Motion verbs without motion semantics : The case of Japanese * (2024)

Kuznetsov, Artemii (2020). Grammaticalization of motion verbs in Japanese: iku and kuru revisited. In: 161st LSJ Meeting Handbook. Tokyo: The Linguistic Society of Japan, 223-229, 2020

As a result of grammaticalization two Japanese constructions containing a ventive (kuru) or an andative (iku) auxiliary verb have developed a wide range of usage types. The goal is to test a hypothesis that the more grammaticalized usage types appeared in the language earlier than the less grammaticalized ones. The results of a questionnaire survey and diachronic corpus analysis show that as far as each verb is considered separately the most grammaticalized usage types are the newest ones; however, if the two verbs are put into the same category the diachronic hypothesis does not hold. This indicates that the two verbs must have developed independently despite the fact that in certain usage types they can be viewed as members of a paradigmatic opposition in contemporary Japanese.

The Construal of Spatial Meaning, 2013

Semantic analysis of semi-lexical motion verbs in Dutch and English.

Epos : Revista de filología, 1999

Associated Motion, 2021

Uncorrected proofs, Oct 2020. To appear in DeGruyter Mouton series Empirical Approaches to Linguistic Typology collection from the ALT 2017 workshop on Associated MotionThis chapter investigates the expression of associated motion and directional motion in the form of serial verb constructions (SVCs). In a sample of 124 languages with SVCs, 80% have motion SVCs. The most common types are directional SVCs, in which a path-of-motion verb combines with another motion verb, and prior associated motion SVCs expressing motion prior to the activity or state predicated by the other verb in the construction. Concurrent motion and subsequent motion are much less common. In a prior motion SVC, the motion verb nearly always precedes the other verb, and the figure on the path of motion is the subject. In a directional SVC, the path-of-motion verb nearly always follows the other verb, and the grammatical function of the figure on the path of motion can vary according to the semantics of the main verb in the construction.

Cognitive Linguistics, 1995

Verbs in Fictive Motion, Lodz University Press, e-BOOK, 2018

This book presents a corpus-based study of verbs used in expressions of fictive motion, which refers to the cognitive-linguistic phenomenon of describing material objects incapable of movement in terms of motion over their configuration in space. The study focuses specifically on the category of coextension paths, which are used to describe the form, orientation, or location of a spatially extended object in terms of a path over the object’s extent. The analysis, carried out using the British National Corpus, indicates that in English only a fraction of motion verbs are used consistently to express coextension paths, and that some of them are used for this purpose far more systematically than others. A holographic image of structuring coextension paths that emerges from the linguistic data indicates that whereas directional motion verbs tend to be used in fictive motion to express bounded paths, directions, and routes, verbs of motion manner are employed to specify shapes constituting subjective counterparts of spatial contours of actual motion. Moreover, depending on the particular use and the wider linguistic context, certain coextension path expressions can be interpreted as a result of conceptual blending, which fuses multiple facets of motion via a common communicative platform established dynamically in discourse.From the perspective of the analysis, these interpretations are not mutually irreconcilable. The evocation of a particular conceptualization triggered by the semantic attributes conflated in a verb and its satellites is likely to depend not only on individual comprehension strategies, but also on the degree of cultural-linguistic conventionalization of certain fictive motion patterns established through processes of language acquisition and social transfer.