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The Semantics of Dynamic Space in French: Descriptive, experimental and formal studies on motion expression
Edited by Michel Aurnague and Dejan Stosic
[Human Cognitive Processing 66] 2019
► pp. 218–246

Fictive motion in French

Where do the data lead?

| CLLE-ERSS, Université de Toulouse, CNRS & UT2J, France

This chapter reports the results of a corpus study on fictive motion (the use of motion verbs to describe motionless scenes) in French, carried out to investigate some proposals made by Langacker, Matlock, Matsumoto, and Talmy regarding this topic. The 589 attested utterances collected show that fictive motion involves more verbs and entities than is generally assumed. The suggested explanations draw on Aurnague’s semantic analysis of motion verbs and Vandeloise’s account of the meaning of spatial markers in terms of force dynamics and functional properties. The phenomenon is also analyzed in its discursive context, with a presentation of some properties of the “discourse mode” in which fictive motion expressions appear.

Keywords: corpus study, discourse mode, motion verbs
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Theoretical framework and constitution of the corpus
    • 2.1Definition
    • 2.2Semantics of motion verbs
    • 2.3The corpus
  • 3.Fictive motion at the sentential level
  • 3.1The manner condition
  • 3.2Duration and speed
  • 3.3Instrumentality
  • 3.4Properties of the path
  • 3.5The exception of migration paths
  • 4.Fictive motion in discourse
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 29 July 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/hcp.66.06cap
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Aurnague, Michel & Fabien Cappelli
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