From “Motion Events” to(wards) a Semantics of Relocation

First Conference of the Swedish Association for Language and CognitionLund, November 29th – December 1st, 2007

Viktor Smithvs.first@cbs.dk

Copenhagen Business SchoolCenter of Language, Cognition and Mentality

Conceptualization, lexicalization, and verbalization of motion in terms of “moving, or being moved, from Loc1 to Loc2”

Suggested terms:

Smith (2003: 71ff; 2005)

Primary focus:

Relocation Relocation Verbs

Motion Event Research…in the Talmy-Slobin tradition

Yet: Generally accepted terms and definitions still lack in mainstream motion event research

Example:

Danish

hunden gik ind (ud etc…)

fisken svømmede ind (ud etc…)

fuglen fløj ind (ud etc…)

bilen kørte ind (ud etc…)

skibet sejlede ind (ud etc…)

French

le chien

le poisson

l’oiseau

la voiture

le navire

est entré (sorti(e))

Some standard assumptions

The cognitive variables involved appear to be universal

The linguistic means available for communicating their products display profound and systematic crosslinguistic differences

Manner or: S(atellite-framed) languagese.g. Danish, Swedish, English, German, Russian, Chinese

Path or: V(erb-framed) languages e.g. French, Italian, Spanish, Modern Greek,Turkish, Japanese

Talmy (1985, 1991, 2000); Slobin (1996a/b, 2004a/b);Mora Gutiérrez (2001); Berthele (2004).

versus

Growth points for continued research

• Refining and differentiating the typological description of particular languages

• Assessing the impact of typological differences on crosslinguistic communication and translation

• The language worldview & “thinking for speaking” dimensions

The key typology

• Providing a firmer basis for distinguishing between

(a) motion in general

(b) going from Loc1 to Loc2 relocation

Aliases: motion events, translocation, displacement; directed motion, change of location, etc. …yet the terminology remains tentative and vague

Improving the theoretical tools and metalanguagefor capturing the semantic variables of interest by:

• Specifying the intuitively attractive but vaguely specified “primitives” known as Path and Manner

Aims of this presentation

further clarifying the impact of pre-linguistic visual cognition

as extended by…

The analysis of the “cognitive anatomy” of motion events offered by Talmy (2000: 51ff)

…the principles of situation and verb classification suggested by Durst-Andersen offering an additional differentiation of the cognitive variables involved (1992; 2000; 2002)

while…

specifically addressing the variables of

(a) simple motion vs. Loc1 Loc2

(b) Path and Manner

Attempted synthesis

But: The relevant processing may be performed on two distinct cognitive levels. See Blaser & Sperling (in press) for a polemic but highly illustrative discussion

….and possibly in different parts of the human brain Dodge & Lakoff (2005)

The semantic modeling must incorporate insights on pre-linguistic visual cognition

Figure/ground segmentation is a key variable in humans’ conceptualization of the real-world situations of interest

See e.g. Palmer (1999: 281f) for a general overview

“Delay-and-compare” processingis basic to any form of motion detectionSee Borst (2000) for a condensed introduction

Basic assumptions and prerequisites

Figure Ground Path Motion (in terms of either Motion or Locatedness (i.e. non-motion))

Pre-view of suggested adjustments:

I. (Main) Motion Event

II. Co-event definable in terms of Manner or Cause

Inserting an additional level of analysis:

2 types of simple situations definable in terms of Figure, Ground, and “simple” Motion or Locatedness only I and II above

Additional level: 1 complex situation given by observed or expected interdependencies between the simple ones

Path and Relocation are variables on this level only

Talmyan basics (2000:25f)

states: stable figure on stable ground 

state verbs (lie, stand, resemble, etc.)

activities: unstable figure on stable ground or vice versa 

activity verbs (dance, wave, shiver, carry, flow, etc.)

actions: mental constructs linking together a certain activity (in that case conceived as a process) and a certain state (in that case conceived as an event)

action verbs (put, arrive, kill, show, etc.)

In continuation of Durst-Andersen (1992, 2000, 2002); Durst-Andersen & Herslund (1996)

Conceptualization and lexicalization of real-world situations

A cross-linguistic ontology and verb classification

Actions in which the change of state is definable in terms of spatial relationships (location) alone

Relocation processes and events

(Alternative categories Possession-based, Experience-based, and Qualification-based action verbs)

As rendered linguistically by:

Location-based action verbs

or in short: Relocation verbs

The meta-language of relocation

an activity, presenting it as a process:

She is just putting the cake on the table

In actual communication, action verbs will be referring to either:

a (change of) state, presenting it as an event:

Who put that cake on my table?

or

NB! The semantics of simplex action verbs leaves the process underdetermined (“whatever it takes”), while specifying the event only

Applying action verbs to real-world situations

The semantics of putting

Ground-propositions

Y IS ON Z (Loc2)IMPLICATIONX DO SOMETHING

Y IS WITH X (Loc1)

TELICITYGround-situations

to put

logically entails

“Time and space provide contrasting perspectives on events. A temporal perspective highlights the sequence of transition, the dynamic changes from segment to segment, things in motion. A spatial perspective highlights the sequence of states, the static spatial configuration, things caught still. Capturing the temporal and spatial at once seems elusive; like waves and particles, the dynamic and the static appear to complement each other.”

Zacks & Tversky (2001: 19, my italics)

The present approach is an attempt to embrace

“wawes” and “particles” within the same model

A related point made on pre-linguistic visual cognition

• Activity oriented (whether or not the activity is presented as part of an action, i.e. as a process)

• Specify certain properties of either the figure, the ground and/or the interrelations between them

• For transitive verbs: The Agent’s interaction with the figure and/or ground, given these properties, can also be part of the semantics

Specifying the Path/Manner distinction

Path verbs are:• (Change of) State oriented

• Specify certain properties of either the initial location, Loc1, the consequent

location, Loc2, and/or the interrelation

between them

• (the figure being a variable only in terms of its presence/absence on these locations, i.e. grounds).

Manner verbs are:

Applying the framework

Focus of the SugarTexts Project at CBS revolving around a multilingual corpus of authentic step-by-step descriptions of the processing of sugar beets into refined white sugar in a sugar factory, as found in textbooks, technical research reports, information folders, encyclopedias, sales material, on websites, etc.

That is:

Spontaneous verbalizations of uniform extralinguistic scenarios containing a wide variety of relocation processes and events in terms of both Path and Manner of motion

See Smith (in press) for an updated review…

Example for illustration: What goes on in a beet sugar factory?

But how is it conceptualized and verbalized?

What we see...

The perceived extra-linguistic reality

soilsoil

crude juicecrude juice thin juicethin juicecosettescosettesbeetsbeets

WASHING

pulppulp filter cakefilter cake

SLICING DIFFUSION

PURIFICATION

thick juicethick juicemassecuitemassecuite

steamsteam

steamsteammolassesmolasses

CRYSTALLIZATIONCENTRIFUGATION

EVAPORATION

sugar crystalssugar crystals

The SugarWorld Ontology

Actions involving a change of location in terms of presence or absence of a Figure on a particular Ground (Location)

Activities involving unstable Figure-Ground relationships on one and the same Ground (Location)

may be further specified linguistically in terms of Loc1 Loc2

Path verbs (simple or complex)

arrive, enter, etc.

may be further specified linguistically in terms of Figure Ground interaction and compatibility (+ impact of Agent, for transitive verbs) Manner verbs

roll, soak, throw, etc.

The Ontology content

PATH

aller ‘go’

entrer ‘enter’

venir ‘come’

sortir ‘exit’

Typical Path language – French Typical Manner language – Danish

simple activity verbs

MANNER

marcher ‘walk’

courir ‘run’

flâner ‘stroll’

ramper ‘crawl’

simple action verbs= relocation verbs

simple activity verbs

complex (phrasal) action verbs = relocation verbs with obligatory Manner component

MANNER

gå ‘walk’

løbe ‘run’

spadsere ’stroll’

kravle ’crawl’

PATH

ind ‘in

ud ‘out’

op ’up’

ned ’down’

Pinpointing the standard typology

Continuing Herslund’s exemplification (1998:8-9)

And hence “distributed semantics” in the sense of Sinha & Kuteva (1995) Why is “Satellite № 1” is different?

… as stressed but not fully explained by Talmy (2000:106 f.)

Examples: English: She ran out of the kitchen up to the

bedroom... etc. (infinitiveinfinitive: run out)

The first satellite/prefix “does the trick” = shifts the semantics fromactivity to action and hence relocation. word-forming function, revealed by prefix vs. free particle status in e.g. German and Russian

German: infinitivinfinitive: herauslaufen finite finite formform: ...lief ...heraus Russian: infinitive:infinitive: выбежать … finite form:finite form: выбежала

The borderland between lexicon and syntax in S-languages

Actions, satellites, and verb aspect

In Russian,, the prefix is both a Path and an Aspect marker… and only action verbs form aspect pairs

For details, see e.g. Durst-Andersen (1992)

Examples: Насос качал медленно но надежно ’The pump pumped slowly but reliably’

Насос перекачал воду в бак ’The pump pumped (over) the water into the tank’

Насос перекачивал воду в бак ’The pump was pumping (over) the water into the tank’

This can hardly be coincidental or irrelevant to understanding the mechanisms in play in other satellite-framed languages!

Extending the verb (and situation) classification beyond “pure” relocation

Relocation + Position on Loc1 or Loc2 Positioning verbs

Examples:

Relocation + Qualification

English: Put the bottle on the tablePut the book on the table

versus

Danish: Stille flasken på bordetLægge bogen på boret

English: deliver, steal, etc. (+ similar verbs in other languages)

To sum up:o Simple motion (activities) and relocation (actions)

rely on fundamentally different cognitive representations conflated and combined differently in different languages, but should not be confused

o Manner is a property of activities (though it may also be conflated as a

processes-specifying element in complex (phrasal) action verbs in S-languages)

o Path is a property of actions and hence Relocation “par excellence”

So much for the descriptive toolsWhere they might prove their worth is in providing a more stringent metalanguage for future investigations into the typological, communicative, and cognitive dimensions outlined initially… The SugarTexts being one context for doing so.

Thank you for your attention

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