Cover not available
Part of
Space in Diachrony
Edited by Silvia Luraghi, Tatiana Nikitina and Chiara Zanchi
[Studies in Language Companion Series 188] 2017
► pp. 1–40

The goal-over-source principle in European languages

Preliminary results from a parallel corpus study

| Reading Evolutionary Biology Group, University of Reading

This paper investigates the linguistic encoding of source, trajectory, and goal in seventeen European languages. The data comes from translations of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone in the ParaSol parallel corpus. The original English text and all translations display more frequent marking of goal than of source or trajectory and thus conform to the goal-over-source principle identified by Ikegami (1987). This goal bias is explained by a translation strategy where goal information is expanded upon to the demise of trajectory information, as goal information is most important for following the narrative. An attempt is made to explain cross-linguistic differences in path encoding using phylogenetic comparative methods, but unfortunately the dataset is too small to allow for generalizations.

Keywords: goal-over-source principle, motion event encoding, Indo-European, parallel corpora, translation studies, phylogenetic comparative methods
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The goal-over-source principle in path encoding
  • 3.The current study: Data collection and coding
  • 4.Results
  • 5.Why do these translations display a goal bias?
    • 5.1Dependencies between path encoding measures
    • 5.2Goals are added to translations to avoid ambiguity
  • 6.Why do some translations display a larger goal bias than others?
    • 6.1Talmian typology does not explain cross-linguistic differences
    • 6.2Language history does not explain cross-linguistic differences
    • 6.3Geographic distance does not explain cross-linguistic differences
    • 6.4Further explanations for cross-linguistic variation
  • 7.Conclusion: The encoding of source, trajectory and goal in Indo-European
  • Acknowledgments
  • References
  • Appendix
Published online: 14 August 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.188.01ver
References
Alexander, Ronelle
2006 Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian, a Grammar: With Sociolinguistic Commentary. Madison WI: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Andrews, Avery
1985 The major functions of the noun phrase. In Language Typology and Syntactic Description, Timothy Shopen (ed), 62–154. Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar
Baker, Mona
1993 Corpus linguistics and translation studies: Implications and applications. In Text and Technology: In Honour of John Sinclair, Mona Baker, Gill Francis & Elena Tognini-Bonelli (eds), 233–252. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.  DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Beavers, John, Levin, Beth & Wei Tham, Shiao
2010 The typology of motion expressions revisited. Journal of Linguistics 46: 331–377.  DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Berthele, Raphael
2006 Ort und Weg. Die sprachliche Raumreferenz in Varietäten des Deutschen, Rätoromanischen und Französischen. Berlin: De Gruyter.  DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2013 Disentangling manner and path: Evidence from varieties of German and Romance. In Variation and Change in the Encoding of Motion Events [Human Cognitive Processing 41], Juliana Goschler & Anatol Stefanowitsch (eds), 55–76. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.  DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Blake, Barry J.
1977 Case Marking in Australian Languages. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies.Google Scholar
Bouckaert, Remco, Lemey, Philippe, Dunn, Michael, Greenhill, Simon J., Alekseyenko, Alexander V., Drummond, Alexei J., Gray, Russell D., Suchard, Marc A. & Atkinson, Quentin D.
2012 Mapping the origins and expansion of the Indo-European language family. Science 337: 957–960.  DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bryant, David & Moulton, Vincent
2004 Neighbor-Net: An agglomerative method for the construction of phylogenetic networks. Molecular Biology and Evolution 21(2): 255–265.  DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Calude, Andreea S. & Verkerk, Annemarie
2016 The typology and diachrony of higher numerals in Indo-European: A phylogenetic comparative study. Journal of Language Evolution 1(2): 91–108.  DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cappelle, Bert
2012 English is less rich in manner-of-motion verbs when translated from French. Across Languages and Cultures 13: 173–195.  DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Croft, William, Barðdal, Johanna, Hollman, Willem, Sotirova, Violeta & Taoka, Chiaki
2010 Revising Talmy’s typological classification of complex event constructions. In Contrastive Studies in Construction Grammar [Constructional Approaches to Language 10], Hans C. Boas (ed), 201–235. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.  DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dunn, Michael, Greenhill, Simon J., Levinson, Stephen C. & Gray, Russell D.
2011 Evolved structure of language shows lineage-specific trends in word-order universals. Nature 473: 79–82.  DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fibigerová, Kateřina, Guidetti, Michéle & Šulová, Lenka
2012 Verbal and gestural expression of motion in French and Czech. In Space and Time in Languages and Cultures: Language, Culture, and Cognition [Human Cognitive Processing 37], Luna Filipović & Kasia M. Jaszczolt (eds), 251–268. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.  DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Filipović, Luna
2007 Talking about Motion: A Crosslinguistic Investigation of Lexicalization Patterns [Studies in Language Companion Series 91]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.  DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fillmore, Charles J.
1971[1975] Santa Cruz Lectures on Deixis. Bloomington IN: Indiana University Linguistics Club.Google Scholar
Freckleton, Rob P., Harvey, Paul H. & Pagel, Mark
2002 Phylogenetic analysis and comparative data: A test and review of evidence. The American Naturalist 160: 712–726.  DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Granger, Sylviane
2003 The corpus approach: A common way forward for contrastive linguistics and translation studies? In Corpus-based Approaches to Contrastive Linguistics and Translation Studies, Sylviane Granger, Jacques Lerot & Stephanie Petch-Tyson (eds), 17–30. Amsterdam: Rodopi.Google Scholar
Guillot, Gilles & Rousset, François
2012 Dismantling the Mantel tests. Methods in Ecology and Evolution 4: 336–344.  DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Harmon, Luke J., Weir, Jason T., Brock, Chad D., Glor, Richard E. & Challenger, Wendell
2008 GEIGER: Investigating evolutionary radiations. Bioinformatics 24: 129–131.  DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hickmann, Maya, Hendriks, Henriëtte, Soroli, Efstathia, Iakovleva, Tatiana & Ji, Yinglin
To appear. Space and language typology: Encoding motion across languages.
Huson, Daniel H. & Bryant, David
2006 Application of phylogenetic networks in evolutionary studies. Molecular Biology and Evolution 23(2): 254–267.  DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hjelmslev, Louis
1935/1937 La catégorie des cas. Copenhagen: Munksgaard.Google Scholar
Ibarretxe-Antuñano, Iraide
2009 Path salience in motion events. In Crosslinguistic Approaches to the Psychology of Language: Research in the Tradition of Dan Isaac Slobin, Jiansheng Guo, Elena Lieven, Nancy Budwig, Susan Ervin-Tripp, Keiko Nakamura & Şeyda Özçalışkan (eds), 403–414. New York NY: Psychology Press.Google Scholar
Ikegami, Yoshihiko
1987 ‘Source’ vs. ‘goal’: A case of linguistic dissymmetry. In Concepts of Case, René Dirven & Günter Radden (eds), 122–146. Tübingen: Narr.Google Scholar
Jackendoff, Ray
1983 Semantics and Cognition. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Kabata, Kaori
2013 Goal-source asymmetry and crosslinguistic grammaticalization patterns: A cognitive-typological approach. Language Sciences 36: 78–89.  DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lakoff, George
1987 Women, Fire and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal about the Mind. Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press.  DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lakusta, Laura
2005 Source and goal asymmetry in non-linguistic motion event representations. PhD dissertation, The Johns Hopkins University.
Lakusta, Laura & Landau, Barbara
2005 Starting at the end: The importance of goals in spatial language. Cognition 96: 1–33.  DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Legendre, Pierre & Fortin, Marie-Josée
2010 Comparison of the Mantel test and alternative approaches for detecting complex multivariate relationships in the spatial analysis of genetic data. Molecular Ecology Resources 10: 831–844.  DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Levin, Beth
1993 English Verb Classes and Alternations: A Preliminary Investigation. Chicago IL: The University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Lindsey, Traci Speed
2011 Bulgarian Verbs of Motion: Slavic Verbs in a Balkan Context. PhD dissertation, University of California at Berkeley.
Nikitina, Tatiana
2009 Subcategorization pattern and lexical meaning of motion verbs: A study of the source/goal ambiguity. Linguistics 47: 1113–1141.  DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Orme, David
2011 The caper package: Comparative analysis of phylogenetics and evolution in R. 〈[URL]〉
Pagel, Mark
1997 Inferring evolutionary processes from phylogenies. Zoologica Scriptica 26: 331–348.  DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1999 Inferring the historical patterns of biological evolution. Nature 401: 877–84.  DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pantcheva, Marina
2010 The syntactic structure of locations, goals, and sources. Linguistics 48: 1043–1081.  DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Papafragou, Anna
2010 Source–goal asymmetries in motion representation: Implications for language production and comprehension. Cognitive Science 34: 1064–1092.  DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pavlenko, Aneta & Volynsky, Maria
2015 Motion encoding in Russian and English: Moving beyond Talmy’s typology. Modern Language Journal, 99: 32–48.  DOI logoGoogle Scholar
R Core Team
2015 R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing. Vienna: R Foundation for Statistical Computing.Google Scholar
Regier, Terry
1997 Constraints on the learning of spatial terms: A computational investigation. In Psychology of Learning and Motivation [Mechanisms of Perceptual Learning 36], Robert L. Goldstone, Douglas L. Medin & Philippe G. Schyns (eds), 171–217. San Diego CA: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Regier, Terry & Zheng, Mingyu
2007 Attention to endpoints: A cross-linguistic constraint on spatial meaning. Cognitive Science 31: 705–719.  DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Revell, Liam J., Harmon, Luke J. & Collar, David C.
2008 Phylogenetic signal, evolutionary process, and rate. Systematic Biology 57: 591–601.  DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Slobin, Dan I.
1996 Two ways to travel: Verbs of motion in English and Spanish. In Grammatical Constructions: Their Form and Meaning, Masayoshi Shibitani & Sandra A. Thompson (eds), 195–219. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
2004 The many ways to search for a frog: Linguistic typology and the expression of motion events. In Relating Events in Narrative: Typological and Contextual Perspectives, Sven Strömqvist & Ludo Verhoven (eds), 219–257. Mahwah NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
2005 Relating narrative events in translation. In Perspectives on Language and Language Development: Essays in Honor of Ruth A. Berman, Dorit Diskin Ravid & Hava Bat-Zeev Shyldkrot (eds), 115–129. Dordrecht: Kluwer.  DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Stefanowitsch, Anatol & Rohde, Ada
2004 The goal bias in the encoding of motion events. In Studies in Linguistic Motivation, Günter Radden & Klaus-Uwe Panther (eds), 249–268. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Soroli, Efstathia & Verkerk, Annemarie
To appear. Differences in the coding of spatial language impact classification: Current methodological and typological issues with a special focus on Modern Greek. Languages in Contrast.
Svorou, Soteria
1994 The Grammar of Space [Typological Studies in Language 25]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.  DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Talmy, Leonard
1985 Lexicalization patterns: Semantic structure in lexical forms. In Language Typology and Syntactic Description: Grammatical Categories and the Lexicon, Timothy Shopen (ed), 57–149. Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar
2000 Toward a Cognitive Semantics. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Ungerer, Friedrich & Schmid, Hans-Jörg
1996 An Introduction to Cognitive Linguistics. Harlow: Longman.Google Scholar
Verkerk, Annemarie
2014 The Evolutionary Dynamics of Motion Event Encoding. PhD dissertation, Radboud University Nijmegen.
Verspoor, Marjolijn & Dirven, René
2004 Putting concepts together: Syntax. In Cognitive Exploration of Language and Linguistics [Cognitive Linguistics in Practice 1], 2nd edn, René Dirven & Marjolijn Verspoor (eds), 75–100. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.  DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Viti, Carlotta
2008 Coding spatial relations in Homeric Greek: Preverbs vs. prepositions. Historische Sprachforschung 121(1): 114–161.Google Scholar
von Waldenfels, Ruprecht & Meyer, Roland
2006–present. ParaSol, a Corpus of Slavic and Other Languages. 〈[URL]〉
Wälchli, Bernhard
2007 Advantages and disadvantages of using parallel texts in typological investigations. STUF – Sprachtypologie und Universalienforschung 60(2): 118–134.Google Scholar
2009 Motion Events in Parallel Texts: A Study in Primary-data Typology. Habilitationsschrift, Universität Bern.Google Scholar
Wälchli, Bernhard & Zúñiga, Fernando
2006 Source–Goal (in)difference and the typology of motion events in the clause. STUF – Sprachtypologie und Universalienforschung 59: 284–303.Google Scholar
Xiao, Richard
2010 How different is translated Chinese from native Chinese? A corpus-based study of translation universals. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 15: 5–35.  DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zhou, Kevin & Bowern, Claire
2015 Quantifying uncertainty in the phylogenetics of Australian numeral systems. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 282: 20151278.  DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 4 other publications

Fagard, Benjamin & Anetta Kopecka
2021. Source/Goal (a)symmetry. Studies in Language 45:1 ► pp. 130 ff. DOI logo
Kopecka, Anetta & Marine Vuillermet
2021. Source-Goal (a)symmetries across languages. Studies in Language 45:1 ► pp. 2 ff. DOI logo
Taremaa, Piia & Anetta Kopecka
2023. Speed and space: semantic asymmetries in motion descriptions in Estonian. Cognitive Linguistics 34:1 ► pp. 35 ff. DOI logo
van der Klis, Martijn & Jos Tellings
2022. Generating semantic maps through multidimensional scaling: linguistic applications and theory. Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory 18:3 ► pp. 627 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 22 march 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.