Article published In:
Annual Review of Cognitive Linguistics: Volume 7Edited by Francisco José Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez
[Annual Review of Cognitive Linguistics 7] 2009
► pp. 30–57
Edited by Francisco José Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez
[Annual Review of Cognitive Linguistics 7] 2009
► pp. 30–57
English posture verbs
An experientially grounded approach
This paper considers a number of linguistic properties of English SIT, STAND, and LIE which are argued to be the cardinal posture verbs of English. The distinctiveness of just these three posture verbs is evidenced by their relatively high frequency within the class of posture verbs in English and matched by grammaticalization facts in other languages. The paper considers the difficulty of differentiating action and state senses of these verbs and explores the use of posture verbs with inanimate subjects. It is argued that human experiential realities of posture motivate a number of these facts.
Cited by (5)
Cited by five other publications
Newman, John
2022. Experiential motivation and the linguistics of sitting, standing, and lying. WIREs Cognitive Science 13:4 
Coussé, Evie, Peter Andersson & Joel Olofsson
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Lesuisse, Mégane & Maarten Lemmens
2018. Grammaticalisation cut short. In Grammaticalization meets Construction Grammar [Constructional Approaches to Language, 21], ► pp. 43 ff.
Wiliński, Jarosław
2017. On the Brink of-Noun vs. On the Verge of-Noun: a Distinctive-Collexeme Analysis. Research in Language 15:4 ► pp. 425 ff.
Lemmens, Maarten
2014. Un cas de grammaticalisation ratée ? Étude diachronique de l’emploi du verbe stand en anglais. Anglophonia :18
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