Summary Details
| Query: |
Motion verbs + Manner
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| Author: | Stathis Selimis | |
| Submitter Email: | click here to access email | |
| Linguistic LingField(s): |
General Linguistics
Morphology Syntax |
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| Summary: |
I recently posted two questions regarding the coding of motion events through verbs. I briefly summarize the most relevant responses below and also attach the most relevant comments. What criteria should we use in deciding what a motion verb is. Do all sorts of movement count, etc.? It all depends on what investigators look for and why they are interested in motion verbs. Some, like D. Slobin, are interested in how people talk about moving from one place to another, thus studying verbs of translocation. Deciding, however, whether a specific construction has translocational meaning or not depends upon contextual factors as is apparent in the difference between "he jumped over the fence" -- > translocation, vs. "he jumped up and down". This kind of verb polysemy (in Talmy's words (1985) ) can also be treated diffferently: J. Zlatev suggests taking as "potentially translocational" all Manner verbs that CAN lead to a change of location (both intransitive verbs such as "jump", "bounce", "ride", etc. and transitive ones such as "hit", "put", "push", etc. are included). The distinction now between intransitive and transitive verbs can reflect the distinction between verbs of self-motion and verbs of caused-motion, although these two pairs of categories do not always coincide, as K. Jobbagy suggests (e.g., "follow" is a transitive verb, however it expresses change of location of a moving object, which is the subject of the sentence). Some researchers (e.g., Slobin) also include in their interests verbs of conveyance ("bring", "take", "carry", etc.), because these verbs are at times translocational. Actually, these are verbs of a special type, because they conflate the self-movement of the "carrier" and the "caused-movement" of the thing "carried". On the other hand, Jobbagy seems to limit for her particular research purposes translocational verbs as follows in her dissertation (in preparation): "[...] Motion verbs are verbs that not only implicate but incorporate in their meaning the change of location of a moving object, and whose subject is identical with the moving object. From this follows that motion verbs must be durative". [Antonopoulou's Ph.D. thesis (1987) on Modern Greek Motion Verbs from the angle of Prototype Theory includes verbs denoting change of location as well as verbs denoting change of posture, both causative and noncausative ones, while Bassea-Bezantakou's Ph.D. thesis (1992) on Modern Greek Motion Verbs limits the scope of the semantic field in question to those verbs denoting movement of the whole Figure (i.e., translocation) which is self-initiated (i.e. the Figure is an animate entity).] How can Manner be defined, so as we might have clear criteria on whether verbs code Manner or Path? In fact researchers treat verbs like "fall" as lexicalizing Manner in some studies and Path in other studies. Manner-of-motion is seen as a multidimentional domain, so one has to decide what s/he is interested in. Motor pattern (e.g., "crawl"), rate (e.g., "hurry") and attitude (e.g., "stroll") are considered to be indicative of Manner (Slobin). As J. Zlatev reminds us, Manner corresponds to one of Talmy's (2000) Co-events, which accompanies a main event. This can be shown by analyzing a compound event such as "He glided down" into two sub-events "(a) He moved downward (b) in a gliding manner", the second one denoting how the movement (rather, change of location) is performed. However, Manner, in the broad sense, can also encompass Speed, Vehicle, Means, etc. (Zlatev). [At this point, I remind of Antonopoulou's dissertation (1987), where Manner 'is used in a fairly broad sense and is meant to cover three different areas: a central one involving various types of (typically) human motion on ground, e.g. "trexo" (run), "perpatao" (walk), a much wider area involving different ways of moving in water or air, e.g. "kolibao" (swim), "petao" (fly), and a most restricted one involving distinctions at a low level of inclusiveness as exemplified by hyponyms of verbs belonging to the central area, e.g. "vimatizo" (pace), "dhraskelizo" (stride)' (pp. 237-238). Antonopoulou also writes (p. 242) that '"medium", "instrumentality" and "impetus" are regarded as being most closely related to "manner" in the sense that their interaction results in various types of locomotion", and she adds that a lot of "Manner" distinctions depend on "type of object" moving (e.g., "stazo" (drip)), "speed" (e.g., "arghokilao" (flow slowly)), "length of distance covered" (e.g., "porevome" (walk a long distance)), and combinations of "speed and length" (e.g., "vradhiporo" (walk a long distance slowly)). Bassea-Bezantakou (1992), in defining Manner, takes into account factors such as type of movement perceived, instrument (e.g., fly), spatial (e.g., what the ground consists of) and temporal (e.g., speed) specifications, (marginally) intentionality, and the psychological, physical and social conditions of the Agent.] As far as the specific question on "fall" is concerned, it tends to be treated as a Path verb (as it simply means to move downward without self-control according to Slobin, among others), but even Slobin notes that considering it as a possible Manner verb does not seem so far-fetched. According to H. Harley as well, "fall" encodes just Path, while "Manner crucially involves some element of meaning that remains constant throughout the event; an element that is not, in Vendlerian terms, evolving towards a culmination point, but is just 'accompanying' the event over its duration. The problem with 'fall' is that for sufficiently unbounded falling (e.g., the weightlessness of astronauts in orbit), there is no culmination point, at which point it might be a Manner verb". Zlatev on the other hand solves the problem by considering 'fall' (and 'sink' as well) an in-between case which conflates an element of Manner (in the broad sense) with Path. He believes that such verbs place constraints on Path and thus encode Manner in this general sense. . Note: I am grateful to the following contributors for their inspiring ideas. Alexis Dimitriadis, alexis.dimitriadis@let.uu.nl Anetta Kopecka, Anetta.Kopecka@etienne.univ-lyon2.fr Dan I. Slobin, slobin@socrates.Berkeley.EDU Daniel Loehr, loehr@mitre.org Andrea Schalley, andrea@cis.uni-muenchen.de Heidi Harley, hharley@dakotacom.net Jess Tauber, zylogy@aol.com Jordan Zlatev, jordan.zlatev@ling.lu.se Katalin JobbE1gy, kjobbagy@freemail.hu Paul Chilton, P.A.Chilton@uea.ac.uk Robinson Ed, robinsoe@clarke.k12.ga.us & Nancy Felson, nfelson@arches.uga.edu Teenie Matlock, tmatlock@psych.stanford.edu William L. Jarrold, billj@cs.utexas.edu St. Selimis Main points from some of the responses received: From: Jess Tauber, zylogy@aol.com His approach is based on ideophones and expressives: "These were not covered by Talmy in his own work, yet they are likely of singular importance in any historical work dealing with manner vs. path evolution. Some languages have many, many thousands of these items- Japanese, Korean, many Mon-Khmer, almost all Bantu and related Niger-Congo, etc. Others show definite traces of relatively recent mass lexicalization of these, leaving a much reduced set of free forms- Mongolian, Turkic, Uralic, Tungusic. Later even fewer free forms exist, but many more lexicalized ones- European IE, Austronesian, Tai-Kadai, etc. There seems to be a general trend towards higher ranking insertion priveleges as one proceeds along this continuum- both within the lexicon proper and higher up- the more grammatical affixation, the fewer free ideophones. Eskimo, N WCaucasian, and other extensively polysynthetic languages have almost none at all. As mentioned earlier, such items gener ally encode manner of activity. Generally free ideophones have a semi-punctual type of aktionsart, so pathway is never extensive. Only when reduplicated does path semantics become more obvious, and that is by addition (for example, arcs to multiple circles) . Ideophones also tend to be organized paradigmatically, in that similar forms encode similar notions in regular and predictable ways. Interestingly, pure pathway terms tend to have an opposite developmental implicational hierarchy, so that their greatest expansion ( into large-scale paradigms) is in just those polysynthetic languages that have the fewest ideophones. Anyway, most languages are in between in terms of their lexical and syntactic organization. Some show, like IE, both manner and pathway elements fused to the verb st em- but the focus can clearly be shifted, as is the case between Romance and Germanic, for instance. Interestingly here as well, one can actually see the proportionality of onomatopoeic free or bound, lexicalized forms shift in synch. [...]" From: Teenie Matlock tmatlock@psych.stanford.edu Suggested reading: Miller, G.A. (1972). English verbs of motion: A case study in semantics and lexical memory. In A.W. Melton & E. Martin (Eds.), Coding processes in human memory (pp. 335-372). New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons. Miller, G. A., & Johnson-Laird, P.N. (1976). Language and perception. Cam bridge, MA: Harvard University Press. From: Anetta Kopecka Anetta.Kopecka@etienne.univ-lyon2.fr It seems to me that in Talmy`s work there is not ambuguity that "put" expresses motion. I think that he considers "put" as a positional motion verb that conflates "cause" component but not manner. If I understood his interpretation "put" encodes a translational motion excerced and controlled by an agent untill the end-point of the event. It`s a goal-oriented motion verb. "take" and "bring" are more deictic. [...] It seems to me that manner can be paraphrased, for example: I run to school 3D I went to school running. From: William L. Jarrold, billj@cs.utexas.edu In the Cyc ontology, they have encoded all of the sorts of distinctions you are talking about. [...] We have an overall broad concept called #$MovementEvent which would include rotation, translation and movement of a part (e.g. a facial movement), causing other objects to move (e.g. putting). And then there are distinctions for each of the above specializations of movment (e.g. there are separate conceptual nodes for rotation, translation, movement of a part, etc.) and there are many more finer gradations. There are natural language hookups to these conceptual nodes. You might look up Beth Levine's book on verb classes. She probably has something to say on the matter. From: Dan I. Slobin, slobin@socrates.Berkeley.EDU There is no "right" answer to your questions. It all depends what you're looking for, and why you're interested in motion verbs. In my work I'm interested in how people talk about moving from one place to another, so I study verbs of translocation, and in constructions that have translocational meaning (e.g., "he jumped over the fence" but not "he jumped up and down"; "he ran to school" but not "he ran around in the yard"). In many languages these two types are distinguished in the grammar--as in the choice of 'be' (translocational) vs. 'have' (activity) as auxiliary. I also distinguish between verbs of self-motiion (intransitive) and verbs of cause d-motion (transitive)--because these have different argument structures, and because languages often have different set of verbs for the two sorts. I include verbs of conveyance ('bring', 'take', 'carry') in my analyses, because these verbs are translocational; but I also treat them as a special type, because they conflate the self-movement of the 'carrier' and the caused-movement of the thing'carried'. As for manner-of-motion, this is a multidimensional domain, and, again, you have to decide what you're interested in. In my work, I attend to the full range of verbs that encode motor pattern (e.g., 'crawl', 'walk', 'run'), rate (e.g., 'hurry', 'dash'), and attitude (e.g., 'stroll', 'amble', 'saunter'). I debated a long time about 'fall', but finally decided that it is a pure change-of-location verb, because there is no particular mot or pattern, rate, or attitude involved. 'Fall' simply means to move downward without self-control. But I can see why one might also want to consider 'fall' a manner-of-motion verb." From: Jordan Zlatev, Jordan.Zlatev@ling.lu.se I agree with you that there is much less constisteny than we would wish in semantic treatments of Motion. One of the influential studies, Talmy (1985)'s "Lexicalization patterns", left both questions you raise essentially unresolved. But I am pleased to see that the revised version in Talmy (2000) is rather clearer. In relation to your questions, the position seems to be:1) A Motion event (capital M) is a "situation containing motion and the continuation of a stationary location" (25), but this VERY general category can be devided into "translational" ("an object's basic location shifts from one point to another in space" and "self-contained motion" - "an object keeps its same basic, or "average" location" (35). The problem with deciding about particular verbs is that Motion (in both the general and translational sense) and what is now called the "Co-Event" (that can involve Cause, Manner, Enablement etc) are regularly "conflated". So your examples "bring", "take" and "put" express Motion + Cause (possibly also Deixis for the first two). The problem is that many "manner verbs" like "float" and "kick" can appear in both a translational motion and in a locational context: "Hi kicked the ball/the wall". Talmy tries to explain this with polysemy - there are 2 different senses, where the first is translational, the second locational. But this is clearly problematic, and even Talmy adds that a constructional approach a la Goldberg (1995) may be prefered. My approach is to treat as "potentially translocational" all manner verbs that CAN lead to a change in location: intransitive like "jump", "bounce", "ride", "roll" and transitive like "hit", "put", "blow", "push". In working with a corpus, the decision on whether translational motion is involved will have to be worked out from the context. In the case of the "path verbs" in Romance etc. the situation is clearer since they are per defnition translocational (I prefer this term than "translational"). 2) "Manner" too can be defined more generally to mean something like Talmy's "Co-event" - and then can be subcategoried with respect to the various "relations" that the "co-event" stands to with respect to the (main) translocational event, where "manner" in a narrow sense is but one: "He glided down" 3D "He moved downward in a gliding manner"Other types of "Manner" in the broad sense involve Spead, Vehicle, Means etc. My main reservation with respect to Talmy is the apriorisic decision to call translocation, or more generally "the core schema" for the "main/framing event" and all other type of information "the co-event". I can not see the basis for such a generalization accord the board, but only in say, the Romance languages. As far as verbs like "fall", "sink" etc. verbs are concerned, I think they take an intermediary position between the "pure" manner verbs (that could be locational in some contects at least - "He walked for hours on the treadmill") and the path verbs like "enter" and "exit". I think they conflate an element of Manner (in the broad sense) and of Path too. My criterion is that they place constraints on Path, so that e.g. *"I fell upwards" is wierd. So in my work I code them seperately, calling them Manner+Path (MP) verbs. Interestingly they also take a seperate structural position in the language I work with, Thai. From: Daniel Loehr, loehr@mitre.org Check out: http://www.cogsci.princeton.edu/~wn/ (WordNet) From: Andrea Schalley, andrea@cis.uni-muenchen.de 1) I guess this depends on the reference you assume. That is, with regard to the body, the hand is moving while putting things. With regard to the background in front of which the body as a trajector exists, it probably doesn't (or maybe the hand does, but the slight facial movement doesn't). So it seems to be a fuzzy distinction. Nevertheless, my intuition tells me that for a verb to be a motion verb there has to be a movement of the whole body involved. This movement can be along a path (run) or at a location (jump). So I wouldn't include `to put something' into the class of motion verbs as long as only a movement of an arm or a hand is necessary. [...] Here I agree for bring and for the reading of take which includes a movement to the place of reference (i.e., the place the thing or person has to be taken to, as in taking something to the kitchen (while in the living room)). If I stand in front of a table and take a book from the table, I would not consider take to be a motion verb. 2). [...] concerning your example [fall] I would prefer the Manner reading (just intuitively - maybe because a Path analysis is not distinctive enough, as flow, run, fall, jump, etc. would all entail Path otherwise). From: Heidi Harley, hharley@dakotacom.net 1). I have always understood motion verbs to be those verbs that involve motion or change of position of the body as a whole. "sit" and "stand", in the active senses, then, would be motion verbs, "sit" and "stand" in the stative sense ("The lamp stands in the corner"), verbs describing facial movements and placing things with the hands (without moving the whole body) would not be. "Bring" and "take", insofar as they imply movement of the bearer along with the Theme, are motion verbs. (Pinker has some interesting remarks in his 1989 book on the availability of the double-object construction in English with such verbs -- although I think 'bring' and 'take' are counterexamples to his claim, which is that if the bearer has to go along with the Theme, it's not dative-shiftable: "I threw Mary the ball" but "??I schlepped Mary the box". 2). I would think "fall" encodes Path, not manner. Manner, I think, crucially involves some element of meaning that remains constant throughout the event; an element that is not, in Vendlerian terms, evolving towards a culmination point, but is just 'accompanying' the event over its duration . The problem with 'fall', I suppose, is that for sufficiently unbounded falling (e.g. the weightlessness of astronauts in orbit), there is no culmination point, at which point I suppose it might be a manner verb. |
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| LL Issue: | 13.899 | |
| Date Posted: | 01-Apr-2002 | |
| Original Query: | Read original query | |
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