning. Thus, we offer a comprehensive insight into the relevant features of different systems and establish how they compare crosslinguistically. The mere fact that some languages have richer lexicons of manner verbs than some other languages, for example, does not tell us anything about how or when those verbs can be used. Perhaps it is more correct to talk about ‘verbs in motion expressions’ rather than ‘motion verbs’ because sometimes verbs other than motion verbs are used in the expressions of motion, e.g. verbs of sound emission (as in ‘He buzzed out of the room’). However, the central place in motion expressions belongs precisely to motion verbs, so they are our starting point. We also propose two algorithms for understanding motion expressions in Serbo-Croatian and English and illustrate how they differ because of the different levels at which contributions to the meaning of a motion expression as a whole are made. Two original hypotheses with regard to the Serbo-Croatian lexicalization pattern (termed morphological blocking and combinatory potential) will be put forward. A multilayered theoretical discussion of a number of approaches to meaning towards which our study assumes a bias-free attitude is one of the key advantages of our approach. We also use only attested examples that reflect real language use, in both speaking and writing. We start by assuming the existence and distinctiveness of three levels: the level of events as they occurred in reality, the level of conceptualization of events and the level of the linguistic expression of events. We have to reiterate our central aim here, which is to show that the information content (i.e. presence/absence of particular information) of the message is habitually affected as a consequence of different lexicalization patterns and language-specific, systemic restrictions. We do not tackle conceptual representations at present, but we indicate the directions in which questions regarding the conceptual level can be addressed in the context of our research (chapter 7). This decision is reminiscent of the view expressed in ŽicFuchs (1991: 80), whereby “knowledge of the world” and “conceptualization” are kept apart explicitly. “Knowledge of the world” would consist of interrelated information that a language user possesses with regard to an experiential domain, and the conceptual structure is the principle (or principles) on the basis of which that knowledge is organised. We do not make any claims regarding conceptualization at present, and rely on knowledge of the world in our pursuit of defining the perceptual and linguistic “chunking” of motion events. We discuss the segmentation of events in more detail since it bears relevance to our main arguments (cf. 3.2). Segmenting events as they occurred is not necessarily mapped one-to-one with the way they are segmented when lexicalized in different languages. Moreover, criteria for defining and segmenting events are



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.”

This definition emphasizes the aspects of motion events related to change-of-state events in general. Change-of-location can be seen as a kind of change-of-state, a subdomain in a big group of events, which comprises different kinds of events that have the characteristic ‘change over time’. This does not give us the most precise definition of what motion events in particular are, and therefore we look for other definitions that point out some other aspects of the domain we are interested in, which are more relevant for our research. It is important to emphasise here that the notion of change

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Talking about Motion

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.”

Žic-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 Fillmore’s and Miller’s definitions coincide with Aristotle’s (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, Wierzbicka’s definition has the following formulation: “X is moving in P = X can be thought of as becoming part of different parts of P.”

Wierzbicka’s 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 Fillmore’s and Miller’s definitions, which are based on the perceptual foundations of motion, and the present research will follow their approach. As noted in Žic-Fuchs (1991: 16) Aristotle’s 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 Fillmore’s frames, where “a word’s 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 Fillmore’s frames, because, as Talmy (1996: 238) explains, “event-frames are a generic category, quite likely universal across languages”. Talmy’s view on events and expression of events also diverges slightly from the postulates of Langacker’s 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 Langacker’s 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, Talmy’s 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’). Talmy’s 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 (Langacker’s and Talmy’s) 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

2. In chapter 3 we provide a discussion on distinguishing events in reality from verbalized events, the latter of the two being the subject of our study.

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Talking about Motion

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

The point of departure Data, methodology and theory

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.

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Talking about Motion

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-‘).



Chapter 2.  The point of departure

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.

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Talking about Motion

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.



Chapter 2.  The point of departure

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)TRČATI (RUN INTO) singular

plural

Ja sam utrčao/utrčala. I be-COP into-run-PST-PFV-SG-M/F

Mi smo utrčali/utrčale. We be-COP into-run-PST-PFV-PL-M/F

Ti si utrčao/utrčala. You be-COP into-run-PST-PFV-SG-M/F

Vi ste utrčali/utrčale. You be-COP into-run-PST-PFV-PL-M/F

On/ona/ono je utrčao/utrčala/utrčalo. He/she/it be-COP into-run-PST-PFV-SGM/F/N

Oni/One/Ona su utrčali/utrčale/utrčala. 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

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Talking about Motion

confirmed, the dominant pattern in motion expressions by far is manner verb+directional particle (as in ‘She dashed out’). We will be analyzing all manner of motion verbs in English from the list given in Levin (1993) (cf. appendix 1), and their combinations with the following directional particles: ‘in’, ‘into’, ‘out’, ‘out of ’, ‘across’, ‘over’, ‘through’, ‘on’, ‘onto’, and ‘under’. In Serbo-Croatian, both prefixed and unprefixed manner verbs are used in motion expressions. The unprefixed manner verbs combine freely with directional particles, just like in English. When it comes to the prefixed verbs, the direction is expressed both in the prefixes, which are morphologically attached to the verb root in the form of bound morphemes, and in the prepositions that follow the prefixed verb. The prefixes and the prepositions can, but need not, be of the same phonetic appearance. Originally, the prefixes were prepositions (some of them adverbs), but they now form a compound with the verb root, adding their prepositional meaning to the basic meaning of the verb root (Stevanović (1989: 434), Stanojčić et al. (1989: 151), Grickat (1966/67)). There is a large number of these prefixes, but these are the ones that cover most of the relevant spatial relations in translative motion: DO dotrčati (run to smb./sth.), došetati (walk to smb./sth.), etc.; ‘Move to a speaker/scene/location in the manner of action described by the verb root.’ OD odjuriti (dash from smb./sth.), otšetati (stroll from smb./sth.),etc. ‘Move from a speaker/scene/location in the manner described by the verb root.’ PRE pretrčati (run across or over), preskočiti (jump across or over), etc. ‘Move across or over in the manner described by the verb root.’ U uleteti (fly into), uskočiti (jump into), etc. ‘Move inwards in the manner described by the verb root.’ IZ iskočiti (jump out), istrčati (run out), etc. ‘Move outwards in the manner described by the verb root.’ PRO protrčati(run through), proteturati (stagger through), etc. ‘Move through a space in the manner described by the verb root.’



Chapter 2.  The point of departure

POD podvaljati se (roll under REFL), podleteti (fly under), etc. ‘Move to a space under something in the manner described by the verb root.’ NA natrčati (run onto), naskočiti (jump onto), etc. ‘Move onto a space in the manner described by the verb root.’

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) ‘trčati’ (an imperfective intransitive verb ‘to run’) vs. ‘pretrčati’ (a perfective intransitive or transitive verb, meaning either ‘to run across sth.’, or ‘to run the whole length of sth.’). (Compare: Trčao je ceo dan. (‘He ran all day’.) vs. Pretrčao 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) ‘čitati’ (an imperfective verb; ‘to be in the process of reading’) vs. ‘pročitati’ (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 ‘ući’ (‘enter’), ‘izaći’ (‘exit’), ‘popeti se’ (‘ascend’REFL), ‘sići’ (‘descend’), ‘proći’ (‘pass’), etc. 6 All of these forms are perfective. Imperfective directional verbs also exist (IPFV: ‘ulaziti’- ‘enter’, ‘izlaziti’-‘exit’, ‘penjati se’‘ascend’(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’ (‘ići’), as in, for example, U- + ‘ići’ = ‘ući’ (‘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 Vidaković (2006) for some experimental evidence from spoken Serbo-Croatian).

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Talking about Motion

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 world’s 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. Talmy’s “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).



Chapter 2.  The point of departure 

The terms Figure and Ground are borrowed from Gestalt psychology. According to Talmy, a motion event has four basic components:

Motion: Presence of motion Figure: The moving object Ground: The reference-point object with respect to which the Figure moves Path: The course followed by the Figure with respect to the Ground

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 Talmy’s 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.

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Talking about Motion

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). Talmy’s suggestion, though cautious and tentative, is that most of the world’s 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),

11. Agentive motion is also referred to as “voluntary”, “self-caused” or “internally caused” by different authors; cf. Levin and Rappaport Hovav (1995); see also Croft (1990). 12. The core schema is that of the Figure changing location, the essential component thus being the Path of motion (X MOVES FROM A TO B; X at A at T1; X at B at T2; ‘T’ stands for ‘time’). 13. We are aware that individual languages and families are listed together here, but that is exactly how they are given.



Chapter 2.  The point of departure 

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 Talmy’s 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 Talmy’s 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 salió 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.

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Talking about Motion

2.4 Typology in action Slobin ((1996), (1997a)) has applied Talmy’s typology in his analysis of samples from narratives in different languages (English, Spanish, Turkish, and Russian), which were both experimentally elicited narratives based on a picture story (“The Frog Stories”) and narratives from literary texts of English and Spanish novelists together with their respective translations. In both types of narratives he finds confirmation that the form and content of descriptions of motion events are heavily shaped by the typology of lexicalization patterns. He particularly concentrates on establishing a firm basis for distinguishing between languages that are satellite-framed (S-languages) and those that are verb-framed (V-languages). He also addresses the literary consequences (e.g. the pace of narration, rhetorical style, etc.) that arise from the differences in lexicalization in English and Spanish (Slobin (1996)). According to Talmy’s typology, English is a satellite-framed, and Spanish is a verb-framed language. The major dichotomy seems feasible to Slobin on an overall scale, but he emphasizes that some modifications of the framework advocated by Talmy are required. Slobin notes that Spanish does not always behave like a verbframed language, and some additional constraints to the classification seem to have emerged. He uses the term boundary-crossing in his analysis, to refer to those kinds of events where there is a boundary to be crossed on the way of the moving Figure.16 Boundary-crossing is experientially (perceptually) salient and Slobin has shown that it is also salient in language, whereby S-languages and V-languages differ significantly precisely in the lexicalization of boundary-crossing. The important point he made was that, apparently, when a non-boundary-crossing situation is to be expressed, Spanish speakers (and those of all other Romance languages) can use the combination of manner verb+directional particle and accumulate Ground elements onto a single verb, which is the pattern typical of satellite-framed languages (Slobin (1997a: 443)):

(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. Así, pues, los tres hombres caminaron lentamente y sin agitación visible por las calles, desde la cárcel 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 Slobin’s work.



Chapter 2.  The point of departure 

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 Jason’s house. (1 manner verb; 3 Grounds) d. Spanish: Salí por la puerta de la cocina, pasé por los corrales y me dirigí a casa de Jasón. (3 directional verbs; 3 Grounds) (back translation: ‘I exited through the kitchen door, passed by the animal pens, and directed myself to Jason’s 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. ‘salí 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.

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Talking about Motion

motion in Russian. Slobin (p.c.) provides the following example from Dostoevsky’s “Bratja Karamazovy”, which illustrates this point:

(2) a. …on obežal bol’šim krujkom, čerez pereulok, dom Fedora Pavloviča, probežal Dmitrovskuju ulicu, perebežal potom mostik i prijamo popal v uedinennyj pereulok… …he around-ran in big arc, through lane, house of Feodor Pavlovič, along- ran Dmitrovskaja street, across-ran then little bridge and directly fell into adjoining lane…

It would be translated into English as:

(2) b. … he ran in a big detour, through the lane, past Fyodor Pavlovich’s house, along Dmitrovsky street, across the bridge, right into the adjoining lane…

And if we go beyond the isolated verb complex, which we have to do in order to provide an adequate account of how motion events are lexicalized, we face a new set of issues to be taken into consideration. As Slobin argues, an examination of narrative data requires attention to the extended depiction of motion across clauses, and to go beyond the simple motion event to what he calls the journey (a complete sequence of motion events until the Figure stops moving). Similarly, Brinton (1988) contends that the verb complex only (verb+particle) is not a sufficient foundation for establishing some essential syntactic and semantic relations in a system. We discuss the role of narrative in chapter 5. Slobin (1996: 199) goes on to say that the diversity of English verb+satellite is impressive. He also notices many other interesting points. For example, English tends to give more locative information (source/goal), as in ‘They fell into the water’. Spanish speakers tend to use bare verbs (‘Se cayeron’ – ‘They fell’), twice as often as English speakers: (3)

Los tiró 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



Chapter 2.  The point of departure 

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

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Talking about Motion

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)):

(4) a. Jean a couru dans le jardin. Il a vu le chat à travers la fenêtre et a voulu l’attraper.

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 s’entraîner pour la compétition. d. John ran in the garden. He wanted to train for the competition.

Obviously, the situation in (4a) is a boundary-crossing one, apparently defying the typological predictions. This need not undermine the claim that in Romance languages the preferred pattern is a directional verb in motion expressions, but indicates that explanations for individual cases should be sought in other directions, namely in the meaning and diachronic development of individual prepositions and their combination with different verbs, as well as the expression of tense and aspect categories, and not only in whether Path is expressed in the verb or some other element. There are further issues related to certain expressions of motion events in French. Fong and Poulin (1998: 32–33) point out that it is important to know what must follow the preposition, as in the case of ‘à travers’. They contend that the example in (5a) is correct, and the one in (5b) is not because ‘à travers’ needs to be followed by an object of a preposition which clearly expresses a barrier (or a

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 nagé vers la rive’ (‘The fish swam towards the river bank’) and ‘L’enfant a couru vers sa mère’ (‘The child ran towards her mother’).



Chapter 2.  The point of departure 

boundary) that is crossed. This is so in (5a) but not in (5b), marked as? by Fong and Poulin: (5) a. Le poisson a nagé à travers la chute d’eau. ‘The fish swam through the waterfall.’ b. ?L’enfant a couru à travers la pièce. ‘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 ‘à travers’ is impossible because ‘room’ (‘la pièce’) 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.

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Talking about Motion

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 pièce’ (’the room’) as a boundary. We need to focus on why ‘à 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 Stošić (2001), where the meanings of ‘par’ and ‘à travers’ (neither of which could be an adequate equivalent for English ‘across’ or ‘through’) are analyzed in detail. He contends that ‘à 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 ‘à travers’ is illustrated in (6a) and (6b) respectively: (6) a. Ils sont entrés/sortis/passés/rentrés par le jardin. ‘They entred/exited/passed/returned via the garden.’ b. Le soldats marchent à 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. Stošić (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).



Chapter 2.  The point of departure 

(‘la pièce’) in the example (5b) not only cannot be taken to refer to a boundary in French if à 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+à travers applies in different contexts. Stošić (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 ‘à 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. É 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’).

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Talking about Motion

in boundary-crossing situations both in the literature and among native speakers. It should be possible to trace the development of the relevant prepositions and see how these two uses evolved, how one or the other started being considered primary, and whether and how the relevant distinctions were made in the past. Baicchi (2005) argues that in order for Romance languages to replicate the English pattern, certain features of FORCE must be present, such as immediacy, high degree of intensity or a component of resistance (counterforce). Examples such as ‘I flung out of his hut’ and ‘They rushed into the little cabin to rush out incontinently’ (ibid.: 524) would be rendered into Italian via a manner verb+directional particle, just like in English. She also notices that Manner+Motion conflation is more frequent in Italian than in Spanish, because “the Germanic structure has exerted a stronger influence on Italian for historical reasons”, borrowing of Germanic constructions being present already in Latin (ibid.: 516). Therefore, we emphasize again here the importance of auxiliary and verb meaning, as well as preposition meaning, and suggest that comprehensive research is necessary, looking into both the synchronic situation, matters like frequency of different patterns, and diachronic development of the relevant elements and constructions. Obviously, the situation is far from being a clear-cut one. A number of researchers from different camps voiced their concerns and contributed to a number of clarifications regarding the typology and its predictive power (Aske (1989), Ibarretexte-Antuñano (2001), Naigles et al. (1998), Slobin (1996), (1997), (2000), Talmy (2000)).26 Some studies provide examples that apparently contradict some typological claims (e.g. Asher and Sablayrolles (1996), Fong and Poulin (1998)), but they represent an indication of a further necessity to explore the typological classification and account for processes that underline specific cases rather than a serious undermining of the typology itself. Some authors experimentally test the nature of different encoding and its influence on language use. For example, Naigles et al. (1998) argue that Spanish speakers do not provide conclusive evidence that their pattern shows consistency as predicted within the typology. The study points out that the typological characterization of Spanish has changed substantially since the initial typological specification by Talmy (Naigles et al. (1998: 524)): “The set of motion events supposed to require Path conflation has become more and more restricted, from all descriptions of motion events (Talmy (1985)) to just those describing motion events with definite endstates or origin (Aske (1989), 26. Ibarretexte-Antuñano (2001) confirms that although Basque shows a tendency to express Path in the verb, and is classified as a verb-framed language, there is also a tendency in Basque to provide an extensive elaboration of Path, i.e. accumulation of directional elements that follow the verb, thus having more than one directional element with one verb in an expression, which is a feature of satellite-framed languages.



Chapter 2.  The point of departure 

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.



Talking about Motion

We suggest that there might be a kind of typological continuum with regard to salience of Manner, whereby Serbo-Croatian will occupy a place between the Germanic and the Romance group (cf. Filipović (1999), (2001), (2006a)). There is a possibility that this continuum is quite a vibrant environment due to intratypological variation. Languages may show similarities in lexicalization on one level (e.g. lexical), but not on another (e.g. constructional). It could also be the case that the occurrences of certain verb+particle combinations and constructions are guided by selectional restrictions of a verb (cf. Narasimhan (2003)) or morphosyntactic restrictions of a construction. In further support of this position, we refer to Narasimhan (2003), who argues in favour of localizing crosslinguistic variations at the phrasal level rather than only at the lexical level. Lexical items that are similar across languages might be constrained in different ways in how they combine phrasally (ibid.: 158). She demonstrates that classifying Hindi as a verb-framed language obscures a number of principles in motion lexicalization of that language. She explains that the combinability of Hindi manner verbs with directional phrases depends not only on aspectual factors (such as telic vs. atelic), but also on the more general semantic profile of the verb itself (ibid.). We initially wanted to inquire into how similar English and Serbo-Croatian are when it comes to expressing motion, since previous typological claims classified them as the same type. For our pilot study, we started by choosing two literary texts, an English original and a Serbo-Croatian original, and the translations of these two books into Serbo-Croatian and English respectively.27 We also collected some experimental data, where native speakers of Serbo-Croatian with advanced fluency in English were given the task to translate certain expressions of motion events from English into Serbo-Croatian.28 We wanted to see whether and how 27. The data from the narratives consist of 70 descriptions of motion events in English, collected from the novel Animal Farm by George Orwell and its translation into Serbo-Croatian by Vera Lebović, as well as 40 descriptions of motion events in Serbo-Croatian from two short stories by Ivo Andrić, Prokleta avlija and Priča o vezirovom slonu, and their translation into English by Celia Hawkesworth. 28. The experimental data were elicited from 15 native speakers of Serbo-Croatian (all Cambridge graduates, whose participation was voluntary) and their purpose was twofold: a) to obtain translations of non-literary descriptions of motion events from English into Serbo-Croatian and to see how the native speakers of Serbo-Croatian cope with the abundance of English locative detail, and b) to check on the basis of Slobin’s examples, whether native speakers of SerboCroatian exhibit some similar tendencies to Spanish speakers when translating accounts of motion events from English. The participants were given 25 simple sentences in English to translate into Serbo-Croatian, and 10 sentences in Serbo-Croatian to be translated into English. Some of the examples in the experiment have been taken from Slobin ((1996), (1997)), where they had the purpose of highlighting the difference in patterning between English and Spanish verbalized motion events.



Chapter 2.  The point of departure

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. Filipović (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 Slobin’s 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 (Filipović (1999)). For example: (8) a.

They tiptoed from room to room. Obišli su sobe na prstima. Around-go-PST-PFV-3PL be-COP rooms on tiptoes. ‘They went around the rooms on tiptoes.’

b.

They saw him toiling up the slope… Videli su ga kako se s mukom penje… They saw him how REFL with pain climb- PRS-IPFV-3SG ‘They saw him climbing with pain…’

Manner is completely omitted from the translation in Serbo-Croatian in the following examples: (9) a.

All the animals trooped into the big barn. Sve su životinje došle u veliki ambar. All be-COP animals came into big barn. ‘All the animals went into the big barn’

b.

They all raced out into the pasture together. Zajedno su pošle na pašu. Together be-COP started to go on grazing. ‘They went to the pasture together’

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





Talking about Motion

conversion from nouns to verbs. It is a common and productive process, which is not the case in Serbo-Croatian. In the case of example (9b) it could be argued that the translation itself is quite unfortunate, because the translator had a better option, namely to use a semantically simpler manner verb (because the precise prefixed equivalent for ‘racing out’ does not exist), and possibly specify Manner further in an adjunct, as we suggest in (9c): (9) c. Svi su izjurili na pašnjak trkajući se. All be-COP out-rush-PST-PFV-3PL onto pasture racing REFL ‘All ran out onto the pasture racing.’

Thus, there is a translation in Serbo-Croatian that is more faithful to the original, but not quite the same, since the manner detail still had to be provided outside the verb in order to render the meaning conveyed in English correctly. Even if we take this factor into consideration, we still have significant differences to uncover, and many more examples to account for. This is just a starting illustration that prompted us to look into the matter in more depth. We stated that the combinability of prepositions with verbs in English is free, but it seems to obey a universal constraint proposed by Bohnemeyer’s (2003) and termed “argument uniqueness constraint” (AUC), which concerns the semantic uniqueness of Path argument roles that can be mapped onto Ground-denoting expressions within single clauses. It requires each expression of a semantic argument expressed in a single clause to be assigned a unique argument role (Bohnemeyer 2003: 110). The AUC also affects the coding of Path roles in such a way that in simple clauses only one Path role (e.g. source, goal, route, etc.) can be assigned to only one Path-expressing element. This is an apparently universal constraint on the coding of motion events at the syntax/semantics interface (ibid.). This constraint checks examples like: * ‘Sally walked across the hall to the entrance out of the library’ crosslinguistically (ibid.). Thus, accumulation of prepositional phrases is not unregulated, even in English. On the more language-specific front, the morphology of Serbo-Croatian, being rather complex, prevents the use of prefixed manner verbs and their combinations with Path particles without restrictions. Especially with semantically more complex manner verbs, if we want to express change of location, thus including information on both Path and Manner in the verb, we might happen to have an adequate manner verb, but it might not be able to be prefixed by the particular prefix that we need in order to express the direction of motion we want. We would have to use other means available, e.g. a verb lexicalizing Path instead, and express Manner in some other way (examples in (8)), or use a semantically simpler manner verb that can be prefixed by the adequate prefix (example (9c)). We wanted to search for reasons that lie in the essence of how the lexicalization mechanisms operate in different languages and why



Chapter 2.  The point of departure 

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. Slobin’s 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,

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Talking about Motion

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 Talmy’s 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.



Chapter 2.  The point of departure 

However, this argument cannot sustain even very simple criticism. In ‘He drove in’, the last word is tonic, i.e. the adverb (or Talmy’s satellite) ‘in’. In the example ‘He drove in through the gate’, the last word, i.e. ‘gate’ gets the tonic stress. Although according to Talmy ‘in’ should be a satellite here as well, it does not get the heavy (tonic) stress. On the other hand, in the example provided by Talmy that is supposed to illustrate the fact that when an element is used as a preposition it does not have a heavy (tonic) stress, we clearly see that this is not the case: in ‘He drove past him’, ‘past’ would normally have a tonic stress, unless the speaker wanted to emphasize the pronoun at the end, e.g. ‘He drove past him, not her’. It is still not clear why Talmy treats ‘out’ as a satellite, and ‘of ’ as a preposition in ‘He ran out of the house’, when it could be freely said instead to be a complex preposition ‘out of ’. Also, can one adopt a criterion, which seems to be ensuing from Talmy’s account, that satellites are not followed by a nominal, whereas prepositions are, as in, for example: ‘He ran across’ vs. ‘He ran across the street’? We have to remark that the expressions without the nominal would be said (normally at least) in contexts where ‘across what’ would be understood. There are many cases in English where one can equally talk of a preposition+latent (understood) complement. Therefore, this diagnostic for deciding what to treat as a satellite and take into consideration in the analysis by Talmy does not seem justified. Moreover, satellites and prepositions are equally relevant in the expression of Path. English seems to be particularly problematic when it comes to drawing the line between different parts of speech in expressions like the ones we are discussing because of the difficulty in establishing criteria for precise defining of different categories such as phrasal verbs, prepositional verbs, phrasal-prepositional verbs, and other verb+particle combinations. By the same token, historically, it is wellknown that the morphological simplification of English has led to the change of usage of directional particles that were prefixally bound to the verb in Old English, but later became free morphemes that followed the verb.30 Since the complexity of this issue would require a thorough analysis and exemplification of its own, only the aspects relevant to the present study will be highlighted. We consider the satellite/preposition distinction unnecessary, because we are determined to look into all particles that express Path (whether they are followed by a noun or not) and determine their relevance for the expression as a whole. It turns out that it is not of any consequence for this type of analysis to draw a line between satellites and prepositions. We treat them all as Path particles. A particle is considered relevant for us as long as it is used in expressesions of the direction or location of motion, whether followed by a noun or not. There is a related distinction 30. The reverse process happened in Serbo-Croatian (cf. Grickat (1966/67), Stanojčic et al. (1989), Stevanović (1989)).

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Talking about Motion

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 Palmer’s 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

The proposed approach and central assumptions

3.1 Introducing situation types There is number of studies that have tackled these same issues in the past, but to our knowledge, not in the systematic way outlined here. We choose to start from situation types, rather than compile lists of verbs, for example, analyze their meanings, and contrast them crosslinguistically on the paradigmatic or syntagmatic level, which was the case in some previous studies (cf. Žic-Fuchs (1991); Levin and Rappaport Hovav (1995)). We by no means deny the central role verbs play in lexicalizing the domain of motion events, but we are not able to make all the relevant predictions about lexicalization patterns in a language based only on their meanings. We use them as cues for searching the corpora, and this was the most logical and practical way to collect expressions of motion events for our research. However, our analysis neither starts nor stops with verb meanings. The justification for the way in which we proceeded with our research is found in a simple criterion, which is to start from experiential categories, i.e. motion events, and see what means are used in languages to express different spatial and temporal features pertaining to them. It will be evident that our proposed situation types are related to the Vendlerian classification of events into states, activities, achievements and accomplishments, as well as to the notion of telicity. We did not base our analysis on those notions because of a number of problems. Namely, Vendlerian classification is sometimes taken to be the classification of verbs, VPs or events themselves, and this causes confusion, especially when one author discusses this classification as referring to both verbs and events in the same paper or study. Telicity is also considered to pertain sometimes to verbs, sometimes to VPs and sometimes to events. We discuss these phenomena further in section 3.2. Situation types are defined within the spatial frame as boundary-crossing, boundary-reaching, and non-boundary-crossing. The term ‘boundary-crossing’ refers to overcoming a physical boundary that a moving Figure encounters. These distinctions are taken to be universally perceivable, and we willl try to confirm that speakers habitually observe them when they talk about motion events. Apparently,

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Talking about Motion

languages tend to provide the means to draw the above-mentioned distinctions related to the spatial information to be expressed, and we noticed that this in effect relates to the distinctions made within the temporal frame. We established that there are three major temporal features, also potentially universally distinguishable, on the temporal axis: if an expression relates to a motion event in which the change of location had not occurred (at the time the event was witnessed), we have the nochange phase; if an event was occurring at the moment of witnessing it, we are talking about the moment-of-change phase; and finally when the change of location has been observed, we have the change-occurred temporal feature of an event. The two domains, spatial and temporal, are intertwined: when a boundary is crossed or is being crossed, a change has occurred or is occurring; when no boundary is crossed, such an event has the temporal feature of no-change. For example:

(1) a. He ran into the room. (boundary-crossing/change-occurred)

b. He ran in the park. (non-boundary-crossing/no-change)

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:

(2) a. He ran into the room.

b. He was running into the room when I saw him. c. He ran/was running across the field for a while. d. He ran to the door.

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



Chapter 3.  The proposed approach and central assumptions 

point in time. An expression of a complete motion event is the following: ‘He ran out of the room onto the balcony’. The expression refers to a boundary-crossing/ change-occurred situation type. The expression ‘He staggered into the room’ also refers to a situation type with the temporal feature change-occurred, whereby the moving Figure was outside the location expressed as the final destination and then as the result of motion ended up at a different location. The initial location (somewhere outside the room) is not expressed, but it can be inferred. This process of omitting certain elements in expressions is called gapping (Talmy (1996)). The attention is focused on the last part of the motion event (reaching the destination) and this can be understood as “windowing of attention” (ibid.). Moment-of-change is a phase whereby the moving entity is changing location, but has not reached the final point B (e.g. ‘He was staggering into the house when I saw him (but he did not make it, because he fainted on the threshold)’). Here again the initial point of motion is gapped, but is inferred to be different from point B where the moving Figure is (perhaps) going to end up. No-change phase refers to the situation type when neither initial nor the final point are expressed and cannot be inferred, but the moving Figure was said to be in the process of motion: ‘He ran across the fields’. Boundary-crossing can occur completely, in which case change-occurred is expressed, or a moving Figure can be seen at the moment where the boundary was being crossed, in which case we are talking about the moment-of-change phase. If no boundary is crossed, we have a no-change phase of event, because a motion event is defined by the presence of spatial anchoring points that refer to change (from A and/or to B). Until the moving Figure ends up at a different location from the one it started at, we cannot talk about change of location. In the case of the nochange phase we do not have any inferrable information about either the starting point A or the final point B. We have to emphasize here that when we use the term ‘no-change’ for a phase in motion events, it does not necessarily mean that the Figure did not change location at all (e.g. stayed in a state of perpetual motion at one spot), because it is highly unlikely that any motion event continues without change. It just means that when the speaker lexicalized the relevant event, he focused on the fact that the moving Figure was at a certain location (as in: ‘He ran in the park’), or that the moving Figure was involved in directed motion but the speaker is not aware or simply does not provide information about initial and/or final location points (as in: ‘He was running towards the park’). The term boundary is not always understood in the sense of a barrier but rather as the point in space which marks the border between the new spatial configuration and the previous one with which the Figure interacted. The kind of spatial configuration that the noun following the preposition designates is very important for the interpretation of spatio-temporal features of events that lie in the essence of our situation types. Establishing whether something is considered a boundary or

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Talking about Motion

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 Figure’s 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



Chapter 3.  The proposed approach and central assumptions 

all the world’s 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.

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Talking about Motion

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 Talmy’s typology refer to expressions of



Chapter 3.  The proposed approach and central assumptions 

boundary-crossing situations in languages. When boundary-crossing is described, we saw that in Spanish, for example, directional verbs have to be used and most information about manner is omitted altogether (a claim that was extended to all Romance languages), whereas English accounts of motion events provide a detailed description of the Manner component in the verb, Path being expressed in prepositions or adverbs. Serbo-Croatian seems to have patterns in common with both Spanish and English, while Albanian, for example, behaves similarly to the Romance languages. As we pointed out, the temporal features we selected depend on whether the situation referred to is boundary-crossing or not, and thus for a start, we will focus on the ways in which languages differ on the basis of the way they render the following spatio-temporal details related to motion events: a. boundary-crossing, when the change of location has occurred (‘He ran into the building’) b. boundary-crossing, at the moment of the change of location (‘He was running into the building when I saw him’) c. non-boundary-crossing, when change of location has not yet been completed (e.g. ‘He ran across the field for ten minutes’).2 English and Serbo-Croatian seem to be similar in the way they lexicalize the situation types in (a) (to an extent) and (c), but not in (b). For example:

(3) a. A man limped out of the garden.

b. A man was limping out of the garden when I saw him. c. A man limped/was limping in the garden.

Serbo-Croatian: (4) a. Čovek je išepao iz bašte. Man be-COP out-limp-PST-PFV-3SG-M out of garden ‘The man limped out of the garden.’ b.

Čovek je izlazio iz bašte šepajući 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)).

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Talking about Motion

c. Čovek je šepao u bašti 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 (‘*išepavao’, 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. Čovek je ušao u dnevnu sobu ljuljajući 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. Filipović (1999)). The use of deictically prefixed manner verbs in SerboCroatian is discussed at length (chapter 6): (4) e.

Čovek 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.

Non-existent in either dictionary or corpus data.



Chapter 3.  The proposed approach and central assumptions 

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 sklonište. Into-crawl-PST-PFV-3SG-M be-COP into shelter-ACC. ‘He crawled into the shelter.’ b.

Ulazio je u sklonište puzeći. 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 skloništu. Crawl-PST-IPFV-3SG-M be-COP into shelter-LOC ‘He was crawling/crawled in the shelter.’

Albanian: (6) a. Ai hyri në park duke vrapuar. He enter-PST-PFV-3SG in park running. ‘He entered the park running.’ b. Ai po hynte duke vrapuar në 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 në park. He run-PST-IPFV/run-PST-PFV-3SG in park. ‘He was running/ran in the park’.

A directional verb is necessary in the expressions of situation types that refer to moment-of-change in Serbo-Croatian (and Romance languages as well). Albanian seems to follow a pattern comparable to that of Romance languages. The reason for this preference for directional verbs can be accounted for if we consider the impossibility of rendering the distinction between boundary-crossing vs. nonboundary-crossing in Albanian (and Romance languages), which is achieved in English by using directional vs. locational particles. The preposition ‘në’(‘in’) is always locational in Albanian, and therefore, the change of location and crossing

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Talking about Motion

of a boundary must be expressed in the verb. In Serbo-Croatian, the preposition ‘u’ could mean either ‘in’ or ‘into’ and the case marking on the object of the preposition signals that distinction (like in German, cf. examples in section 3.3.). Mandarin Chinese also deserves a mention here, and it is extremely relevant in the discussion on the verb-framed vs. satellite-framed distinction drawn within the typology. In Mandarin Chinese, expressions of motion events are given in the form of a serial verb, which includes both Manner and Path (Packard (2000: 253)), something tentatively and loosely comparable to Slavic prefixed manner verbs in the sense that serial verbs could be seen as elements expressing the same kind of content as Serbo-Croatian prefixed manner verbs (i.e. Path + Manner): 4 (7) a. Xuéshēng zŏu-jìn le túshūgu n. Student walk-enter-ASP library. ‘The student walked into the library.’

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.



Chapter 3.  The proposed approach and central assumptions 

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. Tā p o le sānshí fēn zhōng. 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. Wŏ kàn tā de shí hòu, tā zhèng p ojìn gōngyuán 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. Tā p ojìn le gōngyuán. 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 ‘zhèng’ in (7c) indicates that the action is a process.

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Talking about Motion

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 speaker’s 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-



Chapter 3.  The proposed approach and central assumptions 

tain prepositions could make an expression interpretable as either telic or atelic in traditional terminology (e.g ‘He ran across the field’: locational or directional?). However, as we indicated and will confirm further in chapter 5, we cannot base all our claims regarding lexicalization of domains on verbs or VPs, because in English, other strategies are available in order to determine the correct (intended) interpretation of a verbalized event. This potential problem is reduced when we see that its instantiations are actually most infrequent in the corpus because sentential context tends to provide resolution. Using attested corpus data makes it possible for us to establish whether some lexical items and their combinations traditionally accused of being potentially ambiguous in some contrived instantiations (such as ‘He ran across the field’) are truly problematic in real language use; it also allows us to assess the degree of difficulty that their occurrence causes in interpretation. 3.2 Events in reality vs. events in language Event lexicalization is the central domain in our study, and this obliges us to touch upon some general issues regarding the treatment of events in linguistics and related fields. One of the main disagreements in contemporary linguistics and philosophy is whether certain features on the basis of which events are described and classified pertain to events themselves or rather to expressions of events. The distinction is important because if events cannot be distinguished other than as described, immense pressure will be placed on linguistic expression and verbalization in general. How can one talk of lexicalization of a motion event if that event cannot be individuated from a chain of events? Can an event be individuated independently of language? We claim that individuation of events is possible, even if not always straightforward, and events are available as such for lexicalization, which is done on the basis of a number of event-defining perceptual features, such as the ones we outlined for our situation types. Some event features may be problematic themselves, because they can seem to pertain to events as well as their linguistic expressions, depending on the way one looks at them. This shows how intricately intertwined experience and language really are. We shall discuss some proposals on this front. For example, telicity (like boundedness, or goal-directedness) is one candidate for an event-defining feature, and the different views of it by Higginbotham (2000) and Krifka (1992), which best describe the problem, are critically presented here in brief. Higginbotham (2000) defines the telic/atelic dichotomy as a distinction in event structure, unlike Krifka (1992), who contends that the telic/atelic distinction

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Talking about Motion

belongs to descriptions of events rather than to events themselves. Higginbotham (2000: 69) explains it in the following way: “My eating of a pint of ice cream is an event e= (e1, e2) with the properties stated. But the events of my eating ice cream (of which there will be many when I eat a pint of ice cream7) are none of them identical to e; in particular, e1 is only the first coordinate of e= (e1, e2), and not e itself.”

Thus, according to Higginbotham, telicity is a matter of event structure, and telic events will have both co-ordinates, i.e. the process (e1) and the telos (e2), whereas atelic events will have just one (the process) co-ordinate. However, if one ate two apples for lunch, one can say either ‘I ate apples for lunch’ or ‘I ate two apples for lunch’. The choice of referring to the same event as either telic or atelic still remains. It appears that Krifka’s argument, namely that telicity is a matter of description, is actually correct. Obviously, this line of argument leads us further into discussing how to define events and subevents, and how to distinguish between simple and complex events.8 We cannot easily judge what constitutes one event solely on the basis of linguistic description.9 The simple truth, however, is that we do not have direct access to all of the events we hear and talk about. Our access to most events is mainly via linguistic description. Thus, although the event of eating two apples may be defined as telic, if described as eating apples (which is still a correct although not an equally precise description), it will be understood as atelic. Therefore, it is necessary to provide a definition of telicity that is operational within the context of the linguistic rendering of events. If we want a general rule for all kinds of events in all domains, we will assume that events are linguistically rendered as telic if the quantity consumed is definite or specified in the direct object (DO) of the linguistic expression, whereas atelic rendering would involve a direct object referring to non-definite or unspecified quantity (even though the quantity in the atelic expression can be implicitly understood or inferred). In this way, we analyze the information that

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 Higginbotham’s 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.



Chapter 3.  The proposed approach and central assumptions

is present in linguistic accounts of events and talk of representation of events as telic or atelic.10 In other words, it seems that VPs, rather than events, are differentiated as telic or atelic (cf. Dowty (1979), Verkuyl (1993), (1999), Rothstein (2004)), although the philosophical argument as to whether events or their expressions are classified as telic or atelic still continues. The individuation of events only under a particular description is contended in the literature (e.g. Parsons (1990), and Landman (2000)), and this would mean that events do not have any inherent atomic structure themselves. One of the reasons to continue this debate is precisely the domain of motion events, where classification criteria seem to operate differently from those where quantification is involved. The notions of change and boundary are crucially important for our network of spatial and temporal features, which physically pertain to events, not to their descriptions. Here we argue that motion events are distinguishable precisely because they have spatio-temporal properties that make it possible to distinguish them. Kamp ((1979), (1980)) views change as a primitive concept, on the basis of which events that “contain” change and those that do not is the essential distinction for any theory. The notion of change is crucial for our characterization of situation types as well. It seems that, although one event in the world can be referred to as both telic and atelic in some domains (e.g. quantification), this does not have to hold for all of the domains of experience. The issue that arises immediately is that of events in reality allowing for different construals on the part of the speaker. Namely, in the domain of motion events, speakers can refer differently to a single event (e.g. a boy running towards and into a room) by assuming different temporal perspectives (e.g. ‘The boy was running to the room’, ‘The boy was running into the room’, ‘The boy ran into the room’).11 However, at one point in time a speaker can only choose one temporal perspective, or decide to gap portions of events. This is precisely the reason why we talk about situation types here, not event types. In the case of the domain of consumption, it is up to the speaker to decide on the relevance of information and choose ‘I ate apples for breakfast’ over ‘I ate two apples for breakfast’, or vice versa, depending on the occasion (e.g. specifying the quantity might or might not be relevant depending on the context, or the speaker may or may not know the exact quantity). ‘Eating apples’ vs. ‘eating two apples’ could be spatio-temporally one event. A boy who was running towards and then into a room is a different kind of spatio-temporal 10. Exactly how linguistic representation is related to representation in other systems (e.g. perception or cognition) is a matter of relentless and heated debate, which is beyond the scope of the present study (but see Gentner and Goldin-Meadow (2003) for some recent discussions). 11. We would like to thank an anonymuous reviewer who promted us to expatiate on this issue.

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

Talking about Motion

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 (Filipović (in progress)).



Chapter 3.  The proposed approach and central assumptions 

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 Levinson’s 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

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Talking about Motion

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



Chapter 3.  The proposed approach and central assumptions 

side of such a motion event, as in the following sentence: ‘I struggled with my thoughts as I stumbled over the uneven ground’. Thus, even though on some occasions there is no way of knowing with certainty whether speakers thought of certain spatial configurations in terms of boundaries or locations, linguistically we have the tools to achieve the most likely interpretation, the one we believe reflects speakers’ intentions. And if we need to translate these expressions into a language that formalizes these distinctions, we need to know where to look for clues. The analysis in terms of situation types is the tool we propose for this purpose. It appears that the only source of information we can access with certainty is linguistic behaviour, and the fact that speakers of different languages, because of different constraints and patterning, focus on different aspects of events when expressing them, does not have to mean that they conceptualize them in ways so different that this would impede understanding and communication. Whether we choose to say that in English, some features are specified covertly on some occasions, instead of saying that they are not specified at all and that such expressions are underdetermined, amounts to the same thing for language users, especially learners of English as a foreign language, teachers and translators. What we show is that such complete indeterminacy does not prevail in communication. And in cases where no clues were offered on the level we studied here (sentence level), we can turn to frequency of use of particular verb+particle combinations. This may give us an indication of how often particular combinations are used in their location vs. their directional sense and what kind of specification is offered in attested conversational situations. Conventional scenarios may provide some clues as well. For example, in interpreting ‘Five Norwegians skied over the beautiful white snow’ as non-boundary-crossing/no-change, we choose to evoke a more likely scenario whereby a speaker would be referring to the location where the activity of the Figures occurred rather than giving information that the Figures crossed the boundary, because skiing is an activity less likely to be described in the context of boundaries (cf. chapter 5). Speakers can also be influenced when they describe events they witnessed by the ways questions are formulated (cf. Slobin (2000b)), whereby the use of a suggestive lexical item or an unexpected (atypical, and therefore surprising) structure can have certain effects on the accounts of events they give. The differences in accounts of a single event may be due to individual psychological factors, as well as suggestive questioning. But do individual languages influence which aspects of events witnesses would focus on in their accounts? Speakers might not lexicalize some event details if there is no structural requirement to provide them (e.g. morphosyntactic or constructional restrictions). On the other hand, the hearer might be expecting to have some distinctions clearly expressed because his/her language requires an explicit differentiation to be made. Patterns in languages are being

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Talking about Motion

established and strengthened through habitual use. Therefore, it is not impossible to expect that different pieces of information would have salient presence in or absence from accounts of the same events in different languages. 3.3 Contra aspect? When proposing an analysis based on the interface of spatial and temporal features of expressions, it is important to explain why we came up with a new proposal to resolve a number of issues that previous studies have tried to deal with in various ways. For example, we prefer to talk about temporal phases of events rather than aspect, the latter frequently being viewed as the inner temporal structure of events (or their expressions, depending on the understanding of aspect, which varies with different authors). It is essential to point out the reasons why the notion of aspect is not introduced when temporality of events is discussed, which is almost always done in studies of events, and to assess proposals of some recent studies (e.g. Verkuyl (1999)). We tackle issues traditionally analyzed under the umbrella of ‘aspectual studies’, but those studies have been a mix of quite a few different concepts, often more confusing than explanatory. As Thelin (1990: 5–6) points out: “Although empirical evidence for distinguishing between the aspectual meanings of temporal perspective, on the one hand, and the meaning of certain classes of verbs or corresponding types of situations (…), on the other, was available a long time ago, aspectology has until this day suffered seriously from the lasting confusion of these two, interrelated, but basically distinct phenomena”. (original emphasis)

The introduction of an all-encompassing term like “aspectuality” (e.g. Verkuyl (1999)) did not contribute to the understanding of these types of phenomena crosslinguistically and in our opinion it has just created more confusion. We will start with a brief analysis of some relevant studies in the field and explain why none of them is adequate to explain the issues relevant at present. If we can be reminded of a traditional definition of aspect just for a moment, we can say that it represents different ways of viewing the internal temporal constituency of an action or state (Comrie (1976: 3)). Since a verb stem describes an action or state, aspect is highly relevant for verbs. Subject agreement is somehow less relevant to the verb, since it refers to an argument of the verb, and not to the action or state described by the verb itself. However, there are languages that do not necessarily mark aspect on the verb, either inflectionally or derivationally, and this insistence on the universality of the category has obscured the more relevant point, which is that the meanings that usually go under the category of aspect are actually based on important perceptual information that is lexicalized, such as whether a



Chapter 3.  The proposed approach and central assumptions 

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. Vendler’s (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 Dowty’s interpretation of Vendler’s 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.

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Talking about Motion

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 Vendler’s or Dowty’s 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: 154–173) talks of aspect as an “internal structure, either temporal or thematic, imposed by verbs on eventualities”. Harley (2005: 42–64) discusses Aktionsart as pertaining to verbs, and Smith (2005 :190–210), 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 VP’s 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 “doesn’t 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”,



Chapter 3.  The proposed approach and central assumptions 

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 über der Stadt. The airplane flew over the-DAT town b. Das Fleugzeug flog über 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

 Talking about Motion

exclusively a matter of verbal morphology, nor a matter of Slavic languages only. It turns out, according to him, for instance, that the presence of quantificational information (as in ‘Mary walked a mile’) is one of the ways to obtain what he calls terminativity in English, among other languages.16 A second way is to let a verb like begin operate as a tool for ‘slicing out’ a part of the ‘Path function’, which results in terminativity, but on the reverse side (i.e. the beginning of the action; e.g. ‘Mary began to walk’) (Verkuyl (1999: 85)). Verkuyl tries to go further and erase the differences in the treatment of aspectuality between the Slavicists and the rest. His aim is to show that a compositional approach that yields aspectual classes on the basis of linguistic encoding should be preferred. The second goal he announced was to show that a perfective prefix in Slavic languages has a VP or even S level in its domain rather than a V. According to this view, aspectuality is generally a matter of structure (to be applicable to both Slavic and non-Slavic languages). For example, Verkuyl tries to support his argument by claiming that some elements in the structure of the VP (e.g. a quantified direct object (specQDO)) have the same effect in English and Slavic languages, and by drawing a parallel between the Slavic ‘perfective verb+specQ DO’, and the English ‘verb in past simple+specQ DO’. This claim is not particularly intriguing since it is easily refutable.17 Lexically, used as it is, bare, without any accompaniment, the verb ‘walk’ is considered an activity (durative, atelic in Verkuyl’s terms). On this analysis, three miles in (9b) causes “perfective” understanding in English, overruling what Verkuyl calls “the original verb meaning” (i.e. the meaning that the verb had when not followed by any other element) (Verkuyl 1999: 100): (9) a. Mary walked. b. Mary walked three miles.

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 Verkuyl’s appear in Smith (1991) and Tenny (1992).



Chapter 3.  The proposed approach and central assumptions 

d. Meri je tri milje hodala, Mary be-COP three miles walk-PST-IPFV-3SG-F, a onda je počela da trči. 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 čital (IPFV) stihotvorenija’ (‘Ivan has read poems’) and ‘Ivan pročital (PFV) stihotvorenija’ (‘Ivan has read the poems’). We may conclude that in Russian, even

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Talking about Motion

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. Verkuyl’s term.



Chapter 3.  The proposed approach and central assumptions 

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 Verkuyl’s account was the imperfective telic VP, which he openly admitted to be a difficulty in applying his theory onto Slavic data (Verkuyl (1999: 119–127)). 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 Verkuyl’s (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 Verkuyl’s 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).

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Talking about Motion

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:

Subj + IPFV + spec Q DO + ‘for time’. 20

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 počeo da jede kruške. 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).



Chapter 3.  The proposed approach and central assumptions 

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. Filipović Kleiner (2006c)). Thus, Verkuyl’s 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 Verkuyl’s “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).

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Talking about Motion

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



Chapter 3.  The proposed approach and central assumptions 

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

The heart of the matter Main argument

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 one’s 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.

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Talking about Motion

temporal features of motion events into different languages. The English examples of the three central situation types are followed by those in Serbo-Croatian:

(1) a. He crawled into the shelter. (change-occurred)

b. He was crawling into the shelter (when I saw him). (moment-of-change) c. He was crawling/crawled towards the shelter. (no-change) (2) a. Upuzio je u sklonište. Into-crawl-PST-PFV-3SG-M be-COP into shelter-ACC ‘He crawled into the shelter.’ b.

Ulazio je u sklonište puzeći 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 skloništu. 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 sklonište. 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.



Chapter 4.  The heart of the matter 

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 verb’s 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)

Similarly, ‘hover’ has a component of meaning that includes certain duration of an activity at a certain location (but in contrast to ‘hasten’, the duration is long rather than brief):

(4) The hawk hovered over the hill. (non-boundary-crossing/no-change)

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 into–IPFV through the same window’).

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Talking about Motion

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:

(5) He ran into the room. (boundary-crossing/change-occurred)

(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.



Chapter 4.  The heart of the matter 

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-

Figure 1.  Prefix cline in Serbo-Croatian

The cline should be seen as an implicational scale. If a verb can be prefixed by a prefix that is lower on the cline, it can also be prefixed by a prefix higher on the 7. In these situations using a manner verb is said to be the typical pattern in Serbo-Croatian within the discussed typology (cf. chapter 2). However, we will see that on the basis of some corpus data in 6.5 it may not be the statistically dominant one. Cf. also Vidaković (2006) for an independent experimental confirmation that the habitual (most common, frequent) lexicalization pattern in Serbo-Croatian is ‘directional verb+preposition’. 8. ‘Probauljala je kućom jedno pola sata’ (‘She spent about a half an hour roaming around the house aimlessly’). 9. The cline is based on the number of verbs found prefixed with those prefixes in the dictionary and corpus data.

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Talking about Motion

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.



Chapter 4.  The heart of the matter 

manner verb is used instead, the situation type is no longer boundary-crossing/ moment-of-change, but rather changes to non-boundary-crossing/no-change, as in (2d). That is why when the imperfective form is needed in an expression of motion of the type (2b), a directional imperfective verb is used instead. The frequency of directional verbs and their role in the lexicalization of motion events in SerboCroatian is further discussed in chapter 6. It would be worthwhile to check whether these or similar constraints operate in other Slavic languages. In Shull (2003) we find that, although further imperfectivization exists as a tendency (which she deemed an unusual one) in some domains, in motion verbs, Czech prefixed imperfectives have different stems from the unprefixed imperfectives. She also mentions only three of them in her analysis (‘chodit’-‘walk’, ‘létat’-’ fly’ and ‘běhat’-‘run’). We are not told how productive this process is and whether all manner of motion verbs are affected. Moreover, this makes us wonder how frequently we actually find the prefixed imperfectives in Czech in moment-of-change expressions (especially in past tense reports) and whether they are more common in habitual/iterative use, showing restrictions similar to the use in Serbo-Croatian. The same study also claims that Russian, unlike Czech, “tolerates” further imperfectivization in manner of motion verbs (the stem remaining the same) (ibid.: 231). It could be the case that their use is limited to habitual or iterative meaning and that they are not used in expressions of the moment-of-change phase (cf. Gasparov (1990), Grickat (1966/67)). The extent to which this is so and the productivity and frequency of such forms await more indepth investigation. Further study is therefore necessary in order to establish how similar or different Slavic languages are when it comes to prefixation and further imperfectivization with regard to lexicalization patterns. We have to mention an important distinction that bears relevance to the comparison between the two languages, made between first and second tier verbs (cf. Slobin (1997a)). This distinction can be made within any semantic field between semantically simpler and more complex items (e.g. ‘walk’ is semantically simpler than ‘limp’, because the latter involves additional semantic components and refers to a special kind of walking). Serbo-Croatian and English are similar in their employment of the first-tier verbs (i.e. semantically simplest and most frequent; cf. example (2a)), but there are more constraints when it comes to doing the same thing with the second tier (cf. example (8) below). We have already remarked that if an adequately prefixed complex manner verb does not exist in Serbo-Croatian, Serbo-Croatian speakers may use a deictic manner verb, a simpler manner verb or a directional verb in translation from English (cf. chapter 2). The most frequent and semantically simplest verbs are more likely to occur with a greater variety of prefixes in Serbo-Croatian (e.g. ‘trčati’ – ‘run’ can be prefixed by all prefixes, which is not the case with semantically more complex verbs like ‘ljuljati (se)’ – ‘sway



Talking about Motion

(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. Filipović (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 today’s 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)

She rustled into the room. Ušla je u sobu uz šuštanje svoje svilene haljine. Enter-PST-PFV-3SG-F be-COP into the room with rustling of her silk dress. ‘She entered the room accompanied by the rustling of her silk dress.’

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-



Chapter 4.  The heart of the matter 

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. Filipović (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 ‘ući’ (‘go in’) is derived from the neutral verb – ‘ići’ (‘to go’- IPFV) + the prefix U- (‘into’), which then gives ‘ući’ (‘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 Vidaković (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 Slobin’s example (1997a: 213) in Spanish, where a directional verb is used in this motion expression: ‘ Salió del cuarto, acompañada del susurro siseante de sus ropas’. (‘She exited from the room, accompanied by the swishing rustle of her clothing’). 12. Although Ivić (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’).



Talking about Motion

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. Filipović (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

Data analysis for English After establishing the basic distinction in lexicalization patterns between the two languages and showing how the analysis based on situation types provides a better insight into domain lexialization crosslinguistically, we now turn to the analysis of the corpus data for English (this chapter) and Serbo-Croatian (chapter 6). We aim to establish how interlocutors can infer what situation type an expression refers to by using the situation type classification and the algorithms we proposed. 5.1 What the tenses (do not) tell us Describing past events is habitually done in the simple past tense in English and this is why we are focusing on it in our study. We will discuss the use of this tense in more detail shortly, but first we briefly mention the use of the past progressive and explain why it does not create the same difficulty in interpretation of motion expressions as the simple past tense. Past progressive can be used in expressions of moment-of-change (‘He was running into the house’) and no-change situations (‘He was running across the field’), depending on whether the Path particle has directional or locational meaning, whether it is followed by a noun or not, and what kind of space the following noun refers to. In the cases where verbs in past progressive are used with prepositions that can be used in both boundary-crossing and non-boundary-crossing situations (e.g. ‘across’, ‘over’, ‘through’, or ‘under’), we encounter a potential impediment to straightforward interpretation. On many occasions, what follows the preposition will be decisive in achieving the right understanding. If the noun that is the object of the preposition refers to a very small space (e.g. a portal, as in: ‘He was running through the door’), then the situation type referred to is undoubtedly boundary-crossing/moment-of-change. If the noun following the preposition refers to a larger space or area, we would assume that the expression containing a verb in past progressive refers to non-boundarycrossing/no-change situation type (‘He was running through the park’). However, we might encounter examples like ‘The baby was crawling under the table’. Does it express moment-of-change or no-change phase? Numerous studies emphasize that simple past forms are indeterminate and problematic to interpret one way or



Talking about Motion

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-



Chapter 5.  Data analysis for English 

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.).



Talking about Motion

motion event as boundary-crossing/change-occurred or non-boundary-crossing/ no-change. The prepositional phrase ‘to the staircase’ can contribute to the meaning of the whole expression in two ways: a) the choir of young people filed across the hall (for quite a while) in the direction of the staircase. b) the choir of young people filed across the hall and reached the staircase. The tense and the verb meaning do not tell us much about the nature of the situation types, especially in expressions of motion that contain particles that can be used with either directional or locational meaning (like ‘across’). Examples like this are further discussed in 5.4. It is important to note here that the use of tense does not provide enough information. We saw some of the problems we could encounter in expressions with manner verbs in the simple past, especially in certain syntactic environments with plural external arguments (subjects). In cases with plural subjects, a further specification is needed for interpretation, because with the subject in the plural the expression can refer to all three temporal phases in the situation types (i.e. change-occurred, moment-of-change and no-change). Obviously, there are ways in English to express this distinction accurately by using the past progressive in cases when a process is described: ‘They were staggering into the temple’ (boundary-crossing/moment-of-change). However, the use of tenses is conditioned by other factors (e.g. narrative flow), and their respective function in discourse and narrative would be the topic of a separate study. The point we are making here is that it is not the case that, in narrative context, one can just keep inserting the past progressive whenever the distinction is to be made in the middle of a narrative that is carried out in the simple past tense. Moreover, the past simple tense seems to be taking over certain construction environments from the past progressive. One of the typical examples that learners of English as a foreign language inevitably come across is the use of the past progressive in expressions referring to two temporally parallel actions (e.g. ‘While I was watching TV, he was cooking’). We saw that the simple past can be used on such occasions as well (cf. example (2)). If the syntactic environment offers the necessary clues to the felicitous interpretation, there is no need to insert a marked tense like the past progressive and disrupt the flow of the narrative. Furthermore, we shall see that if a language does not have strict morphosyntactic restrictions to express certain distinctions, those distinctions will not be habitually explicitly rendered, especially if they require additional processing effort (e.g. inserting deictic information in motion expressions in English; cf. 6.2). The relevance of our situation types is not undermined. They are not dependent on their surface lexicalization in languages and they still serve as common ground for comparing the means used in the lexicalization of motion cross-lingustically.



Chapter 5.  Data analysis for English 

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:

(5) She bolted across the corridor.

On the other hand, the example in (6) is most likely to have the interpretation non-boundary-crossing and no-change:

(6) The hawk hovered over the field.

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 verb’s 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



Talking about Motion

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.



Chapter 5.  Data analysis for English 

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.



Talking about Motion

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

Since the preposition ‘into’ is normally used in expressions of boundary-crossing, we should be able to predict that the situation type referred to by an expression containing this preposition is most likely to be that of boundary-crossing/change3.

See Table 1 in chapter 3.

4. E.g. ?‘Adam bounced into the centre of the ring for 10 minutes.’



Chapter 5.  Data analysis for English 

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 Miranda’s face as the five men filed into the adjoining room. (16) ‘[…] all a little bit like a fairy tale, isn’t 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 captain’s 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.



Talking about Motion

the following clause. The situation type referred to is that of boundary-crossing/ change-occurred: (18) The next moment Rachel was surrounded again as with many hugs and cuddles the group took their leave of their new friend and finally filed into the minibus, where they lined the windows, smiling and waving.

If the subject is in the singular, the moment-of-change interpretation is less likely. However, in cases in which understanding space as extended (cf. also the example (9)) is possible, the interpretation seems more difficult. In (19), ‘Carrie thought of her own words’ could refer to either an instantaneous occurrence (a single thought) or a process of certain duration. If the former is the case, the whole expression refers to boundary-crossing/change-occurred type. On the latter understanding, the situation described is boundary-crossing/moment-of-change. The more likely interpretation seems to be that of boundary-crossing/change-occurred because there is no indication that further inward movement occurred (unlike (8) or (11), where the adverbials ‘for half an hour’ and ‘deeper and deeper’ respectively induce the understanding of further inward movement). In general, moment-of-change interpretation in (19) would have been extremely marked and therefore less likely to be reached: (19) As she limped into the farmhouse behind Seb, Carrie thought of her own words.

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.



Chapter 5.  Data analysis for English 

5.4 Particles used in both boundary-crossing and non-boundary-crossing expressions We have seen the potential problems that arise when manner verbs in the simple past combine with prepositions that are used to refer to boundary-crossing and we explained how the right interpretation of such examples can be reached. Combinations of manner verbs and prepositions that can be used in expressions of both boundary-crossing and non-boundary-crossing situation types raised even more issues. If the boundary is crossed, we have a change-occurred type; if the boundary is not crossed, we have a no-change type. But how do we know which one of the two situations an expression refers to? In many cases the interpretation will depend on what the noun (or the NP) following the preposition refers to – boundary or location. Since this is the point where our greatest difficulty surfaces, we decided to give it a thorough consideration. The greatest hurdle in the interpretation of such verb+particle combinations is the possibility that they can be used in expressions of completely opposed situation types, namely those where the change of location is present or absent respectively, which we deemed to be the critical notion for perceptual distinctions in situation types. So how is it that the same expression can be used to refer to both? Should languages not have the means to mark this distinction, which is perceptually very salient? We can say that colors like blue and green are perceptually salient, even though they are not distinguished linguistically in all languages. Similarly, the count/mass distinction seems salient enough perceptually, but it is marked linguistically in some, not all, languages. Japanese, for example, does not provide speakers with the means to lexicalize count/mass distinctions, but Japanese speakers do draw the distinctions just like English speakers (cf. Iwasaki, Vinson and Vigliocco (in preparation)). Similarly, Spanish speakers do not lexicalize manner of motion with the same frequency and detail that English speakers do, but nevertheless their memory of manner of motion apparently does not differ from that of their English peers in experimental tasks of recognition (Filipovic (in progress)). If we assume that speakers are able to perceive the difference, which was our starting assumption, why would they not specify the distinctions? Why do they use one underspecified form of verb+preposition to refer to both changeoccurred and no-change, and how do hearers extract the relevant information regarding the location of the moving Figure if it is not clear whether the Figure changed location or not? Higginbotham (1995) points out that the inputs of both lexical (meanings of words and morphemes) and combinatorial (meaning of larger constructions built up from meanings of their parts) types are required to map any complex meaning onto its expression (ibid.: 7). He argues that major and minor lexical semantic

 Talking about Motion

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.



Chapter 5.  Data analysis for English 

expressed. Namely, translation of English motion expressions that are interpretable as either boundary-crossing or non-boundary-crossing is facilitated if we have additional information. We found out that the distinction is being drawn in English, not necessarily on the basis of verbs+directional particles in all cases. The specification of which situation type the expression refers to is done on the basis of: i. the object of the preposition (internal argument) ii. sentence complex (e.g. V + accumulated prepositions, time adverbials, conjunctions) iii. defaults iv. further narrative context There is a brief reference in Talmy (2000) regarding the relevance of what the object of the preposition refers to. Talmy (2000: 324–326) argues that the expression ‘I walk across the pier’ is not acceptable, whereas ‘I swam across the river’ and ‘I walked across the square field’ both are (see example (23) below). The schema represented by the closed-class English preposition ‘across’ has a feature pertaining to the relative lengths of two linear elements. Specifically, this preposition requires the length of the Figure’s Path to be the same or less than the length of the axis of the Ground object perpendicular to that Path. Thus, Talmy (ibid.) goes on to say that: “…if I walk across a pier having distinct width and length axes, I must traverse the width axis of the pier running perpendicularly to my Path, namely its length axis. If I did traverse the length axis, my Path would be much longer than the now perpendicular width axis, and in fact ‘across’ could not be used. Rather, the case where the Path is longer than the perpendicular axis generally falls into the schematic venue of the preposition ‘along’, so that I might now say that I was walking along the pier.”

He then considers how the acceptability of ‘across’ in expressions varies on the basis of what kind of space the object of ‘across’ refers to. In this succession, the axis of the Ground object that the Figure traverses progresses by stages from being shorter to being longer than the Ground axis perpendicular to it, as illustrated below (examples marked as ? and * by Talmy): (23)

I swam/walked across the a. river. b. square field. c. ?rectangular swimming pool. d. *pier. (where my Path is from one narrow end to the other of the pool/pier)



Talking about Motion

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 Talmy’s 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 Figure’s Path begins at one edge, lies on (or covers the space above) the surface, and ends at the farther edge of the Ground’s 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 prairie’s great size places its boundaries outside of the tumbleweed’s 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



Chapter 5.  Data analysis for English 

communicate using bare, uncontextualized clauses. Our claim is that we may not know what the speaker’s 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 hearer’s 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



Talking about Motion

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 hearer’s 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



Chapter 5.  Data analysis for English 

to a boundary that is crossed. The situation type in (27) is non-boundary-crossing/ no-change, and boundary-crossing/change-occurred in (28): (27) And the two men shook their heads over the inconsistent, bloody-minded civilians who swarmed through a general practitioner’s surgery, deliberately misleading qualified men about the nature of their fatal diseases. (28) The idea was that the police would wait until they had incontrovertible evidence before moving in for the arrest, but Branson and Draper had barely sat down with the Clarkes before some forty policemen swarmed through the door, knocking over tables and chairs and arresting the two brothers.

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.

The verb+particle combination in (31) is followed by multiple prepositional phrases and can potentially be interpreted as boundary-crossing or non-boundary-crossing: (31) This unsavoury pack of rogues streamed across the meadows to our Manor House like rats towards an unguarded hen coop.

We could say that the motion expression describes a boundary-crossing/change occurred situation type because the phrase ‘to our Manor House’ indicates that another boundary was reached (which could have been done only if the first one had been crossed, i.e. the Figures streamed across the meadows and reached the Manor House). However, in the following phrase ‘like rats towards an unguarded hen coop’ the prepositional phrase headed by ‘towards’ is related to the prepositional phrase headed by ‘to’ in the preceding VP, and one should be aware that ‘to’ can sometimes mean ‘towards’, which seems to be the case here. Therefore, we would contend here that the situation type in (31) is non-boundary-crossing/nochange. The occasional overlap in meaning between ‘to’ and ‘towards’ is sometimes problematic, although perhaps not to the extent that some argue. If an expression only contains a manner of motion verb and the preposition ‘to’, as in ‘He swam to the island’, we would argue that the reference is to a boundary-reaching/changeoccurred situation type, rather than “ambiguous”, as Fong claims (1999: 125–126). A simple way to test how problematic such cases are to present native speakers



Talking about Motion

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.

Tested on 20 native speakers, all Cambridge University graduates.



Chapter 5.  Data analysis for English 

(33) Carrie hurried through the evening street and Fred struggled to keep up with her.

The following example is an illustration of a boundary-crossing/change-occurred situation type: (34) They drove through the gates and up the avenue of ancient lime trees.

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 carrier’s knees. Therfore, we could argue that the expression in (36) refers to a single bang that occurred when the



Talking about Motion

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.

It would be possible to interpret ‘the moor’ as a barrier to be crossed if there was no adverbial. The situation referred to is not that of boundary-crossing, but rather the process of moving at a certain location for a certain period of time (i.e. ‘until we could see the lights …’). The syntactic environment is clearly conducive to processual understanding of one activity that was interrupted by another (i.e. ‘driving until something else happened’). In the next example, the expression containing ‘under’ is obviously used to express the situation type of boundary-crossing/change-occurred. However, it would not have been so clear if we did not have a complex syntactic environment including the expression of the preceding events: (40) He took a running dive off the trolley, rolled when he hit the carpet, and scurried under the nearest seat.

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’).



Chapter 5.  Data analysis for English 

Similarly, the interpretations of different combinations of ‘walk’ and ‘under’ seem to be resolved on the sentence level: (42) Luxuriating in the warm midmorning sun on her shoulders, she walked under the lattice archway and on to the bottom end of the garden (boundarycrossing/change-occurred) (43) They walked under the leaves in an ominous quietness. (non-boundarycrossing/no-change)

We can pause and draw a preliminary conclusion here: syntactic information in English (clause connectives and sentence structure) often seems to convey the kind of information about situation types, which is found in Serbo-Croatian at the morphological level. And it is the restrictions on the morphological level that determine the use of different means to express motion events in Serbo-Croatian, whereas we can see that the relevant information in English is rendered more through the lexical semantics/syntax interface. Thus, in English, the verb itself is not a cue to determining situation types, and neither is the VP. Sentential context is a more informative level. In Serbo-Croatian these problems do not arise because the verb is such a cue in almost all cases.9 As a result, we cannot but conclude that crosslinguistic contrasts should start from situation types and check which levels in individual languages are responsible for expressing the relevant distinctions. 5.4.3 Defaults There is another line of potential research that bears relevance to any study of lexicalization patterning, and that is the possibility of arguing in favor of default meaning. We can look at defaults from various angles.10 Different approaches to defaults have been taken in the past (cf. Levinson (2000), Jaszczolt (2005)), tackling a variety of language phenomena (such as inference, implicature, belief reports, intentions, etc.). We do not want to discuss the psycholinguistic background and implications of positing defaults, but rather to explore the possibility that searching for

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).

 Talking about Motion

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.

This expression is most spontaneously rendered into Serbo-Croatian as ‘Boca je prošla kroz cev’ (‘The bottle passed through the pipe’), which is a boundary-crossing/change-occurred type. Although the English example can potentially refer to the non-boundary-crossing/no-change type as well, Serbo-Croatian speakers seem to be in favor of the boundary-crossing/change-occurred interpretation.11 Native speakers of Serbo-Croatian translated the verb in this example from English with a perfective verb. To the question ‘Where was the bottle then?’ the participants answer ‘out of the pipe’ or (more imaginatively) ‘in the sewer’. This confirms the readiness to translate the simple past with perfective forms in Serbo-Croatian by default (cf. Bybee, Perkins and Pagliuca (1994) for further discussion). The no-change/ non-boundary-crossing meaning is more likely to be the chosen interpretation if the past progressive was used instead (‘The bottle was floating through the pipe’). Speakers of Serbo-Croatian need to use one or the other form (perfective or imperfective) and cannot leave the expression underspecified with regard to the phase of motion. An English speaker who uttered ‘The bottle floated through the pipe’ would no doubt know whether (s)he was referring to change-occurred or no-change type, because it is an important experiential event feature involving a difference in observable consequences (i.e. the bottle is either inside or out of the pipe), but (s)he does not need to draw the distinction in the verb or verb phrase. How does another English speaker make a decision as to whether the bottle is still in the pipe or not? We did not test intuitions of native speakers of English, but perhaps, in the absence of any further specification, native speakers may be more inclined towards one of the two interpretations, just as was the case with the example ‘The man swam to the shore’ (cf. discussion of examples (31) – (32)). The fact is that such isolated 11. Filipović (1999); experimental data.



Chapter 5.  Data analysis for English 

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 ‘proći’ – ‘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 hearer’s 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.

 Talking about Motion

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.



Chapter 5.  Data analysis for English 

happen habitually. We might have to concede that there is a number of cases in which context is absolutely indispensable.14 The cases as in (45) and (46) await further research based on default meanings, potentially driven by conventionalized scenarios. If the object of the preposition were different in example (46) as in ‘He ran under the tree to hide from the rain’, only the second interpretation (ii) would be possible. A solution can come from conventionalized scenarios, i.e. how often and in what situations does one use a particular combination such as ‘skied over’ and ‘ran under’? If one interpretation is the most frequent, that could be considered a default, possible to override in a particular context. For example, the combination ‘ran under’ seems to cause less doubt in the following example (boundary-crossing/change-occurred): (47) It hit the platform fence and ran under the carriage.

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)).

 Talking about Motion

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 hearer’s 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



Chapter 5.  Data analysis for English 

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.

This brings us to narrative setting and topicalization in particular. What seems to the point in (48) is the fact that Carol was giggling and Melissa was pulling her jumper down whereas their running forms a kind of background setting to their individual activities. Thus, the description of motion was not topical in (48). In this case we checked intuitions of native speakers and they uniformly prefer boundary-crossing/moment-of-change interpretation to boundary-crosssing/ change-occurred.15 In other words, the speakers view the situation as described in (48) to be a description of giggling and pulling a jumper down while running. Some speakers commented that the giggling and pulling a jumper may have continued when the other side of the street was reached, but that it was definitely happening while crossing the street. Communication happens in a narrative context, which is established as soon as the communication starts between the speaker and the hearer (or reader). The introduction of a defined narrative context anchors the communicative situation and facilitates the receipt of the message. We underlined that further research tackling the frequency with which certain potentially ambiguous expressions refer to one or the other situation type needs to be carried out in broader narrative contexts in order to establish other factors relevant for event lexicalization. We can illustrate how narrative context in translation process can further clarify what situation type an expression refers to. For example, if a sequence of events is described using the simple past tense in English, we can determine the situation type more 15. We are very grateful to David Vinson and 6 other native speakers who shared their intuitions on this example.

 Talking about Motion

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



Chapter 5.  Data analysis for English 

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

 Talking about Motion

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

Talking about motion in Serbo-Croatian 6.1 The importance of being a prefix Studies of lexicalization of events have rarely comprised issues related to morphology. In one study, Levin and Rappaport Hovav (1998a) pointed out that in expressing motion, Russian differs from English in one morphological feature. In both Russian and English, morphologically simple verbs of manner of motion have the activity sense (in Vendlerian terms, which is what Levin and Rappaport Hovav use), as in: (1) a. On begal po komnate. He ran-PST-IPFV-3SG-M around room-DAT ‘He ran around the room.’

Unlike English, Russian uses morphologically simple verbs only for the activity sense. In the accomplishment sense, the verb’s form is morphologically complex, including one of a range of directional prefixes indicating the goal of motion, as in: (1) b. On ubežal 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.

 Talking about Motion

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) Utrčao 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)

Pošto su se načekale 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)

She rustled into the room. Ušla je u sobu uz šuštanje svoje svilene haljine. Enter-PST-PFV-3SG-F be-COP into room with rustling her silk dress-GEN ‘She entered the room with a rustle of her silk dress.’

(5)

As I ambled into the bar I decided to make my last stop for the night. Kad sam ušetao besciljno u bar, When be-COP into-stroll-PST-PFV-3SG-M aimlessly into bar, odlučio sam da to bude moja poslednja stanica decide-PST-PFV-3SG-M be-COP that this be-PRS my last stop te noći. that night. ‘When I walked into the bar aimlessly, I decided it would be my last stop that night.’

When a moment-of-change is to be expressed in Serbo-Croatian, the imperfective verb form is needed and the verbs used are directional. Imperfective (unprefixed) manner verbs are used to express no-change, and cannot be used for moment-ofchange. Prefixed manner verbs cannot be used on that occasion either since they



Chapter 6.  Talking about motion in Serbo-Croatian 

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 kuću puzeći. Enter-PST-IPFV-3SG-M be-COP into house crawling. ‘He was crawling into the house.’

In an expression of no-change phase, an imperfective manner verb is used: (7) Trčao je preko dolina celo popodne. Run-PST-IPFV-3SG-M be-COP across meadows all afternoon. ‘He ran across the meadows all afternoon.’

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) Trčao je u školu. Run-PST-IPFV-3SG-M be-COP into school-ACC ‘He ran towards the school.’ (9) Trčao je u sobi. Run-PST-IPFV-3SG-M be-COP in room-LOC ‘He ran in/inside the room.’

In (8) in Serbo-Croatian, the meaning is directional/non-boundary-crossing, and in (9) it is locational/ non-boundary-crossing. In both cases an imperfective manner verb is used; the temporal phase is that of no-change. The meanings of cases in Serbo-Croatian generally do not interfere with the temporal phase in motion expressions. In both (8) and (9) an imperfective manner verb is used, and regardless of the difference in the cases of the objects of the prepositions, the two expressions refer to the same kind of situations, the relevant spatiotemporal features (non-boundary-crossing/no-change) being the same for both. 1.

Cf. chapter 3.

 Talking about Motion

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 ‘pretrčati’ (‘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.

Pretrčao 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. Pretrčao 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.



Chapter 6.  Talking about motion in Serbo-Croatian 

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. Pretrčao je celu ulicu. Along-run-PST-PFV-3SG-M be-COP whole-ACC street-ACC ‘He ran the whole length of the street.’

6.2 OD-/DO-: deixis, aspect, boundary We will look at all the prefixes that feature in the process of lexicalization of motion events in Serbo-Croatian and analyze various examples in order to illustrate the claim that morphological restrictions have a crucial role in the lexicalization process in this language. We discovered that depending on the situation type that is expressed in Serbo-Croatian, speakers tend to employ different techniques in the process of rendering experience into the linguistic system. The prefixes, their meanings and frequencies are given in Table 2. Corpus and dictionary searches revealed that not all the manner verbs can be prefixed freely by all prefixes. Table 2.  Prefixed perfective manner of motion verbs Prefixed manner verbs DOODIZUPRO†PRENAPODTotal

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.

 Talking about Motion

OD-/DO- verbs are the most frequent because: a) they combine with all prepositions: (11) Odšepao je preko vlažnog šljunka. From-the speaker/scene-limp-PST-PFV-3SG-M be-COP over moist gravel. ‘He limped off over the moist gravel.’

b) they accumulate directional phrases onto a single verb: (12) U baraku preko se doteturao Into shed opposite REFL to-the-speaker/scene-stagger-PST-PFV-3SG-M otud iz logora. from there out prison camp. ‘He staggered into the shed opposite from there out of the prison camp.’ (13)

Doskakao je uz stepenice To-the-speaker/scene-jump-PST-PFV-3SG-M be-COP up stairs u devojčinu sobu. into girl’s room. ‘He jumped up the stairs into the girl’s 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



Chapter 6.  Talking about motion in Serbo-Croatian 

a coordinate system with respect to which certain properties of objects, including the phenomenal self, are gauged” (Levinson 2003: 24). Levinson distinguishes intrinsic (object-centered), relative (viewer-centered), and absolute (environmentcentered) frames. One common mistake is to think that ‘intrinsic’ is opposed to ‘deictic’; moreover, relative frame of reference is often referred to as ‘deictic’. Actually, the opposition is between 1) coordinate systems: intrinsic vs. relative, and 2) origins: deictic and non-deictic (ibid: 38). It is clear that, although the viewpoint in the relative frame is normally speaker-centered, it can be addressee-centered or centered on a third party. In fact, Levinson shows that all three frames may have a deictic centre: ‘The ball is in front of me’ (intrinsic), ‘The ball is in front of the tree from where I am standing’ (relative), and ‘The ball is north of me’ (absolute). On the other hand, none of the three frames of reference need to have a deictic center: ‘The ball is in front of the chair’, ‘The ball is in front of the chair from Bill’s point of view’, and ‘The ball is north of the chair’ (ibid.: 50–51). Although there is no one-to-one relationship between deictic and relative, as Levinson explains, we do not insist on this distinction for the purpose of the present analysis. The reason for this approach lies in the fact that our data do not give access to the information on the “origin”, in Levinson’s terms. One cannot be sure in all cases whether, in the descriptions of motion events, the movement described was to/from the speaker, addressee or a third party. Any point of view could be taken and it is not obvious from an expression given within the limited context of a sentence. Accounts of events in literary works contained in the corpus, for example, could have been written in first or third person, and there is no way of knowing unless one is familiar with the source (e.g. the whole novel). Thus, since there is no great harm done to the understanding of frames of reference, the distinctions offered here cut across Levinson’s, and are simplified for the purpose of this study, bearing in mind that subtler (and by no means unimportant) differences exist. What is meant by intrinsic here is the Figure-centered frame, whereas the relative one is the speaker/scene-centered frame. The frames of reference used in Serbo-Croatian are intrinsic and deictic/relative, but when it comes to the central situation type that is the backbone of the intratypological contrasts (boundary-crossing/change-occurred), it seems that the deictic/relative perspective is favored because of the power of OD-/DO- verbs to combine with all prepositions and accumulate them in a single clause in this situation type. It is vital to analyze other experiential domains apart from motion events in this framework as well as to study possible effects of preferred frames of reference in verbalization, information processing, perception and memory. The cline in prefix use that we established is an indicator that the deictic/relative frame is a preferred option in SerboCroatian, as opposed to English, where the intrinsic (Figure-centred) perspective

 Talking about Motion

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 speaker’s 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 speaker’s 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 object’s 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. Belić (1964), Stevanović (1989)).



Chapter 6.  Talking about motion in Serbo-Croatian 

reference system, such as canonical directions, north-south, east-west. If one says ‘The tent is south of the boulder’, one is using language extrinsically. Obviously, the examples we discussed so far are related to location, and what we are interested in are motion events and spatial deictic reference. Slobin and Hoiting (1994: 140) have pointed out that directional deixis plays a key role in signed languages, in that directional verbs are used in expressions not only with respect to source and goal, but also with respect to the sender and receiver, together with points that may be established in signing space to indicate the locations and viewpoints of protagonists set up in the discourse. They further point out that spoken languages express deixis and direction through separate elements (either through two verbs or through a satellite expression and a verb). According to them, this reflects an inherent limitation of spoken languages. In other words, spoken languages must linearize deictic and directional information, rather than express it simultaneously, as is easily done in signed languages.6 Our 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. Our claims made in this chapter will be further supported by evidence from the corpus data. When reference point is not explicitly stated with OD-/DO- verbs, it is inferred to be the speaker/scene where the attention of the listener/reader is focused, in which case we have deictic reference, as in: (15) U tom trenu je dotrčao Marko. In that moment be-COP to-the-speaker/scene-run-PST-PFV-3SG-M Marko. ‘In that moment Marko ran up to me/us/here.’

In the following example we do not have information about speaker/scene setting, but rather Figure-centred, intrinsic perspective on the change of location. However, OD-/DO- examples of this kind are comparatively rare, because they involve providing information about both source (OD-‘from’) and goal (DO-‘to’): (16) Oteturao se od vrata do stola. From-stagger-PST-PFV-3SG-M REFL from door to table. ‘He staggered from the door to the table.’

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).

 Talking about Motion

(17)

Dotrčao 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 ‘utrčati’ ('into-run') exists in Serbo-Croatian, but still a deictic verb (‘dotrčati’) 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 skrovišta, 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. Filipović (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 šumu. into woods. ‘On the second day he trudged into the woods.’



Chapter 6.  Talking about motion in Serbo-Croatian 

Interestingly enough, in order to render the meaning of the expression ‘dobasati u šumu’ more precisely in English, the deictic verb ‘come’ could be used in English and the manner would then have to be rendered in an adjunct (‘trudging’ in ‘came trudging into the woods’). However, that is not the typical way of expressing motion events in English. We are aware that there is always a possibility that speakers would use a different pattern from the typical one. It can be a matter of choice for speakers, as there are no particular systemic restrictions in English that would prevent the use of alternative patterns. However, this ‘possibility’ only arises because of difficulties in translation. When would an English speaker regularly need to distinguish ‘come’ and ‘go away’ with different directions of motion signaled by prepositional phrases following, as in (17), (18) or (19)? The combination directional or deictic verb + a manner adjunct is just not opted for on most occasions in English, because there is a more practical, economical and habitual way in the system to pack information regarding motion events, namely to express manner in the verb and then add directional particles. We illustrate the extensive use of deictic verbs in Serbo-Croatian with various directional particles: (20)

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 Bera’s 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 Bera’s mother arrived quickly from the kitchen and opened the door.’

(22)

Pafko je urlao kao sumanut da diže ruke od svega toga i Pafko was roaring like mad to lift hands off everything and dojurili su svi to-the-speaker/scene-rush-PST-PFV-3PL-M be-COP everyone iz predsjednikova ureda. from president’s cabinet. ‘Pafko was roaring like a madman saying that he was giving everything up and everybody rushed to the scene from the president’s cabinet.’

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

 Talking about Motion

potential difficulty lies for translating the expressions of such situations into English. For example: (23)

Morala je ostati na sceni još pet minuta, a zatim je She had to stay on the scene five more minutes, and then be-COP otrčala u kupaonicu. from-the-speaker/scene-run-PST-PFV-3SG-F into the bathroom. ‘She had to stay on the scene five more minutes, and then she ran from the scene into the bathroom.’

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)

Sad znam da je nema, otrčala Now I know she is not there, from-the-speaker/scene-run-PST-PFV-3SG-F je prema gradu. be-COP towards the town. ‘Now I know she is not there, she ran towards the town.’

(25)

Muškarac se digao, duboko uzdahnuo i The man rose, took a deep breath and odšepao po automobilski akumulator. from-the-speaker/scene-limp-PST-PFV-3SG-M for car battery. ‘The man got up, took a deep breath and limped off to fetch the car battery.’

Here the speaker does not necessarily express that the movement was sudden, but rather that the Figure moved from the place where the speaker’s 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



Chapter 6.  Talking about motion in Serbo-Croatian 

confirmation that it is not so. Depending on where the speaker or scene-setting was as expressed in a Serbo-Croatian example (e.g. ‘Otrčao/Dotrčao je uz stepenice’ meaning ‘He from-the-speaker/to-the-speaker-ran up the stairs’), in English, if this had to be specified in translation, it would turn a most normal English sentence like ‘He ran up the stairs’ into ‘He ran up the stairs from/to where the speaker was standing’. Thus the OD-/DO- verbs have the largest applicability of all prefixed verbs in motion lexicalization, i.e. they can be used in all situation types when prefixed verbs are necessary (namely change-occurred/boundary-crossing or boundaryreaching). The number of verbs prefixed by OD-/DO- found in the dictionary is 118 each. This is the number of types, and the number of tokens (the number of examples found in the corpus data) is 396 for OD-verbs and 423 for DO-verbs. As we have mentioned before, they are the most numerous because they can combine with all prepositions, express deixis, and accumulate prepositional phrases. According to Slobin (1997a), one of the most important qualities of languages that express Manner in the verb is that they can use one manner verb and then add many directional phrases in expressions of motion events. We found out that in Serbo-Croatian, this pattern is restricted to the OD-/DO- verbs.7 OD-/DO- verbs are used in combination with various prepositions and can accumulate prepositional phrases in boundary-crossing expressions so that only one verb is used in expressions where the Path along which the Figure is moving is complex and is rendered via multiple directional phrases. In such cases, the use of verbs prefixed by other prefixes is restricted. When a Path along which the entity moves needs to be expressed by more than one directional element, an OD-/DO- verb is used because directional phrases can be accumulated after those verbs unlike verbs prefixed otherwise. For example: (26)

Otrčao je preko polja From-the-speaker/scene-run-PST-PFV-3SG-M be-COP across field i kroz šumu 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 (‘trčati’ – ‘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.

 Talking about Motion

phrases after the verb (e.g. PRO-, which means ‘through’), the expression is no longer acceptable: (27)

*Protrčao je kroz šumu 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) Istrčao 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-



Chapter 6.  Talking about motion in Serbo-Croatian 

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.

 Talking about Motion

different directional prepositions (except either ‘pored’ or ‘kroz’) and try to accumulate directional phrases, the expressions are unacceptable: (30)

?Protrčao 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)

Protrčao je kroz dnevnu sobu i Through-run-PST-PFV-3SG-M be-COP through lounge and utrčao 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 ponoći 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)

Turčin me napao kad sam Turk me attacked when be-COP izjahala iz šume… out-ride-PST-PFV-3SG-F out of woods… ‘The Turk attacked me when I rode out of the woods…’

(34)

…i na kraju izjahao kroz otvorena dvorska … …and in the end out-ride-PST-PFV-3SG-M through open court’s vrata door… ‘…and in the end he rode out through an open door of the court…’

(35) …opet je nataknuo masku na lice i istrčao …again he put mask onto face and out-run-PST-PFV-3SG-M

9. Compare with the Russian examples (2) in chapter 2.



Chapter 6.  Talking about motion in Serbo-Croatian 

iz kuće na terasu, pa odmah odatle sišao u baštu. 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 neočekivano …into-fly-PST-PFV-3PL-M be-COP unexpectedly iz unutrašnjosti butika u prednju sobu. out of inside clothes shop into front room. ‘…they rushed unexpectedly out of the clothes shop into the front room.’

(37) Naš brod mirno je proklizio pored njih… Our ship peacefully be-COP past-glide-PST-PFV-3SG-M past them… ‘Our ship peacefully glided past them.’ (38)

Otvorila su se zelena vrata i The green door opened and kroz njih je promilio jedan miš. through them be-COP through-crawl-PST-PFV-3SG-M one mouse ‘A green door opened and a mouse crawled through it.’

(39) Prošetali 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.’

We can conclude that there is a kind of omission of the preposition ‘preko’ (‘across’/’over’) and the object of the preposition (in the case of the example above it would have been ‘reka’ – ‘river’), but somehow those two could easily be predicted 10. It seems that PRO- and PRE- verbs have more or less the same combinability power when it comes to the possibility of being followed by different prepositions. However, the PRO-verbs have more types and tokens than the PRE-verbs because the prefix PRO- has three completely different meanings (‘through’, ‘past’, and ‘spend time at a location’), unlike the prefix PRE-, which cannot be used to refer to as many different spatial configurations.

 Talking about Motion

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. *Pretrčao je ulicu u komšijinu bastu. Over-run-PST-PFV-3SG-M be-COP street into neighbor’s garden. ‘He ran across the street into the neighbor’s garden.’ b. Pretrčao je u komšijinu bastu. Over-run-PST-PFV-3SG-M be-COP into neighbor’s garden. ‘He ran over into the neighbor’s garden.’

In some situations, e.g. when a quick change of location is to be expressed, the PRE- verbs can be followed by the prepositions ‘iz’ and ‘u’ together in the same expression, as in: (42) Pretrčao je iz svoje u komšijinu bastu. Over-run-PST-PFV-3SG-M be-COP out of his into neighbour’s garden. ‘He ran out of his garden into the neighbour’s.’

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 ćerka prevalja se preko praga… His daughter over-roll-PST-PFV-3SG-F REFL over threshold… ‘His daughter rolled over the threshold…’ (44)

Jato helikoptera s crvenom petokrakom u bijelom krugu Flock of helicopters with a red star in a white circle preletjelo je, nisko, iznad bolnice. over-fly-PST-PFV-3SG-N be-COP low above hospital. ‘A flock of helicopters with a red star in a white circle flew low over the hospital.’

(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



Chapter 6.  Talking about motion in Serbo-Croatian 

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 verb’s meaning): (46)

Ptica se, sekući vazduh… trudila da podleti Bird REFL cutting air… try-PST-IPFV-3SG-F to under-fly-PRS-PFV-3SG pod jato. under flock. ‘The bird, cutting through the air… was trying to fly under the flock.’

(47) […onda su] potrčali pod nož. [then be-COP] under-run-PST-PFV-3PL-M under knife. ‘They ran under the knife.’

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)

…išli smo Petrovom ulicom, kad je na mene …we were going down Petar’s street, when be-COP onto me-ACC naletjela moja sestra… onto-fly-PST-PFV-3SG-F my sister… ‘…we were walking down Peter’s street when my sister bumped into me…’

 Talking about Motion

The motion sense is found in the following two examples: (50) …najahao je na žbun kraj puta. …onto-ride-PST-PFV-3SG-M be-COP onto bush by road. ‘…he rode onto a bush by the road.’ (51)

…imao sam lovačke srece, baš mi je jelen …I had the hunter’s luck, just then me-DAT be-COP deer natrčao na put. onto-run-PST-PFV-3SG-M onto path. ‘...I had hunter’s luck, just then a deer ran in my way.’

6.4 Ups and downs We have concentrated on the horizontal scale when it comes to motion events and have not looked into motion on the vertical scale. However, we did come across some examples of the latter while collecting data for our research, and we decided to include them, because they contribute to our arguments and confirm, and offer further support for, the claims we made. We did a corpus search for Serbo-Croatian manner verbs prefixed by prefixes expressing upward and downward motion, and found that they are extremely rare. Studies in lexicalization of motion mainly focus on horizontal motion, which was also observed by Naigles et al. (1998). The same study found very interesting peculiarities in the domain of vertical motion. For example, Spanish speakers are more likely to use manner verbs in descriptions of boundary-crossing events if they describe vertical motion (e.g. a girl sliding into a pool). Naigles et al. (1998) do not offer definitive answers why this might be so, because it is not clear why “the change in plane, in and of itself, might prompt speakers to talk about manner of motion rather than the path” (ibid.: 542). They indicate that the reasons might lie in the actor’s locus of control, and the possibility that the boundary-crossing is only a by-product, and not the obvious goal, of sliding into a pool, and thus not viewed as a true boundary-crossing (ibid.). In English, there are no restrictions with respect to the combinations of manner verbs and directional prepositions expressing upward or downward motion. However, a number of interesting restrictions are noted in Serbo-Croatian, in particular when motion along the vertical scale is to be expressed. Just looking at the dictionary data, we note that there are not many examples of verbs of motion prefixed by UZ- (‘upwards’) and S- (‘downwards’). The number of verbs found in the dictionary data prefixed by UZ- is 3, and those prefixed by S- is 15. It is interesting to note that most of the verbs that may seem to be prefixed by S- cannot be defined



Chapter 6.  Talking about motion in Serbo-Croatian 

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 ‘strčati’ (‘run down’) and ‘trčati’ (‘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 ’), ‘stropoštati (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: ‘trčati’ (‘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. Filipović (1999)). (52)

The balloon floated up the chimney. ‘Balon je odlebdeo Balloon be-COP from-the-speaker/scene-float-PST-PFV-3SG-M kroz dimnjak.’ through chimney.’

(53)

He rushed up the stairs to the girl’s room. ‘Odjurio je uz stepenice From-the-speaker/scene-rush-PST-PFV-3SG-M be-COP up stairs u devojčinu sobu. into girl’s room’

6.5 Other things we need to know about prefixes We hoped to convey the idea of how important prefix meaning can be for the study of domain lexicalization. The multifaceted role of prefixes has been analyzed before, although not in the same context. Their morphological status and function receive different treatments in the literature. For example, Bybee (1985) discussed prefixation in general in Serbo-Croatian, and initially (ibid.: 145) she states that

 Talking about Motion

“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)). Filip’s problem seems to stem from the fact that prefixes are applicable to already



Chapter 6.  Talking about motion in Serbo-Croatian 

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.”

A rather large number of examples of prefixed manner verbs in Serbo-Croatian (whether prefixed by OD-/DO- or other directional prefixes) is not colloquial in style, but either literary or obsolete. The number of tokens of such verbs is small, so the use is quite limited in the modern language. Most of the tokens among prefixed manner verbs come thanks to first-tier verbs, which are significantly more

 Talking about Motion

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 Vidaković (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. ‘trčati’ – ‘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 Doći (come to) Otići (go away) Izaći (go out) Ući (go in) Proći (go past)& (go through) Preći (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 Žic-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.).



Chapter 6.  Talking about motion in Serbo-Croatian 

The frequency of unprefixed, imperfective directional verbs was not considered here because, as explained, due to morphological blocking, they are used only in expressions of one particular situation type, namely that of boundary-crossing/ moment-of-change.12 Therefore, the tables represent only the verbs used in boundary-crossing/change-occurred situations, the situation type that served as a basis for the intratypological contrasts. The imperfective directional verbs are the only option for rendering moment-of-change situation types since they are not constrained morphologically and semantically the way manner verbs are. The choice of verbs is restricted when it comes to prefixed manner verbs in Serbo-Croatian, whereas the use of directional verbs is not restricted at all. Therefore, the conclusion could be that the combination ‘prefixed manner verb + directional particle’ sounds natural and is more commonly used with semantically simple manner verbs. The most frequently used pattern for expressing motion events in spoken Serbo-Croatian seems to be the use of directional verbs (cf. Vidaković (2006)). Our data from the dictionary and the corpus based on spoken and written usage of Serbo-Croatian show that even when a prefixed manner verb is possible, it is not used as often as might be assumed. Perhaps it is not unsound to reiterate the original proposal in Filipović ((1999), (2001), (2002)) that, based on all the findings so far, at least a branch of the typology should be understood in terms of a cline. The exact outline of this cline will have to wait for further insights from individual languages. We have to point out that in the comparison of the two languages we noticed that there are situations where one has to use a directional verb in a boundarycrossing/change-occurred situation. There is no choice available in the form of an OD-/DO-verb or a first-tier manner verb prefixed otherwise. This kind of situation is most conspicuous when English verbs created by noun to verb conversion are to be rendered into Serbo-Croatian. For example: (54)

He skateboarded across the street. Prešao je ulicu na skejtbordu. Cross-PST-PFV-3SG-M be-COP street-ACC on skateboard. ‘He crossed the street on a skateboard.’

(55)

He ninja’d over the sofa. Skočio je preko sofe kao nindža. Jump-PST-PFV-3SG-M be-COP over sofa like ninja. ‘He jumped over the sofa like a ninja.’

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.

 Talking about Motion

This particular tendency noticed in English is worth commenting on. When it comes to productivity of patterns, we can see that English has a highly developed lexicon of manner verbs and other verbs that can be used in motion expressions (cf. Levin (1993)). The influx of new words is impressive, especially through zero conversion (noun to verb), so examples like ‘He ninja’d over the sofa’ are found in the BNC data. This process and its intensity seem to be a peculiarity of English. On the other hand, such an influx of new words into this part of the lexicon in SerboCroatian is not found. It is important to point out here that most often in translation from English into Serbo-Croatian when a prefixed verb is necessary (e.g. in boundary-crossing situations), either a semantically more complex deictic manner verb (i.e. prefixed by deictic OD-/DO) is used, if it exists, or a semantically simpler prefixed manner verb+an adjunct (e.g. ‘preskočio kao nindža’ = ‘jumped over like a ninja’) in order to render a complex manner of motion from the English original. The reasons for this are not only related to a large influx of new verbs that can be used in motion expressions in English, but also have to do with the morphological constraint on prefixes in Serbo-Croatian. From this analysis, we can see that some choices in languages are restricted on the basis of systemic features. There is always a chance that individual speakers would have a free choice if more than one pattern were available to be used in a description of the same situation type. This is the point where no definite predictions can be made. We cannot predict exactly when speakers of English will use a directional verb rather than a manner verb, which they certainly do in some cases. For example, if English speakers want to foreground Manner, they express it in an elaborate adjunct that follows a simpler manner or directional verb rather than using a more typical and common pattern for motion expressions, namely manner verb + directional particle. This is done in situations where movement itself is ‘given’ and the manner is ‘new’: ‘Next time I cross the Atlantic by boat’. In this way, by using an atypical pattern, the component that is expressed in an uncommon way (in this case the Manner component) is foregrounded. In Serbo-Croatian, perfective manner verbs (with restrictions) and perfective directional verbs (without restrictions) can be used in boundary-crossing/change-occurred. We can point out that in Spanish, directional verbs in this situation type are obligatory, whereas in Serbo-Croatian they may seem to be only a statistical preference. This statistical preference, though, indicates habitual tendencies in language use, further confirmed in experimental studies. Vidaković (2006) has studied second language acquisition of Serbo-Croatian and English by English and Serbo-Croatian native speakers respectively. She demonstrated that Serbo-Croatian speakers (who acted as controls in her experiments) used prefixed manner verbs six times less often than non-manner verbs in the encoding of boundary-crossing/change-occurred situations. She also noticed that English learners of Serbo-Croatian are



Chapter 6.  Talking about motion in Serbo-Croatian 

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

There is a number of research questions that could be asked in relation to our topic. Some of them concern distinguishing semantic and conceptual features as well as lexical and construction meaning, and the role of typological studies in translation studies and applied (psycho)linguistics together with the relationship of language and thought. We illustrate next where answers to these questions can be sought in the context of our research. 7.1 Two levels of representation: two sides of the same coin? Firstly, we assumed that the semantic level is a level separate from the conceptual level. If semantic and conceptual structures are not decoupled, conceptual knowledge cannot be universal.1 That is, if people have different semantic structures in their languages, which equal conceptual representations, they also must then have different conceptual structures. This logical consequence may not have been fully appreciated by proponents of theories assuming universal concepts. Let us illustrate the implications of crosslinguistic variability for the assumption of universal conceptual structures starting from theories of conceptual knowledge according to which there is a one-to-one mapping between lexical and conceptual representations (non-decompositional views, e.g., Fodor et al. (1975), (1983)). These views implicitly assume that conceptual structures must differ across languages, therefore are incompatible with claims of universality of conceptual structures, unless conceptual structures are conceived to encompass every possible concept that is lexicalized (or is lexicalizable) in every possible language. 1. Cf. Vigliocco and Filipović Kleiner (2004) and Filipović Kleiner (2006b) for further discussion. We take semantic structure to correspond to meanings assigned to words and other linguistic units, and conceptual structure to correspond to mental representations for things, events, etc. in the world. Conceptual structures are necessarily involved in language use, but are also engaged in other cognitive functions. For brevity of exposition, we do not pose distinctions between different levels of conceptual structures (but see Jackendoff (2002), Levinson (2003a)).

 Talking about Motion

Jackendoff ((1983), (1990)) talks of meaning in terms of semantic structures, which are in essence conceptual. Langacker (1987) states that meaning is conceptual, which is not controversial, but the fact that he does not posit an intermediate semantic level, is. 2 However, in an earlier paper, he acknowledges a separate semantic level, but claims that even if it is recognized, it is of no interest to him, because the meaning in language is conceptual in nature (Langacker (1976)). Similarly, Jackendoff (1991) differentiates between E-semantics and I-semantics, the former being concerned with the relation of language to the world independent of speakers (mainly of interest to truth-conditional semantics), and the latter being an “inquiry into the principles of mental representations that support thought” (ibid.: 10). He argues that the issues for philosophers of language lie within I-semantics, i.e. explaining how one can make sense of the explanation offered by I-semantics within a broader psychological, social and biological context (ibid.: 44). Primitives and principles of combinations for a particular conceptual domain are universal for Jackendoff – “they define what there is for language to express and they do not depend on the vehicle of expression” (ibid.: 11). Those ingredients of conceptual structure are connected to surface expression (syntactic structure) via correspondence rules. Since the syntactic side of the correspondence is in part language-particular, it is expected that the correspondence rules are language-particular as well, although constrained by principles of Universal Grammar (ibid.). In this way, the conceptualization of a domain is deemed universal, while the way it surfaces in language could be language-specific. This in effect is not controversial. It is of interest to explain the underlying nature of conceptual representations, and Jackendoff ’s mechanics of conceptual semantics is one of the solutions on offer in the philosophy of language. We do not question the universality of a common conceptual core, but our main point here is that surface semantic systems vary to a great extent, and to roughly the same extent as cultures, so semantic relativity seems to be correct (cf. Hudson (1996)). Not accounting for semantic variation that is a result of different surface realization of conceptual structures excludes language-specific habitual understanding and reference to spatial relations, which entrench and encourage the habitual presence of certain pieces of information and absence of others. The possibility that this habitual entrenchment of patterns has some effect on certain conceptualizable features of events, causing some to be regularly triggered in some languages and not in others, does not need to result in the denial of common conceptual structuring of a domain. It does not have to be an ‘either/or’ question, but 2. Identifying semantic and conceptual representation leaves a lot of space for linguistic relativity, which ironically enough, Ron Langacker and Ray Jackendoff fervently oppose. This is not due to their inconsistency, but rather to the insistence on what the distinction between “semantic” and “conceptual” is for them. Langacker, for example, even came up with explicit defence on this point (1999).



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 (Filipović (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,

 Talking about Motion

if not determined, by the typological characteristics and lexicalization patterns of a given language. The two notions, however, are strictly distinguished in Nuyts (2001), for example, as “a temporary level in the case of language production” (“thinking for speaking”) and “long-term storage of world knowledge” (“conceptualization”). The thinking-for-speaking hypothesis has become very popular and has been a great incitement to many researchers, especially with reference to motion events and Talmy’s typology, but at present we limit ourselves to discussing information content in the light of language-specific lexicalization patterns and indicating where to probe for possible cognitive effects, which further experimental research should support or disprove. Levinson asserts that more than “thinking for speaking” is language-driven. Rather, linguistic differences correlate with, and seem to induce, major differences in spatial cognition (Levinson 2003a: xviii). Decoupling the semantic and the conceptual, and non-innateness of concepts are the two strongest standpoints that Levinson continuously and passionately defends. Current views differ, however, with respect to the degree to which differences in semantic structures map onto differences in conceptual structures (and therefore they differ with respect to the degree of conceptual universality). Much research in the field addresses this controversy by showing that language-specific effects are present in cognitive tasks that do not require either implicit or explicit verbalization (e.g., Levinson (2003a)), or by showing that they are only present when verbalization is present (Finkbeiner et al.  (2002), Malt et al.  (2003)). Some authors deny any effect of language on thought (Munnich and Landau (2003)); some others limit the possible effect of differences in semantic structures to those domains of cognitive function that more directly relate to language coding (e.g. Slobin (2003), Malt et al.  (2003)). Other authors marshal views according to which semantic representations of a particular language have a far more pervasive imprint on cognition, e.g., in spatial cognition (Bowerman and Choi (2003), Levinson (2003b)), and in appreciation of properties of objects (Lucy and Gaskins (2003)). Levinson ((2003a), (2003b)) insists on showing language effects in non-linguistic testing, which would prove the dominant role of language (or rather individual languages) in spatial cognition. His experiments are aimed at testing spatial memory whereby no use of language is required, but this does not mean that language will not be used anyway. Participants had some time for linguistic coding between rotations in his spatial orientation experiment, which was supposed to access non-linguistic cognition. In any case, non-linguistic cognition targeted by introducing tasks that impede normal language presence (e.g. by introducing various distractors to suppress language use, such as hearing meaningless syllables while performing a non-linguistic task) does not reflect real life circumstances, where language is (tacitly at least) omnipresent.



Chapter 7.  Moving on 

Munnich and Landau (2003) also point out that Levinson’s 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 Levinson’s 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. Wierzbicka’s (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

 Talking about Motion

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. Wittgenstein’s 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 Pirahã 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 Pirahã 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 children’s 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).

 Talking about Motion

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 language’s 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

4. Cf. Kay (1997) on intra-speaker relativity.



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. Yesterday’s trope is today’s 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.

 Talking about Motion

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 ŽicFuchs (1991). A directional phrase is necessary for this change in meaning of expressions when the same verbs are used unergatively or unaccusatively. However, Žic-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. Žic-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 

(depending on which component of the meaning of the verb needs to dominate in order for the verb to be used in a particular structure). Although Žic-Fuchs does not say it explicitly, a position seems to emerge in which some constructions may have their own meaning and thus “make” requirements as to what kinds of verbs can be put in the verb slot. We will show how this kind of emerging compromise between verb meaning and construction meaning may become more obvious when we discuss examples in (4) below. Going back to the claim that ‘run’ verbs change from unergative into unaccusative only when followed by directional phrases, we can declare that we cannot fully agree with this claim. ‘The general marched the soldiers all day in preparation for the parade’ seems perfectly acceptable without a directional phrase, and many native speakers would not hear themselves saying either (2) or (3), or would at least hesitate before they say they are acceptable (cf. also Erterschik-Shir and Rapoport (2005) for a similar argument). Another example is provided by Levin and Rappaport Hovav (e.g. ‘I promised Ms. Cain I would ride her around the ranch’) to remind us that the “phenomenon is more widespread than the few examples cited in the literature suggest, although its relatively limited use suggests that speakers of English are conservative about exercising this option” (Levin and Rappaport Hovav 1995: 189). We do not think that this is the case. First, it has not been attested that agentive verbs of manner of motion are not used unaccusatively because speakers are “conservative” about it. The mere fact that there are so few verbs that are permitted in this construction suggests that it is not felt to be the natural way of expressing the kind of situations those expressions could potentially refer to. Speakers do not seem to be conservative about introducing new words and using them in expressions, for example through noun to verb conversion, so why would they be conservative about using already existing verbs in already existing constructions, especially if it is a more economical way to express something? We can conclude that some agentive manner of motion verbs can be used causatively, but we are not sure whether the reason for this lies only in the components of their meaning relevant for syntax. The components of verb meaning seem to exhibit a kind of hierarchy when verbs are used in different constructions (cf. examples in (4) below). We cannot help noticing that those constructions with agentive manner of motion verbs used causatively do not have the meaning ‘caused somebody to move in a certain way’, but the meaning is slightly more shifted from the pure distinction between ‘move (in the way specified by the verb)’ and ‘cause somebody to move (in the way specified by the verb)’. Goldberg (1995: 169) also gives an example where certain activities, which are conventionally accomplished in a particular way (cf. Shibatani (1973)) may be expressed as simple causatives even when the causation is indirect (e.g. ‘The company flew her to Chicago for an interview’).

 Talking about Motion

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 Occam’s 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 Filipović (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 Hovav’s account does not necessarily hold in such cases. Another proposal how to deal with verb meaning is given in Žic-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. Žic-Fuchs (1991: 73–74) provides examples that emphasize the way in which a speaker’s 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 

to a certain kind of movement that involves difficulty and heaviness of steps, a manner of motion that cannot be associated with snakes. Thus, again, we are made aware that knowledge of the world and knowledge of a language are united in a strong bond. Although Žic-Fuchs asserts that motion verbs are not a unified semantic group, because so many different verbs can be used in motion expressions in English, there are certain basic assumptions that can be made regarding those verbs which most researchers have defined as motion verbs (cf. Ikegami (1970), Miller (1973)). She starts from analysis of the three syntactic environments the verb ‘walk’ occurs in: (4) a. The child walked to the supermarket. b. The children walked the city streets. c. Young mothers walked their children to school.

The example in (4a) is intransitive, (4b) pseudo-transitive, and (4c) transitive.7 These syntactic frames, however, are conditioned by the difference in meaning, as Žic-Fuchs sees it, of the verb. She is not in favor of the componentional analysis of meaning in the sense of the once-popular componential analysis (using terms like +Animate; +Human, etc.), but still establishes certain relevant parts of verb meaning that are responsible for the difference in the constructions the verb appears in. For example, although we are able to agree on the basic meaning of the verb ‘walk’, we can see that the component ‘walk in such a way that a distance (often long) is covered’ is prominent in (4b), whereas in (4c) the meaning ‘to accompany somebody’ seems more salient than the mere manner of motion (i.e. walking). The weakness of the semantic component analysis lies in the order of meaning components, which would be the same in all three cases (primarily referring to the manner of motion), while we can see, for example, that walk in example (4c) primarily means ‘accompany or follow somebody’, and the component ‘walking’ seems rather additional. The most important component is the one that is decisive for the final outcome in the form of the syntactic construction the verb appears in. ŽicFuchs also analyzes some sub-groups within the semantic field of motion verbs. Those sub-groups are based on categories that are essentially defined by prototypical verbs. For example, verbs of walking can be subdivided further into verbs that relate to walking that: i. attracts attention (e.g. ‘strut’, ‘prance’, etc.) ii. is uncertain (e.g. ‘stagger’, ‘falter’, etc.) iii. is with difficulty, or heavy steps (e.g. ‘trudge’, ‘plod’, etc.)

7. Dowty (1979: 69) terms the kind of examples in (4b) pseudo-transitive. They seem to be inherently intransitive because they cannot passivize.

 Talking about Motion

Žic-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 

Compositionality is important for Construction Grammar.8 The meaning of an expression, according to Goldberg (1995), is the result of integrating the meaning of lexical items into the meanings of constructions. In this way, we do not have to claim that the syntax and semantics of the clause are projected exclusively from the meaning of one lexical item, namely the verb. It is a common belief that postulating construction meaning entails cancelling compositionality, since constructions are units of meaning themselves. Goldberg (1995) does not dispense with compositionality, and Croft (Croft and Cruise (2004)) explains why this common belief has to be dispelled. He says that “constructions other than idiomatic phrases are compositional, that is, the meanings of the parts of a construction are combined to form the meaning of the whole construction” (Croft and Cruise (2004: 253)). They must be represented as independent constructions because semantic interpretation rules associated with the construction are unique to that construction, and not derived from another, more general syntactic pattern (ibid.). Depending on the semantic features of lexical items, their acceptability in certain constructions is a matter of degree. This brings us to the issue of which manner verbs can be used in motion expressions. One group of verbs used in motion expressions seem to have a more restricted presence – the verbs of sound emission. Causal relationship seems to play a part in the following contrasting examples: (5) a. The train screeched into the station. b. *The bird chirped out of the tree.

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.

 Talking about Motion

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:

(6) He laughed his way out of the room.



(7) He joked his way into the meeting.



(8) They munched their way through town.

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 Croft’s understanding of constructional



Chapter 7.  Moving on 

compositionality, whereby the meaning of the construction is achieved through combining the meanings of its constituent parts, but at the same time it is not derived from more general syntactic patterns (cf. Croft and Cruise (2004)). However, construction meaning is not always the solution to all our problems. There are cases where the meaning of a construction is not so uniform. The problem becomes more obvious if we look at the ditransitive construction in English. Goldberg proposed six related constructional meanings for the ditransitive construction (Goldberg (1995: 38)) to accommodate the difference in meaning of the ditransitive such as: ‘Jane baked Bill a cake’ vs. ‘Jane gave Bill a book’. In the former, it is possible that Bill does not receive the cake, whereas in the latter, the entailment is that Bill comes into the possession of the book. It is always possible to superimpose one general meaning of a construction, as is often done with lexical items. There is no reason to assume that such a thing should be objectionable in constructions whereas it is perfectly normal in the context of the lexicon. Croft (2003) noticed that the different “senses” of the ditransitive construction are very closely tied to the verb classes that each “sense” occurs with. He argues that the facts about the ditransitive construction in English require the postulation of verb-class-specific constructions and verb-specific constructions, and the necessity for this indicates that there is a false dichotomy underlying the lexical rule analysis (Levin and Rappaport Hovav (1995)) and the abstract constructional analysis (Goldberg (1995)). Croft concludes: “In other words, the form-function mapping of the component parts of constructions is not necessarily fully specified. Another way of putting it is that multiple analysis of the form-function mapping may be available to the speaker (cf. Hankamer 1977). Part of the reason for this is that verb-specific and verb-class-specific constructions exist as part of a speaker’s grammatical knowledge, so the form-meaning mapping need not be fully specified. Verb-specific and verb-class-specific constructions are semantically partially analysable but need not be completely so. Most of the time this is not a problem in communication, since the verb-specific construction specifies the meaning of the whole as well as its syntax. But the analysis of the form-function mapping can vary across speakers, and can result in variation and change across time. As linguists, we should accommodate this variation and indeterminacy in our analysis of argument structure constructions.”

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

 Talking about Motion

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 

meaning in some circumstances in Serbo-Croatian as well (chapter 3), but perhaps Serbo-Croatian has a different take on construction meaning due to its complex morphology. The study of lexical and construction meaning in domain lexicalization is a potential source of understanding how the language-specific and the universal interact and coexist. Thompson’s approach to construction meaning is particularly appealing to us, because it favors a study of constructions based on the frequency of use in attested data, which systematically reveals which items frequently appear together and become entrenched in the form of a construction through habitual language use.

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,

 Talking about Motion

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 Vidaković (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 

evidence indicates that at least broad structure of conceptual space in universal and therefore makes up part of human cognition, although boundaries are variable and hence less constrained by the nature of human cognition”(cf. also Croft (2001), Croft (2003)). The constraints of language were our subject here; we showed how these constraints operate on the information content of the message. Other sources of constraints (e.g. environmental circumstances and needs, social practices, etc.) are not negligible, but belong to a different type of study. Our situation types proved themselves a handy tool in our language contrasts. English and Serbo-Croatian have the means to distinguish the situation types as predicted, but using the levels of meaning differently. The only more serious problem for our analysis which we encountered in English is the doubt between directional and locational interpretation depending on the cognizing of the referent in the object of the preposition, which when lexicalized, can be indeterminate between boundary and location. We showed that it is frequently resolved in sentential context, because this is what speakers provide when they communicate rather than giving underspecified verb+preposition combinations on their own. The great majority of our corpus examples testify to that end. Sentence level is informative enough for establishing the essential typological contrasts bearing in mind that they are not the only ones. Larger contexts (e.g. narrative) have a role to play, but that role should not be exaggerated either. It is important to bear in mind that situation types are not strict restrictions; they are rather indicative of the possible ways to look for common ground in language contrasts as well as establishing the balance between the universal and the language-specific in the lexicalization of cognitive domains. What is truly universal, in our opinion, is the ability to perceive and cognize boundaries and changes and talk about them, for which languages provide the means. In turn, the study of these language-specific means can take us back to the universal, for example, by establishing the balance between the common reliance on extra-linguistic knowledge (reflected, for instance, in the effect that conventionalized scenarios could have on interpretation) and use of language, which is inevitably spiced up with language-specific magic of semantics 2 mechanisms (cf. chapter 1). If a language does not oblige the speakers to mark certain distinctions, they will not be marked systematically and on all occasions. However, we assume that the spatio-temporal features we proposed are salient to speakers, and if boundary vs. location is not always as rigorously marked in English as it is in Serbo-Croatian (morphologically) or Spanish (via directional vs. manner verb choice), it is because this difference need not affect our understanding of the sequence of events. In ‘He staggered across the back yard and entered the conservatory’, we do not need to know whether the speaker thought of ‘the back yard’ as a boundary or a location, but we know that the moving Figure did change location (‘entered the

 Talking about Motion

house’), and this is enough to classify the motion event as boundary-crossing/ change-occurred. The crucial point is that if the distinction matters for the understanding of an event, it tends to be clearly signaled. In Serbo-Croatian, the situation types are specified regardless of whether boundary vs. location is important or not. Therefore, in translation and communication in a foreign language, a Serbo-Croatian speaker will be tuned to gather the information informally defined as ‘crossed the boundary’ or ‘was located somewhere’ as soon as possible in the sentence, because of the perfective vs. imperfective marking on the verb that brings immediate resolution to the verbalized event interpretation in Serbo-Croatian. This research should be understood as an invitation to move on in the investigation of crosslinguistic lexicalization patterning, rather than as a definitive answer to questions related to rendering experience into languages. We tackled a small number of issues within this vast area of linguistic study, and limited ourselves to providing insight into which aspects should be taken into consideration when it comes to contrasting languages and searching for potential universals and language-specific features. The potential to apply the theory and methodology put forward here is immense. For example, the latest applied psycholinguistic research in translations of eyewitness testimony showed content differences in the translation of the original transcripts as well as crosslinguistic differences in narratives due to typological differences in lexicalization patterning (Filipović (in press)). Preliminary experimental results showed no language-induced differences between English and Spanish speakers in short-tem memory of motion events, but indicated higher reliance for speakers of both Spanish and English on what we could provisionally call atomic components of motion events (perceptually primary and salient) rather than on molar, lexicalized concepts, to use Levinson’s terminology (Filipović (in progress)). Therefore, studying language-specific tendencies could lead to establishing (potentially) universal conceptual features within a conceptual domain. Our starting point was the typology of languages based on the ways in which different components of events are lexicalized in different languages; a major dichotomy between verb-framed and satellite-framed languages has been established by previous researchers. As Sapir once said of grammars, we can also say of typologies that they all leak, and thus our primary aim was not to prove that the typology does not work. It should not be considered decisive in predicting all aspects of language use, but rather as a source of broadly sketched guidelines regarding some features and processes within different linguistic systems. We highlighted the difficulty one encounters in drawing conclusions about how similar the languages are based on a limited criterion of where they lexicalize components of events. We have seen that components of events that are lexicalized in various languages seem to be universal, but the way they are lexicalized varies. We kept the



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.

 Talking about Motion

Different levels of linguistic analysis have different degrees of contribution in the process of conveying meaning, which varies from language to language. Once we have established the major distinctions that are relevant within a domain, we can establish the levels at which these distinctions are drawn. For example, the syntax/lexical semantics interface seems to matter more in the case of English than in the case of Serbo-Croatian, and focusing only on the similarities in lexicalization patterning between the two languages obscured many differences, which in effect illustrate that the two systems function rather differently in the process. Furthermore, we explained why no single theoretical approach can account for all phenomena in all languages. And there is no reason why we should expect any approach to be all-encompassing. Different points of view have co-existed (and still do, although reluctantly in some cases) in the natural sciences and this has never prevented researchers from coming up with ever more insightful and thought-provoking solutions to old problems. Therefore, our research does not side with any particular framework, and leaves open the possibility that more than one approach can be used in linguistic problem solving, just as, for example, there are different ways of arriving at the same solution to a mathematical problem. We insist that further exploration of the issues we raised in this research is required in order to be able to enhance the predictive power of the claims we made. A diachronic study of the relevant parts of linguistic expressions of a particular domain will help establish the exact development of their meaning and use (e.g. locational and/or directional meaning in prepositions). Finally, we avoided detailed discussion of the level between events in reality and events in linguistic expression, i.e. events at the conceptual level. However, this does not mean that our study has no implications for I-semantics, or conceptual semantics, to evoke the terminology of Jackendoff again. Featural representations or schemas that Jackendoff uses to illustrate conceptual representations are just a suggestion of what might be happening in the mind when experience of a domain is lexicalized. We do not have immediate evidence about the definitive nature of features or schemas we might be using to represent our knowledge and experience of the world. In any case, if we take universal conceptual structure to be decomposed into primitives, certain languages may make more use of certain features than others, or may combine them in a different way. The language then entrenches the combinations and the conceptual construal probably does not involve building up concepts from features every time they are needed. Rather, the whole combination of features can be already set: a “cocktail” of features, which may be (and probably are) universal comes served according to a language-specific recipe. This leads us again to Levinson and his distinction between atomic and molar concepts, for which more psychological and cultural, as well as linguistic, evidence must be sought.



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 Orwell’s 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: Rečnik srpskohrvatskog književnog i narodnog jezika (SANU), vols. 1–15 Institut za srpskohrvatski jezik Beograd 1959–1989 Rečnik sprskohrvatskoga književnog jezika, vols. 1–6 Matica srpska Novi Sad 1967–1976

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)

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Appendix 1 Verbs in English

According to Levin (1993)1 1. Verbs of modes of being involving motion bob, bow, creep, dance, drift, eddy, flap, float, flutter, hover, jiggle, joggle, oscillate, pulsate, quake, quiver, revolve, rock, rotate, shake, stir, sway, swirl, teeter, throb, totter, tremble, undulate, vibrate, waft, wave, waver, wiggle, wobble, writhe

2. Verbs of body-internal motion buck, fidget, flap, gyrate, kick, rock, squirm, sway, teeter, totter, twitch, waggle, wiggle, wobble, wriggle

3. Verbs of manner of motion a) Roll verbs: bounce, drift, drop, float, glide, move, roll, slide, swing movement around an axis: coil, revolve, rotate, spin, turn, twirl, twist, whril, wind

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.

 Talking about 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

4. Verbs that are vehicle names balloon, bicycle, bike, boat, bobsled, bus, cab, canoe, caravan, chariot, coach, cycle, dogsled, ferry, gondola, helicopter, jeep, jet, kayak, moped, motor, motorbike, motorcycle, parachute, punt, raft, rickshaw, rocket, skate, skateboard, ski, sled, sledge, sleigh, taxi, toboggan, tram, trolley, yacht

5. Motion using a particular type of vehicle cruise, drive, fly, oar, paddle, pedal, ride, row, sail, tack

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 DOZVIŽDATI 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

 Talking about Motion

DOKRCATI DOLANDARATI DOLEBDETI DOLEPETATI DOLEPRŠATI DOLETETI DOLUNJATI DOLUTATI DOLJULJATI (SE) DOMARSIRATI DOMIGOLJITI DOMILETI DOMUVATI (SE) DOPAUNITI DOPEVATI DOPENTRATI (SE) DOPERJATI DOPEŠACITI DOPIRITI DOPLAVITI DOPLAZITI DOPLAKATI DOPLIVATI DOPLESATI DOPLITATI DOPLOVITI DOPLUTATI DOPLJESKATI DOPRTETI DOPUZATI DOPUHATI

DOSKOČITI DOSKAKUTATI DOTAVRLJATI DOTALASATI DOTALJIGATI DOTANDRKATI DOTAPKATI DOTETURATI (SE) DOTRABUNJATI DOTRALJATI DOTRAPATI DOTREPTATI DOTRČATI DOTUMARATI DOTUTNJATI DOHITATI DOHRAMATI DOHRLITI DOHUJATI DOHUKTATI DOCVLETI DOCUNJATI SE DOCUPKATI DOŠANTATI DOŠTAPATI DOŠTRKLJATI DOŠULJATI SE (=DOŠUNJATI SE) DOŠUMITI DOŠUMORITI (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 IZLEPRŠATI IZLETETI IZLUNJATI IZMARŠIRATI IZMIGOLJITISE IZMILETI IZKLIZNUTI ISKOTRLJATI (=ISKOTURATI) (SE) ISKASATI ISKLATITI

Appendix 2 

ISKLIZNUTI ISKOPRCATI SE ISKOČITI ISKRMANITI ISPLIVATI ISLPOVITI ISPLUATI ISPRTETI ISPRHNUTI ISPUZATI ISTETURATI SE ISTRČATI ISTUTNJETI IŠEPATI IŠETATI (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 PROLEPRŠATI

PROLETETI PROLUNJATI PROLUTATI PROMARSIRATI PROMIGOLJITI PROMILETI PROPUZATI PROPLIVATI PROPLOVITI PROTABATI PROTANDRKATI PROTAPKATI PROTRČATI PROTUMBATI PROHUJATI PROHUKTATI PROŠUNJATI SE PROŠEPURITI SE PROŠVRLJATI PROŠETATI (SE)

(total: 41)

 Talking about Motion

4. PRE- Verbs PREBRODITI PREVALJATI SE PREVESLATI PREGAZITI PREGALOPIRATI PREGMETI PREJEDRITI PREJEZDITI PREJAHATI PREJURITI PREKASATI

PREKLIZITI PREKOTRLJATI (SE) PRELETETI PREPLIVATI PREPLOVITI PREPUZITI PRESKOČITI PRETRČATI PREŠETATI (total: 20)

5. NA-Verbs NAVALJATI NALETETI NAJAHATI

NATRČATI NASKOČITI (total: 5)

6. POD- Verbs PODVALJATI SE PODLETETI

PODTRČATI (total: 3)

Index

Talking about Motion: A Crosslinguistic Investigation of Lexicalization Patterns Luna Filipović A Albanian  45 Aristotle  6 Asher, N  24, 26 Aske, J  20 aspect  56–66 Atkins, B. T.  7 B Baicchi, A.  23, 28 Belić, A.  116 Berthele, R.  23, 29 Bohnemeyer, J.  11, 32, 108 Bolinger, D.  34 boundary  39–40 boundary-crossing  20, 37–40 Bowerman, M.  16, 17, 140, 143, 144 Brinton, L.J.  22 Bugarski, R.  2 Bybee, J.  13, 99, 100, 129, 130, 158 C Carroll, M.  116 Chang, C. H.  46 change (spatio-temporal)  51, 67, 78 see also temporal frame and boundary-crossing Chinese, Mandarin  46–48 Choi, S.  17, 140, 143 combinatory potential  74, 130 compositionality  151, 153 Comrie, B.  46, 56 construals  51 construction meaning  61, 64, 145, 150–155 conventionalized scenarios see scenarios

Croft, W.  16, 18, 29, 50, 143–144, 150–153, 158, 159 Cruise, A.  151, 153, 158 D Danchev, A.  106–107 Davidoff, J.  142 Davies, I.  142 default meanings  99–101 deixis  17, 113–122 Depraetre, I.  57 Dickey, S. M.  66 directional meaning  18 Doron, E.  58 Dowty, D.  51, 57–58, 149 E Edmonds, D.  142 Egerod, S.  47 Eidinow, J.  142 Erteschik-Shir, N.  58, 148 English  43 algorithm  71–72 events  38 event lexicalization  59–56 motion events  5–7 motion event components  17 verbalized events  5 see also construals Everett, D.  142 extended space and time  85–86 F Filip, H.  130–131 Filipović, L.  30–31, 44, 52, 65, 76–78, 89, 100, 118, 129, 133, 137, 139, 148, 160 Fillmore, C.  7, 116, 150 Finkbeiner, M.  140 first- and second-tier verbs  71, 75–76, 131

Fodor, J. A.  137, 141 Fong, V.  23–26, 28, 95–96, 103 Frege, G.  151 French  24–26 G Gaskins, S.  140 Gasparov, B.  70–71, 75 Gell, A.  145 Gentner, D.  51 German  59 Goldberg, A.  29, 145, 147, 150–154, 158 Goldin-Meadow, S.  51 Grickat, I.  14, 15, 35, 70, 75, 130 H Hale, K.  58 Hankamer, J.  153 Harley, H.  58 Higginbotham, J.  49–50, 58, 65, 89–90 Hoekstra, T.  145 Hoiting, N.  13, 29, 117 Hudson, R.  67, 138 I Ibarretexte-Antuñano, I.  28 Ikegami, Y.  6, 149 Italian  27–28 Ivić, M.  77 Iwasaki, N.  89, 104 J Jackendoff, R.  29, 137–138, 143, 151–152, 162 Janda, L.  62–63 Jarvis, S.  72 Jaszczolt, K.  99–100 Johnson, M.  42 Johnson-Laird, P. N.  116

 Talking about Motion K Kamp, H.  51 Kay, P.  142, 144, 150 Kempton, W.  142 Keyser, S. J.  58 Krifka, M.  49–50 L Lakoff, G.  42, 62, 142 Landau, B.  140–141 Landman, F.  51 Langacker, R.  7, 42, 78, 138, 144 Lehrer, A.  33 Lemmens, M.  23, 29 Levin, B.  9, 14, 18, 23, 29, 37, 103, 109, 134, 146–148, 151–153, 175 Levinson, S. C.  53, 99, 114–115, 137, 139–141, 144, 160, 162 lexicalization  1 locational meaning  18 Lucy, J.  140 Lyons, J.  116 M Malt, B. C.  140–141 Matthews, P. H.  7 Michaelis, L.  65 Miller, G. A.  6, 116, 149 morphological blocking  74–75, 132 Munnich, G.A.  140–141 N Naigles, L.  23–24, 28–29, 41, 128 Narasimhan, B.  30 Nuyts, J.  140 O Odlin, T.  72 P Packard, J. L.  46 Pagliuca, W.  13, 99, 100 Palmer, F. R.  36

Parsons, T.  51 perfectivization  130 Perkins, R.  13, 99, 100 Pianesi, F.  50, 58 Poulin, C.  23–26, 28, 103 R Rapoport, T.  58, 148, 152 Rappaport-Hovav, M.  18, 23, 29, 37, 103, 109, 146–148, 151, 153 Ritter, E.  148 Roberson, D.  142 Rooryck, J.  72 Rosen, S. T.  148 Rothstein, S.  51, 57–58 Rudzka-Ostyn, B.  5 Russian  21–22, 61–62, 108 S Saeed, J. I.  114 satellite-framed languages  18–19 scenarios  148 conventionalized scenarios  55, 102 Schmid, H.  7 semantics  7 Serbo-Croatian  43 algorithm  72–74 aspect  60–64 directional verbs  15–16, 77, 110–11, 132–133 verb forms  13 prefix cline  73–74 prefixes  14 Serra-Borneto, C.  42, 59 Shibatani, M.  102, 147 Shull, S.  21, 75, 121 Škiljan, D.  2 Slobin, D. I.  5, 13, 19–25, 28–31, 43, 55, 71, 74–77, 107, 117, 121, 131, 139, 140, 142, 158 Smith, C. S.  58, 60

Spanish  19, 20–21, 29, 74, 104, 128, 134 spatial frame  37–38 spatial and temporal features  38–41 Stanojčić, Ž.  14, 35 Stevanović, M.  14, 35, 116 Stošić, D.  26–27 Svorou, S.  46 T Talmy, L.  1, 3, 5, 7, 13, 16–20, 28, 33–36, 39, 42, 52, 77, 81, 91–92, 98, 112, 131, 140, 144 temporal frame  38 temporal phase  39, 52 Tenny, C.  60 Thelin, N.  56–57, 63 Thomas, E.  72 Thompson, S.  153–155 Tversky, B.  116 U Ungerer, F.  7 usage-based model  158 V Van Hout, A.  146 Varzi, A. C.  50, 58 Vendler, Z.  37, 57–58 verb-framed languages  18–19 Verkuyl, H.  51, 56–57, 59–63, 65–66, 120 Vet, C.  26 Vidaković, I.  73, 77, 132–134, 158 Vigliocco, G.  89, 104, 137 Vinson, D.  89, 104 W Wierzbicka, A.  6, 141 Z Žic-Fuchs, M.  4, 6, 37, 131, 146–150

Studies in Language Companion Series A complete list of titles in this series can be found on the publishers’ website, www.benjamins.com 97 Dollinger, Stefan: New-Dialect Formation in Canada. Evidence from the English modal auxiliaries. xxii, 355 pp. Expected January 2008 96 Romeo, Nicoletta: Aspect in Burmese. Meaning and function. xv, 289 pp. Expected January 2008 95 O’Connor, Loretta: Motion, Transfer and Transformation. The grammar of change in Lowland Chontal. 2007. xiv, 251 pp. 94 Miestamo, Matti, Kaius Sinnemäki and Fred Karlsson (eds.): Language Complexity. Typology, contact, change. xiv, 340 pp. + index. Expected January 2008 93 Schalley, Andrea C. and Drew Khlentzos (eds.): Mental States. Volume 2: Language and cognitive structure. xiii, 350 pp. + index. Expected December 2007 92 Schalley, Andrea C. and Drew Khlentzos (eds.): Mental States. Volume 1: Evolution, function, nature. xi, 306 pp. Expected December 2007 91 Filipović, Luna: Talking about Motion. A crosslinguistic investigation of lexicalization patterns. 2007. x, 182 pp. 90 Muysken, Pieter (ed.): From Linguistic Areas to Areal Linguistics. vii, 274 pp. + index. Expected February 2008 89 Stark, Elisabeth, Elisabeth Leiss and Werner Abraham (eds.): Nominal Determination. Typology, context constraints, and historical emergence. 2007. viii, 370 pp. 88 Ramat, Paolo and Elisa Roma (eds.): Europe and the Mediterranean as Linguistic Areas. Convergencies from a historical and typological perspective. 2007. xxvi, 364 pp. 87 Verhoeven, Elisabeth: Experiential Constructions in Yucatec Maya. A typologically based analysis of a functional domain in a Mayan language. 2007. xiv, 380 pp. 86 Schwarz-Friesel, Monika, Manfred Consten and Mareile Knees (eds.): Anaphors in Text. Cognitive, formal and applied approaches to anaphoric reference. 2007. xvi, 282 pp. 85 Butler, Christopher S., Raquel Hidalgo Downing and Julia Lavid (eds.): Functional Perspectives on Grammar and Discourse. In honour of Angela Downing. 2007. xxx, 481 pp. 84 Wanner, Leo (ed.): Selected Lexical and Grammatical Issues in the Meaning–Text Theory. In honour of Igor Mel'čuk. 2007. xviii, 380 pp. 83 Hannay, Mike and Gerard J. Steen (eds.): Structural-Functional Studies in English Grammar. In honour of Lachlan Mackenzie. 2007. vi, 393 pp. 82 Ziegeler, Debra: Interfaces with English Aspect. Diachronic and empirical studies. 2006. xvi, 325 pp. 81 Peeters, Bert (ed.): Semantic Primes and Universal Grammar. Empirical evidence from the Romance languages. 2006. xvi, 374 pp. 80 Birner, Betty J. and Gregory Ward (eds.): Drawing the Boundaries of Meaning. Neo-Gricean studies in pragmatics and semantics in honor of Laurence R. Horn. 2006. xii, 350 pp. 79 Laffut, An: Three-Participant Constructions in English. A functional-cognitive approach to caused relations. 2006. ix, 268 pp. 78 Yamamoto, Mutsumi: Agency and Impersonality. Their Linguistic and Cultural Manifestations. 2006. x, 152 pp. 77 Kulikov, Leonid, Andrej Malchukov and Peter de Swart (eds.): Case, Valency and Transitivity. 2006. xx, 503 pp. 76 Nevalainen, Terttu, Juhani Klemola and Mikko Laitinen (eds.): Types of Variation. Diachronic, dialectal and typological interfaces. 2006. viii, 378 pp. 75 Hole, Daniel, André Meinunger and Werner Abraham (eds.): Datives and Other Cases. Between argument structure and event structure. 2006. viii, 385 pp. 74 Pietrandrea, Paola: Epistemic Modality. Functional properties and the Italian system. 2005. xii, 232 pp. 73 Xiao, Richard and Tony McEnery: Aspect in Mandarin Chinese. A corpus-based study. 2004. x, 305 pp. 72 Frajzyngier, Zygmunt, Adam Hodges and David S. Rood (eds.): Linguistic Diversity and Language Theories. 2005. xii, 432 pp. 71 Dahl, Östen: The Growth and Maintenance of Linguistic Complexity. 2004. x, 336 pp. 70 Lefebvre, Claire: Issues in the Study of Pidgin and Creole Languages. 2004. xvi, 358 pp.

69 Tanaka, Lidia: Gender, Language and Culture. A study of Japanese television interview discourse. 2004. xvii, 233 pp. 68 Moder, Carol Lynn and Aida Martinovic-Zic (eds.): Discourse Across Languages and Cultures. 2004. vi, 366 pp. 67 Luraghi, Silvia: On the Meaning of Prepositions and Cases. The expression of semantic roles in Ancient Greek. 2003. xii, 366 pp. 66 Nariyama, Shigeko: Ellipsis and Reference Tracking in Japanese. 2003. xvi, 400 pp. 65 Matsumoto, Kazuko: Intonation Units in Japanese Conversation. Syntactic, informational and functional structures. 2003. xviii, 215 pp. 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, 579 pp. 63 Butler, Christopher S.: Structure and Function – A Guide to Three Major Structural-Functional Theories. Part 1: Approaches to the simplex clause. 2003. xx, 573 pp. 62 Field, Fredric: Linguistic Borrowing in Bilingual Contexts. With a foreword by Bernard Comrie. 2002. xviii, 255 pp. 61 Goddard, Cliff and Anna Wierzbicka (eds.): Meaning and Universal Grammar. Theory and empirical findings. Volume 2. 2002. xvi, 337 pp. 60 Goddard, Cliff and Anna Wierzbicka (eds.): Meaning and Universal Grammar. Theory and empirical findings. Volume 1. 2002. xvi, 337 pp. 59 Shi, Yuzhi: The Establishment of Modern Chinese Grammar. The formation of the resultative construction and its effects. 2002. xiv, 262 pp. 58 Maylor, B. Roger: Lexical Template Morphology. Change of state and the verbal prefixes in German. 2002. x, 273 pp. 57 Mel’čuk, Igor A.: Communicative Organization in Natural Language. The semantic-communicative structure of sentences. 2001. xii, 393 pp. 56 Faarlund, Jan Terje (ed.): Grammatical Relations in Change. 2001. viii, 326 pp. 55 Dahl, Östen and Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm (eds.): Circum-Baltic Languages. Volume 2: Grammar and Typology. 2001. xx, 423 pp. 54 Dahl, Östen and Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm (eds.): Circum-Baltic Languages. Volume 1: Past and Present. 2001. xx, 382 pp. 53 Fischer, Olga, Anette Rosenbach and Dieter Stein (eds.): Pathways of Change. Grammaticalization in English. 2000. x, 391 pp. 52 Torres Cacoullos, Rena: Grammaticization, Synchronic Variation, and Language Contact. A study of Spanish progressive -ndo constructions. 2000. xvi, 255 pp. 51 Ziegeler, Debra: Hypothetical Modality. Grammaticalisation in an L2 dialect. 2000. xx, 290 pp. 50 Abraham, Werner and Leonid Kulikov (eds.): Tense-Aspect, Transitivity and Causativity. Essays in honour of Vladimir Nedjalkov. 1999. xxxiv, 359 pp. 49 Bhat, D.N.S.: The Prominence of Tense, Aspect and Mood. 1999. xii, 198 pp. 48 Manney, Linda Joyce: Middle Voice in Modern Greek. Meaning and function of an inflectional category. 2000. xiii, 262 pp. 47 Brinton, Laurel J. and Minoji Akimoto (eds.): Collocational and Idiomatic Aspects of Composite Predicates in the History of English. 1999. xiv, 283 pp. 46 Yamamoto, Mutsumi: Animacy and Reference. A cognitive approach to corpus linguistics. 1999. xviii, 278 pp. 45 Collins, Peter C. and David Lee (eds.): The Clause in English. In honour of Rodney Huddleston. 1999. xv, 342 pp. 44 Hannay, Mike and A. Machtelt Bolkestein (eds.): Functional Grammar and Verbal Interaction. 1998. xii, 304 pp. 43 Olbertz, Hella, Kees Hengeveld and Jesús Sánchez García (eds.): The Structure of the Lexicon in Functional Grammar. 1998. xii, 312 pp. 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, 407 pp.

41 Darnell, Michael, Edith A. Moravcsik, Michael Noonan, Frederick J. Newmeyer and Kathleen M. Wheatley (eds.): Functionalism and Formalism in Linguistics. Volume I: General papers. 1999. vi, 486 pp. 40 Birner, Betty J. and Gregory Ward: Information Status and Noncanonical Word Order in English. 1998. xiv, 314 pp. 39 Wanner, Leo (ed.): Recent Trends in Meaning–Text Theory. 1997. xx, 202 pp. 38 Hacking, Jane F.: Coding the Hypothetical. A comparative typology of Russian and Macedonian conditionals. 1998. vi, 156 pp. 37 Harvey, Mark and Nicholas Reid (eds.): Nominal Classification in Aboriginal Australia. 1997. x, 296 pp. 36 Kamio, Akio (ed.): Directions in Functional Linguistics. 1997. xiii, 259 pp. 35 Matsumoto, Yoshiko: Noun-Modifying Constructions in Japanese. A frame semantic approach. 1997. viii, 204 pp. 34 Hatav, Galia: The Semantics of Aspect and Modality. Evidence from English and Biblical Hebrew. 1997. x, 224 pp. 33 Velázquez-Castillo, Maura: The Grammar of Possession. Inalienability, incorporation and possessor ascension in Guaraní. 1996. xvi, 274 pp. 32 Frajzyngier, Zygmunt: Grammaticalization of the Complex Sentence. A case study in Chadic. 1996. xviii, 501 pp. 31 Wanner, Leo (ed.): Lexical Functions in Lexicography and Natural Language Processing. 1996. xx, 355 pp. 30 Huffman, Alan: The Categories of Grammar. French lui and le. 1997. xiv, 379 pp. 29 Engberg-Pedersen, Elisabeth, Michael Fortescue, Peter Harder, Lars Heltoft and Lisbeth Falster Jakobsen (eds.): Content, Expression and Structure. Studies in Danish functional grammar. 1996. xvi, 510 pp. 28 Herman, József (ed.): Linguistic Studies on Latin. Selected papers from the 6th International Colloquium on Latin Linguistics (Budapest, 23–27 March 1991). 1994. ix, 421 pp. 27 Abraham, Werner, T. Givón and Sandra A. Thompson (eds.): Discourse, Grammar and Typology. Papers in honor of John W.M. Verhaar. 1995. xx, 352 pp. 26 Lima, Susan D., Roberta L. Corrigan and Gregory K. Iverson: The Reality of Linguistic Rules. 1994. xxiii, 480 pp. 25 Goddard, Cliff and Anna Wierzbicka (eds.): Semantic and Lexical Universals. Theory and empirical findings. 1994. viii, 510 pp. 24 Bhat, D.N.S.: The Adjectival Category. Criteria for differentiation and identification. 1994. xii, 295 pp. 23 Comrie, Bernard and Maria Polinsky (eds.): Causatives and Transitivity. 1993. x, 399 pp. 22 McGregor, William B.: A Functional Grammar of Gooniyandi. 1990. xx, 618 pp. 21 Coleman, Robert (ed.): New Studies in Latin Linguistics. Proceedings of the 4th International Colloquium on Latin Linguistics, Cambridge, April 1987. 1990. x, 480 pp. 20 Verhaar, John W.M. S.J. (ed.): Melanesian Pidgin and Tok Pisin. Proceedings of the First International Conference on Pidgins and Creoles in Melanesia. 1990. xiv, 409 pp. 19 Blust, Robert A.: Austronesian Root Theory. An essay on the limits of morphology. 1988. xi, 190 pp. 18 Wierzbicka, Anna: The Semantics of Grammar. 1988. vii, 581 pp. 17 Calboli, Gualtiero (ed.): Subordination and Other Topics in Latin. Proceedings of the Third Colloquium on Latin Linguistics, Bologna, 1–5 April 1985. 1989. xxix, 691 pp. 16 Conte, Maria-Elisabeth, János Sánder Petöfi and Emel Sözer (eds.): Text and Discourse Connectedness. Proceedings of the Conference on Connexity and Coherence, Urbino, July 16–21, 1984. 1989. xxiv, 584 pp. 15 Justice, David: The Semantics of Form in Arabic. In the mirror of European languages. 1987. iv, 417 pp. 14 Benson, Morton, Evelyn Benson and Robert F. Ilson: Lexicographic Description of English. 1986. xiii, 275 pp. 13 Reesink, Ger P.: Structures and their Functions in Usan. 1987. xviii, 369 pp. 12 Pinkster, Harm (ed.): Latin Linguistics and Linguistic Theory. Proceedings of the 1st International Colloquium on Latin Linguistics, Amsterdam, April 1981. 1983. xviii, 307 pp. 11 Panhuis, Dirk G.J.: The Communicative Perspective in the Sentence. A study of Latin word order. 1982. viii, 172 pp.

10 Dressler, Wolfgang U., Willi Mayerthaler, Oswald Panagl and Wolfgang Ullrich Wurzel: Leitmotifs in Natural Morphology. 1988. ix, 168 pp. 9 Lang, Ewald and John Pheby: The Semantics of Coordination. (English transl. by John Pheby from the German orig. ed. 'Semantik der koordinativen Verknüpfung', Berlin, 1977). 1984. 300 pp. 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, 333 pp. 7 Parret, Herman, Marina Sbisà and Jef Verschueren (eds.): Possibilities and Limitations of Pragmatics. Proceedings of the Conference on Pragmatics, Urbino, July 8–14, 1979. 1981. x, 854 pp. 6 Vago, Robert M. (ed.): Issues in Vowel Harmony. Proceedings of the CUNY Linguistics Conference on Vowel Harmony, May 14, 1977. 1980. xx, 340 pp. 5 Haiman, John: Hua: A Papuan Language of the Eastern Highlands of New Guinea. 1980. iv, 550 pp. 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, 351 pp. 3 Malkiel, Yakov: From Particular to General Linguistics. Selected Essays 1965–1978. With an introduction by the author, an index rerum and an index nominum. 1983. xxii, 659 pp. 2 Anwar, Mohamed Sami: BE and Equational Sentences in Egyptian Colloquial Arabic. 1979. vi, 128 pp. 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, 729 pp. Expected Out of print