Focusing on the Kathmandu Newar language, which is spoken in the metropolitan area of Nepal (Kathmandu valley), this chapter discusses the coding patterns of Deixis, which have been relatively understudied. The chapter has two principal aims. The first is to describe how Deixis and Path are expressed in self-motion and various subtypes of caused motion events in Kathmandu Newar. The second is to discuss the implications of this analysis for the typology of motion expressions. I argue that the pervasiveness of Deixis and its distinct coding pattern in Kathmandu Newar permits us to distinguish between Deixis and Path.
This chapter aims to examine how deictic notions (Deixis) are expressed in Hungarian motion event descriptions. Hungarian is one of the languages in which Path is expressed in satellites and other “head-external elements” (Matsumoto 2017) (i.e. elements outside the main verb root). However, this does not apply to Deixis, although it is often regarded as a component of Path (Talmy 2000). Deixis in Hungarian is expressed in interesting ways, differently from Talmy’s non-deictic Path notions (e.g. UP, INTO). It can be expressed in the main verb root, where Manner can also be expressed, or outside the main verb root, where Path can be expressed. In addition, different deictic elements can co-occur, and a (seemingly) identical notion can be specified in more than one slot in the same clause. The present chapter discusses the kinds of constraints that are placed on the use of each type of deictic expression, and investigates the circumstances under which expressions are chosen for use in descriptions of self-motion, caused motion, and the fictive motion of vision.
This chapter proposes a classification of path encoding in motion events in German. It expands the framework that I developed for analyzing motion events in a narrow sense (Meex 2004) to motion events from a broader perspective including deictic, causative, and fictive motion. The chapter aims to deepen our understanding of how the conceptual components at the core of German motion event descriptions, viz. motion, direction, source-path-goal, manner, and cause, correlate and interact with the conceptual categories of deixis, aspect, and case. The analysis reveals seven path coding types, viz. source, intended goal, path of incomplete traversal, path of complete traversal, boundary traversing path, achieved goal, and trajective, depending on the aspectual framing (i.e. summativity, plexity, boundedness, mutativity) of the motion event. Systematic patterns of co-occurrence of these aspectual elements in the motion scene are described and their combination with specific lexical (e.g. deictic expressions) and morphosyntactic (e.g. inflectional case marking on the noun) categories are examined to support the analysis. It will also be shown that apart from a few exceptions, self-motion, caused motion, and fictive motion are compatible with all seven path coding types discussed, showing that German uses event-type neutral path expressions.
Thai expressions for a single motion event usually take the form of a single clause that is typically composed of serial verb phrases encoding sub-events (semantic components) of the motion event. The present chapter aims to show that the syntactic and semantic structures of such expressions can be adequately formulated based on the ‘force-dynamic’ structures (cf. Talmy 1988, 2000a) of motion events and ‘aspectual’ types (cf. Vendler 1967) of motion verbs. The event structures and verb types that are relevant to the syntactic patterns of the expressions reflect Thai speakers’ conventional construals for expressing motion events in the Thai language.
This chapter delves into the typological discussion of “manner salience” (Slobin 2004, 2006) by means of a fine-grained examination of different kinds of manner expressions. Our two speech elicitation experiments revealed that English speakers are clearly more manner salient than Japanese in the use of the “default” general manner expression (i.e. walk) in describing human walking motion. On the other hand, Japanese speakers use mimetic adverbs which significantly contribute to the expressive power of manner expressions, especially in describing the sounds that moving entities make. These results indicate that manner salience is a complex phenomenon that involves multiple parameters in the form and meaning of manner expressions, rather than a mere epiphenomenon of the typology based on path coding positions.
This chapter explores construction types and the frequency of the use of optional syntactic elements in French motion descriptions. In Talmy’s typology on Satellite- vs. Verb-framed languages, French is characterized as using the construction type of verb-framed languages for motion events, and according to his principles on the correlation between the fore- and backgroundedness of semantic components of motion and the cognitive cost of expressing them, manner and other concepts are expected to occur less frequently in foregrounded positions outside of the main verb than in backgrounded position in the main verb. This chapter shows, through an experimental method, that facts in French are more complex, and that the attraction of attention in perceived motion events has an impact on the choice of construction types and motivates manner and deixis to be expressed more frequently in optional syntactic elements under certain circumstances than Talmy’s principles would predict.
This chapter addresses the question of whether or not Talmy’s (1985, 1991, 2000b) motion typology should be expanded to visual motion (Matsumoto 2001, 2017; Slobin 2009; Cifuentes-Férez 2014), by examining how Sidaama (Cushitic; Ethiopia) expresses (i) self-agentive/non-agentive motion, (ii) agentive motion, and (iii) fictive motion along a visual emanation path. It shows that although this language closely follows the verb-framed pattern in expressing (i) and (ii), it does not do so in expressing (iii), as in many other verb-framed languages. A possible reason for this is that (iii) is not conceptualized as a macro-event, whereas Talmy’s typology is built on expression patterns of macro-events. This study also observes that there are other types of events to which Talmy’s typology does not apply, presumably for the same reason: they are not really macro-events.
This study investigates visual motion expressions in Dutch, English, and French. As a translation corpus, I use Roald Dahl’s children’s book The Witches, which abounds in staring and peeping events, and its Dutch and French translations. Based on the hypothesis that languages’ constructional repertoires for physical motion are exploited for visual motion, one can predict, correctly, that Dutch uses its syntactically wide variety of path complement types in the domain of visual motion. It is tempting to assume that French, lacking looking verbs expressing path, would lose its generally verb-framed nature in visual motion descriptions. However, French appears to preserve some of its typological identity, by using causative path verbs such as lever ‘raise’ combined with an object meaning ‘one’s eyes/gaze’. In keeping with its verb-framed nature, French uses fewer visual path complements than Dutch and English, but it does have, and frequently uses, manner-of-vision expressions.
The purpose of this chapter is to present a new typology of path coding used in motion event descriptions in various languages. The crucial starting point for the new typology is how Path is expressed across different constructional types of motion event representations. The constructional types considered are Self-motion, Caused motion, and Emanation. The study suggests that path-coding devices can be divided into two major kinds: one kind with broad distributional potential across different constructional types of representations, and the other specialized for a particular constructional type of representation. Languages tend to have preferences toward adopting which kind of path-coding device is predominantly used. Languages that utilize the former can be called neutral path-coding languages, and those utilizing the latter, specialized path-coding languages. Path and Deixis coding in several languages are examined in these terms. Some patterns of intralinguistic and interlinguistic variations are also discussed.
Focusing on the Kathmandu Newar language, which is spoken in the metropolitan area of Nepal (Kathmandu valley), this chapter discusses the coding patterns of Deixis, which have been relatively understudied. The chapter has two principal aims. The first is to describe how Deixis and Path are expressed in self-motion and various subtypes of caused motion events in Kathmandu Newar. The second is to discuss the implications of this analysis for the typology of motion expressions. I argue that the pervasiveness of Deixis and its distinct coding pattern in Kathmandu Newar permits us to distinguish between Deixis and Path.
This chapter aims to examine how deictic notions (Deixis) are expressed in Hungarian motion event descriptions. Hungarian is one of the languages in which Path is expressed in satellites and other “head-external elements” (Matsumoto 2017) (i.e. elements outside the main verb root). However, this does not apply to Deixis, although it is often regarded as a component of Path (Talmy 2000). Deixis in Hungarian is expressed in interesting ways, differently from Talmy’s non-deictic Path notions (e.g. UP, INTO). It can be expressed in the main verb root, where Manner can also be expressed, or outside the main verb root, where Path can be expressed. In addition, different deictic elements can co-occur, and a (seemingly) identical notion can be specified in more than one slot in the same clause. The present chapter discusses the kinds of constraints that are placed on the use of each type of deictic expression, and investigates the circumstances under which expressions are chosen for use in descriptions of self-motion, caused motion, and the fictive motion of vision.
This chapter proposes a classification of path encoding in motion events in German. It expands the framework that I developed for analyzing motion events in a narrow sense (Meex 2004) to motion events from a broader perspective including deictic, causative, and fictive motion. The chapter aims to deepen our understanding of how the conceptual components at the core of German motion event descriptions, viz. motion, direction, source-path-goal, manner, and cause, correlate and interact with the conceptual categories of deixis, aspect, and case. The analysis reveals seven path coding types, viz. source, intended goal, path of incomplete traversal, path of complete traversal, boundary traversing path, achieved goal, and trajective, depending on the aspectual framing (i.e. summativity, plexity, boundedness, mutativity) of the motion event. Systematic patterns of co-occurrence of these aspectual elements in the motion scene are described and their combination with specific lexical (e.g. deictic expressions) and morphosyntactic (e.g. inflectional case marking on the noun) categories are examined to support the analysis. It will also be shown that apart from a few exceptions, self-motion, caused motion, and fictive motion are compatible with all seven path coding types discussed, showing that German uses event-type neutral path expressions.
Thai expressions for a single motion event usually take the form of a single clause that is typically composed of serial verb phrases encoding sub-events (semantic components) of the motion event. The present chapter aims to show that the syntactic and semantic structures of such expressions can be adequately formulated based on the ‘force-dynamic’ structures (cf. Talmy 1988, 2000a) of motion events and ‘aspectual’ types (cf. Vendler 1967) of motion verbs. The event structures and verb types that are relevant to the syntactic patterns of the expressions reflect Thai speakers’ conventional construals for expressing motion events in the Thai language.
This chapter delves into the typological discussion of “manner salience” (Slobin 2004, 2006) by means of a fine-grained examination of different kinds of manner expressions. Our two speech elicitation experiments revealed that English speakers are clearly more manner salient than Japanese in the use of the “default” general manner expression (i.e. walk) in describing human walking motion. On the other hand, Japanese speakers use mimetic adverbs which significantly contribute to the expressive power of manner expressions, especially in describing the sounds that moving entities make. These results indicate that manner salience is a complex phenomenon that involves multiple parameters in the form and meaning of manner expressions, rather than a mere epiphenomenon of the typology based on path coding positions.
This chapter explores construction types and the frequency of the use of optional syntactic elements in French motion descriptions. In Talmy’s typology on Satellite- vs. Verb-framed languages, French is characterized as using the construction type of verb-framed languages for motion events, and according to his principles on the correlation between the fore- and backgroundedness of semantic components of motion and the cognitive cost of expressing them, manner and other concepts are expected to occur less frequently in foregrounded positions outside of the main verb than in backgrounded position in the main verb. This chapter shows, through an experimental method, that facts in French are more complex, and that the attraction of attention in perceived motion events has an impact on the choice of construction types and motivates manner and deixis to be expressed more frequently in optional syntactic elements under certain circumstances than Talmy’s principles would predict.
This chapter addresses the question of whether or not Talmy’s (1985, 1991, 2000b) motion typology should be expanded to visual motion (Matsumoto 2001, 2017; Slobin 2009; Cifuentes-Férez 2014), by examining how Sidaama (Cushitic; Ethiopia) expresses (i) self-agentive/non-agentive motion, (ii) agentive motion, and (iii) fictive motion along a visual emanation path. It shows that although this language closely follows the verb-framed pattern in expressing (i) and (ii), it does not do so in expressing (iii), as in many other verb-framed languages. A possible reason for this is that (iii) is not conceptualized as a macro-event, whereas Talmy’s typology is built on expression patterns of macro-events. This study also observes that there are other types of events to which Talmy’s typology does not apply, presumably for the same reason: they are not really macro-events.
This study investigates visual motion expressions in Dutch, English, and French. As a translation corpus, I use Roald Dahl’s children’s book The Witches, which abounds in staring and peeping events, and its Dutch and French translations. Based on the hypothesis that languages’ constructional repertoires for physical motion are exploited for visual motion, one can predict, correctly, that Dutch uses its syntactically wide variety of path complement types in the domain of visual motion. It is tempting to assume that French, lacking looking verbs expressing path, would lose its generally verb-framed nature in visual motion descriptions. However, French appears to preserve some of its typological identity, by using causative path verbs such as lever ‘raise’ combined with an object meaning ‘one’s eyes/gaze’. In keeping with its verb-framed nature, French uses fewer visual path complements than Dutch and English, but it does have, and frequently uses, manner-of-vision expressions.
The purpose of this chapter is to present a new typology of path coding used in motion event descriptions in various languages. The crucial starting point for the new typology is how Path is expressed across different constructional types of motion event representations. The constructional types considered are Self-motion, Caused motion, and Emanation. The study suggests that path-coding devices can be divided into two major kinds: one kind with broad distributional potential across different constructional types of representations, and the other specialized for a particular constructional type of representation. Languages tend to have preferences toward adopting which kind of path-coding device is predominantly used. Languages that utilize the former can be called neutral path-coding languages, and those utilizing the latter, specialized path-coding languages. Path and Deixis coding in several languages are examined in these terms. Some patterns of intralinguistic and interlinguistic variations are also discussed.