Motion Verbs Research Articles

Typological shift of Mandarin Chinese in terms of motion verb lexicalization pattern

Abstract Given the controversies over Mandarin Chinese in terms of Talmy’s bipartite language typology, this paper presents an exhaustive study of Chinese motion verbs collected from two authoritative dictionaries, namely, The Ancient Chinese Dictionary (2nd Edition) and The Contemporary Chinese Dictionary (7th Edition). An analysis of 662 motion verbs in ancient Chinese and 693 motion verbs in modern Chinese indicates that Mandarin Chinese has undergone a typological shift from verb-framed to satellite-framed as far as the lexicalization pattern is concerned. The typological shift seems to have been driven by two forces, the decline of monosyllabic motion verbs and the upsurge of disyllabic motion verbs, which, upon second thoughts, can be boiled down to a single but predominant process of disyllabification in Chinese, whereby two (former) roots that bear a wide range of syntactic relations are lexicalized into a disyllabic word. Thus, we see an intriguing case of how phonology and morphosyntax interact to impact the typological properties of a language.

Primary School Pupils’ Use of Verb Collocations in Science Assessment: Patterns of Linguistic Behaviour by Language Background Factor

This article explores patterns of linguistic behaviour and challenges associated with low(er) linguistic competences in primary school learners in subject-specific areas of the curriculum. The study draws on science test data, specifically on two assessment tasks, collected from 209 primary school students, aged between 9 and 11 years (Key Stages 5 and 6 of the statutory framework for learning in England). The population sample is made up of learners from six state primary schools in Yorkshire and the Humber Region, UK. Some of the learners speak English as their mother tongue while others speak English as their second or third language. Learner test data were analysed in order to answer the following research questions: (1) What verb collocations do learners use when demonstrating their content knowledge on the topic of “separating solids and liquids” in Science? (2) Do English language learners (ELLs) and English native speaking learners (ENSs) use verb collocations differently? If so, what is the nature of these differences? The results revealed differences between linguistic performances in the two groups of learners. ENSs tended to produce natural collocations with motion verbs. ELLSs, however, faced challenges in producing idiomatic language. They also encountered more difficulties than ENSs in understanding assessment tasks’ instructions and/or in reporting subject-specific knowledge in response to the assessment tasks.

Gestural Simulation of Motion Verbs

Abstract We aimed to investigate how the path of a motion verb is mentally simulated and realized in gestures when it is encoded in path-joined motion verbs (e.g., “enter the house”), path-disjoined motion verbs (e.g., “go into the house”), and pathless motion verbs (e.g., “walk in the street”). We conducted 2 studies to answer this question. In Study 1, we analyzed gestures produced by presenters in a set of YouTube videos. We used several chi-square tests to find out what type of gesture (path representational, non–path representational, beat, pointing gestures, and no-gesture) co-occurred more frequently with path-joined, path-disjoined, and pathless motion verbs. In Study 2, we analyzed gestures produced by a group of participants in a story-retelling setting. Both studies showed that path representational gestures co-occurred more frequently with path-joined motion verbs than path-disjoined and pathless motion verbs. Furthermore, the probability of using a path representational gesture with a path-joined motion verb having a human subject was higher than that having a nonhuman subject. Although the language difference in Study 1 and Study 2 might be a limitation, the consistency of results of the 2 studies suggests that the findings are generalizable. We suggest that gestural simulation of a motion verb is affected by how the direction or path of motion is encoded in the verb. When the path of motion is encoded in the main part of the verb, the motion and its path or direction are simultaneously simulated. This account implies that the motor system plays an active role in the process of simulating the path.

Статические и динамические пространственные конструкции в удэгейском языке

The present paper describes Udihe verb predicates with the meaning of existence and location. Additionally, a number of verbs of motion and relocation are discussed. A classification of Udihe predicates is presented, taking into account the peculiarities of the syntactic government. Dynamic predicates can govern nouns in Accusative, Locative, Lative, Dative, as well as Ablative and Prolative cases. They may also govern denominal adverbs or postpositional phrases and even nouns in Instrumental case. Static predicates syntactically govern postpositional phrases or nouns in Locative, Lative, Dative, Accusative Spatial cases, as well as adverbs. Verbs of existence can govern nouns in Locative case or Comitative form. Verbs of storage or loss are used with the noun in Locative case. Verbs denoting the change of seasons coordinate with the noun in Nominative case or form a single-part sentence. Verbs of motion, embedding the seme of movement in the lexical meaning, can be used without a localizer in the Udihe language. This is due to the idea of the initial or final point of movement being obvious and embedded in the verb stem. The noun denoting the object of movement in constructions with such predicates is marked by the Accusative case. Some Udihe verbs can express a specific situation, denoting the degree of penetration of the object being moved into water or land.

Периферийные глаголы в значении движения в хакасском языке: семантика и функционирование

The article analyses the functionality and semantics of the Khakass expressive verbs being on the periphery of the lexico-semantic group of movement. These verbs are common for native speakers’ everyday speech and acquire the meaning of movement when used in a particular context. Their semantics is complex, with emotional, evaluative and figurative elements intersecting and overlapping with each other. The meaning of movement can be acquired in different ways. Firstly, verbs with the meaning of behavior can combine with verbs of movement. Secondly, polysemous verbs can be combined with dependent lexemes of locative semantics. Lastly, onomatopoeic verbs in secondary lexical and semantic versions can be formed by adding the forced voice affix -t-. All these functionalsemantic and grammatical properties contribute to the transition to the category of expressives denoting the subject’s figurative movement. Almost all verbs expressing the subject’s movement in their secondary lexical and semantic versions originate from verbs with neutral semantics. The expressiveness in certain word-formation and combinational models is lexically motivated, with a significant focus on imagery. Despite being frequently used, many of these verbs are missing in lexicographical sources, and for those that are listed, no information on their seme of “movement” is provided. The situation is complicated by contextual ambiguity of expressive words. Given that the abundance of expressive vocabulary in everyday conversation indicates a reliable native language proficiency and guarantees the preservation and development of the Khakass language, further lexicographic projects should take into account all the semantic and expressive nuances.

Didactic potential of MOOCs in teaching Russian as a foreign language

The article is devoted to the description of mass open online courses «Read. Listen. Speak» and «Verbs of motion in Russian language», intended for foreign students at the pre-university stage of training. The article presents an analysis of the lexical and grammatical content of presentation and video materials of the proposed training courses, presents a system of tasks from basic to advanced levels, and also offers practical recommendations on the use of various methodological techniques in teaching Russian as a foreign language to foreign students. The authors analyzed the forms of organization of the activities of all subjects of the distance learning process, revealed the didactic potential of mass open online courses as promising distance technologies in teaching Russian as a foreign language.

System-structural and Functional-semantic Features of Motion Verbs in Sports Discourse Based on the Kazakh, Russian and English Languages

The relevance of the study lies in the fact that system-structural and functional-semantic features constitute the most important part of the linguistic system – a kind of basis in which ready communicative units of speech are produced. It is therefore only natural that these concepts have become an area of pioneering research in the functional linguistics of sports discourse. However, this is not confined to describing the pragmatics of speech, since the functions of grammatical units are performed within the language system. The syntactic properties of the sport forms in the position of the structural surface of the Kazakh, Russian and English languages constitute their main functional-semantic features and can be the object of functional syntax The aim of the research is to investigate the system-structural and functional-semantic facets of movement verbs in sports discourse in Kazakh, Russian and English. The basic prerequisite for the various functional versions is the consistent and coherent nature of the language system. In description practice, this means the interplay of grammatical categories and the consequent lack of clear-cut boundaries between the different levels of language – phonetics and morphology, vocabulary and grammar, morphology and syntax. The content and plan of the form of features, including morphological ones, are not reducible to formal manifestations: the same form of motion verbs usually belongs to several morphological categories. The interpretation of the form in a particular situation of use is determined by the factors external in relation to the category. With a grammatical form it is possible to express semantics that is not attributed to any particular form alone, since various linguistic means are involved in its realisation. The practical significance lies in determining the peculiarities of system-structural and functional-semantic mechanisms of motion verbs in sports discourse on the material of the respective languages.

Hauptsätze mit Verbspäterstellung im Althochdeutschen: Bestand, Distribution, Interpretation

Abstract This corpus study investigates well-known violations of the verb second constraint in Old High German main clauses. Starting from the observation that the attested orders are overwhelmingly ambiguous regarding the position of the verb and the preverbal constituents, the paper applies methods for identifying diagnostic datasets which can be clearly distinguished in terms of structure and use. Two types of diagnostic non-verb-second orders are tested, namely verb-final clauses in which no verb movement applies, and verb-third clauses in which the verb as well as all preverbal categories occupy specified positions in the left periphery of the clause. The result is that diagnostic evidence for any of the datasets is sparse in native prose, and that especially diagnostic verb-third orders are not sufficiently distinguishable against their Latin originals. In addition, both diagnostic patterns interfere in use, suggesting that they represent less clearly differentiated, unproductive patterns, used for special stylistic purposes.

Fluidic motion patterns in English and Modern Greek

Abstract This paper investigates conceptual and phraseological patterns from a cross-linguistic perspective. The focus of attention is on the fluidic motion uses of the highly polysemous verbs run and τρέχω ‘run’ in English and Modern Greek respectively. They are manner of motion verbs denoting the typically human, fast movement on ground and they are frequently cited in the literature on motion event encoding; yet, their extended use to denote motion of liquids is mentioned only in passing. The study thus provides a comprehensive description of that part of the semantic network of the two verbs that relates to fluidic motion (literally and figuratively). The contrastive approach taken combines cognitive semantics (Frame Semantics, Conceptual Metaphor and Metonymy Theory) with a phraseological view of language. Convergences and divergences are identified at a conceptual and phraseological level through a twofold corpus-based study involving comparable monolingual analysis and parallel corpus investigation.

Par dažu bezpriedēkļa un priedēkļa verbu lietojumu ar adverbiem un prievārdu pār

In Latvian language, prefix and prefix-free verb constructions with prepositions and adverbs are used in parallel, where the prefix, adverb and preposition are close in terms of the meaning. The aim of the research is to study the connection of prefix-free and prefix verbs with prepositions and adverbs, to study the use of these constructions, reciprocal attitudes and semantics. The novelty of the research is indicated by the fact that extensive systematic studies have not been conducted on the connection between prefixed and prefix-free verb and preposition and/or adverb, their semantics, as well as the possible motivation for doubling the preposition and adverb. The article examines constructions with prepositions uz, no, caur, pār, expressing spatial direction attitudes and which, in modern Latvian, have prefixes corresponding in the meaning – uz-, no-, pār-, as well as adverbs: virsū, ārā, cauri, pāri, nost. The source of the examples analysed in the study is written language on the Internet – chatting, i.e. microblogging site „Twitter”, news publications, comments on the Internet, „Web Corpus of Latvian Language” (Tīmeklis2020) and other sources where coverage of spoken language is available. It has been observed that in cases when a prefix, adverb and preposition of close meaning are used in the same sentence, it is easier to visualize what is being said as if it is being „drawn” before the eyes, and such structures make the text more imaginative. The meaning of a verb plays an important role in what adverb or preposition it binds to itself. In the research, a tendency was observed that most of the time, in constructions of prefixed verb and prefix-free verb, preposition and adverb with verbs of motion of close meaning and of literal sense, are used.

Motion Verbs in Italian and the Manner/Direction Complementarity

This paper presents an empirical analysis of Italian directed motion verbs and manner of motion verbs; the research is based on a lexical resource of 234 verbs subdivided into six classes. Directed motion verbs are analysed according to their argument structure and to the type of path PP they take: both source and goal PPs, only source PPs or only goal PPs. Furthermore, I have highlighted how the morphological, distributional and semantic properties of these verbs have an impact on their argument structure.Manner of motion verbs are analysed according to their unaccusative/unergative structure and on the semantic components they entail: only Manner or Manner and Direction. Analysis of the data shows that the semantics of both types of motion verbs depends in many cases on the distributional context in which they occur. As a result, it is not always an easy task to generalize the semantic components the verbs lexicalize. The Italian data also show that, contrary to the hypothesis proposed by Rappaport Hovav & Levin (2010) and Levin & Rappaport Hovav (2013) on the opposition between manner and direction, a subset of Italian motion verbs encodes both manner and direction. Moreover, the Italian lexicon shows an abundance of manner of motion verbs that can resort to a satellite-framed strategy, suggesting that the clearcut opposition between satellite-framed and verb-framed languages claimed in Talmy (1985) boils down to a tendency.

Motion verbs and future constructions: the case of Hebrew omed le-V ‘standing (up) to-V’/‘(be) about to-V’

This paper focuses on the constructionalization and grammaticalization path of the Hebrew construction omed le-V ‘standing (up) to-V’/‘about to-V’ as denoting ‘near future’. The investigation will be a diachronic and historical one, from biblical to contemporary Hebrew, stage by stage, and will discuss the evolution of the omed le-V ‘standing (up) to-V’ construction from a posture verb within a motion verb construction V1 to V2 into a ‘near future construction’. i.e., We will focus on the affinity of the meaning of the motion verb with the type of future it comes to denote and we will claim that the evolution of the omed le-V construction is based on three main sources: 1. Literal omed ‘standing up’ meaning is the basis of the near future grammaticalization: standing up from a sedentary posture marks the beginning of involvement in a certain upcoming action, thus perfect as the source conceptual schema for immediacy marking. 2. The shift from spatial to temporal motion maps spatial image schemas onto timelines that correlate with temporal domains. 3. The intrinsic future-orientation of a goal action gave rise to a pragmatic (metonymic) inference from purpose to futurity, later conventionalizing as futurity. Thus, the construction omed le-V ‘standing (up) to-V/about to-V’ shifted from the literal ‘standing up in order to perform an action’ to the near future ‘about to-V’ meaning via the conditioned or interdependent temporal relation of the standing (up) action and its consecutive goal action in real-world scenarios. Lastly, a comparison to two other Hebrew motion verb-based future constructions will be conducted: the constructions holex le-V ‘walking/going to-V’ and ba le-V ‘coming to-V’. The former will be claimed to denote an ‘undefined’ future (either near or distant) and the latter: an ‘unfulfilled future’ (an action that was about to be conducted but wasn't conducted or wasn't conducted on time). This will shed additional light on the evolution of posture and motion verb constructions into future marking constructions. Our conclusions will also be supported by the results of a questionnaire examining the future realization (either ‘near’, ‘undefined’ or ‘unfulfilled’) of the three constructions among native speakers of Hebrew.

Editorial: Innovations in Language Education: Prospects and Opportunities for Use

Development is the key to success and progress in all areas of life. This principle is especially important in the educational process. Language is one of the key components of cultural and educational development, and its study and teaching require constant improvement and adaptation to changes in society. The main goal of this thematic issue is to provide a comprehensive and in-depth study of key topics and trends in language education and linguistics. The issue will contribute to the introduction of innovative methodologies that can improve language learning motivate students, intercultural understanding, and inform pedagogical approaches around the world. The articles in this issue address different aspects of this issue, offering a wide range of practical solutions for teachers and educators. The issue also aims to support innovations in the field of linguistics by analyzing the structure of languages and functional and semantic features of motion verbs in sports discourse.

Verb placement in L3 French and L3 German

Abstract This article explores cross-linguistic influence and the relationship between surface structure and underlying syntactic structure in L3 acquisition of verb placement in L1 Norwegian L2 English learners of L3 German or French, respectively. In these languages, verb placement varies systematically. Previous research has found transfer from both L1 and L2 in similar language combinations. Using an acceptability judgment task, we tested verb placement in non-subject-initial and subject-initial sentences. Findings indicate that L3 French learners performed better on non-subject-initial sentences compared to subject-initial sentences, whereas the opposite was the case in L3 German. We argue that our findings can be explained by a generative account of verb movement and are compatible with an analysis where verbs do not move, or do not move far enough, in the L3 learners’ underlying syntactic representation. Following the assumption that verb movement is a costly operation, we argue that the syntactic operation verb movement is constrained by principles of economy in L3 acquisition, and that economy plays a role in determining cross-linguistic influence in multilingual acquisition. Our account is compatible with a uniform analysis of the acquisition of verb movement in L1, L2 and L3, and underlines the qualitative similarities in different acquisition processes.

Subverting motion in science fiction? Beam in the Star Trek TV series

Abstract Characters in science fiction TV have to move through the universe at the speed which the plot necessitates. In Star Trek, characters can beam from one location to another in an instant. In the visual modality, there is no continuous path of motion between the source and the goal, which would technically disqualify beam from most linguistic definitions of motion. This study aims to map out the usage patterns of beam and investigate whether or not it is linguistically construed as motion within the show. The study is based on a section of the TV Corpus (Davies, Mark. 2019. The TV Corpus. https://www.english-corpora.org/tv/ (accessed 28 May 2022)) consisting of all available episodes of all Star Trek TV series between 1966 and 2005 and uses a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods. The study found that beam is indeed used as a motion verb within the series. Its usage is also quite varied, denoting motion of many different figures in many different directions. The fact that we conceive of beaming as motion even though there is no continuous path might be partly explained by the etymology of beam, and partly by the embodied nature of language. Our current register makes it is hard to imagine transportation without movement.

“Clitic climbing” in Hittite

Abstract Cross-linguistically, clitic climbing occurs when clitics that belong syntactically and semantically to the subordinate clause (most commonly non-finite, rarely finite) appear in the main clause, i.e., they climb out of the subordinate clause into the main clause. In Hittite, prototypical clitic climbing is attested in two constructions: with non-finite predicates and finite restructuring verbs (Lyutikova & Sideltsev 2021b); and in serial constructions with the finite motion verbs pai- ‘go’ and uwa- ‘come’ co-occurring with another finite verb in the same clause (Koller 2013). In both of these cases, clitics climb out of complements of finite verbs. This paper explores yet another potentially relevant context for clitic climbing, a particular type of complex sentence that may be called ‘mismatch sentences’ (Sideltsev 2023). These involve three structurally distinct types of complex sentences which share one common property: they all have the same surface structure (1a) one word of the main clause (2) subordinate clause (1b) rest of the main clause. The enclitics of the subordinate clause are in (1a), so that they appear to climb out of the subordinate into the main clause. The enclitics of the main clause are consistently in the rest of the main clause (1b), never attached to the first word of the main clause (1a). Structurally, all these subordinate clauses adjoin to the main clause. This distribution of clitics is attested only if there is a one-word constituent in the main clause to the left of the subordinate clause. As movement out of adjoined clauses is held to be illicit in current linguistic theory, it is argued that, differently from prototypical clitic climbing, this is a purely post-syntactic reordering and does not involve any kind of syntactic movement of clitics out of the subordinate into the main clause: the structure one-word constituent of main clause—subordinate clause—main clause is always prosodically realized at the post-syntactic stage as subordinate clause—main clause.

The “Return” of Southern Italo-Romance Tonna: From Pseudocoordination to Adverb. A Case Study in Grammaticalization

The present work constitutes an initial look at the use of tonna, an invariable form of tornare ‘return’, used as a relatively uncommon V1 in southern Italo-Romance pseudocoordination structures. Along with losing its ability to inflect, grammaticalization of tornare, frequent across Italo-Romance, has consisted in its shift from lexical motion verb to a functional one with repetitive aspectual value, i.e. tonna mmanciu ‘I eat again’. This paper presents novel data from the variety of Eolian (Italo-Romance dialect of the Eolian Islands), which shows constructions previously unattested with invariable V1s, such as its embedding under functional verbs in non-finite clauses. A cartographic approach building on existing accounts of pseudocoordination V1s – centered on Cinque’s (1999, 2006) hierarchy of functional projections – leads us to consider two overarching explanations for tonna: that it is (a) a functional, aspectual head (in one of the two “repetitive” projections, viz. AspRepetitive(I), AspRepetitive(II)) or (b) an adverb, a specifier in these respective projections. Ultimately, the conclusion that it has (re)grammaticalized to the point of becoming a (deficient) adverb in the lower AspRepetitive(II) proves to be the most convincing from a theoretical perspective. A potential structural consequence is the syncretic status of the AspRepetitive(II) head.

Container Scheme-Image and Its Types: English Phrasal Verbs of Cognitive Activity

The article features the compositional semantics of phrasal verbs that denote a cognitive activity, as well as the interaction between their conceptual structure and the particle. The conceptual structures of these components can be described as mental schemes, e.g., a container with a certain vector of cognitive projection, and a number of subtypes. The compositional semantics of phrasal verbs of cognitive activity revealed that the interaction between the conceptual structure of the verb and the particle is a cognitive mechanism that develops its semantics. The container metaphor is based on the semantic potential of the verbal component and such particles as in, out, and through. These particles are usually combined with verbs of movement, physical activity, and perception. As part of phrasal verbs of mental activity, they realize the following prototypical concepts: the subject / object of the action gets into / penetrates into the container, is out / outside of the container, or crosses the border of the container, respectively. The role of the container belongs not to real objects, but to abstract entities, e.g., memory, consciousness, attention, feelings, thoughts, etc., as well as various physical and mental states or situations in which objects are immersed.

Specifics of teaching Russian language phraseology to foreign students (based on the phraseological units with verbs of motion)

This article is dedicated to the consideration of relevant methodological techniques of offline and online teaching of phraseological units with verbs of motion to foreign students taking into account the peculiarities of various teaching stages. The research novelty consists in the presentation of the polyvector module for working with phraseological units with verbs of motion to form language, sociocultural, sociolinguistic and cross-cultural competencies of a foreign speaker. When writing the article, the authors used the following methods: analytical method, component analysis, methods of interpretation and modeling. The analysis of the polyvector teaching module demonstrated that the acquiring process of Russian phraseological units by foreign speakers will be integral and effective, if lexical and grammatical material is selected in accordance with the criteria and objectives of each teaching level. The methodological techniques of the polyvector module take into account the features and objectives of teaching at each level; the system of the module tasks, implemented in the online format (mass open online course – MOOC) and offline, is aimed at developing foreign speakers’ skills and abilities to understand and use phraseological units with verbs of motion in speech in different communicative situations.

ОСОБЕННОСТИ ГЛАГОЛОВ ДВИЖЕНИЯ

The article discusses the verbs of movement and their features in compatibility with abstract nouns in the role of the subject. The article analyzes verbs indicating the direction of movement and the method of movement