[Lexicog] sit vs. sit
Ron Moe
ron_moe at SIL.ORG
Mon Mar 22 22:30:19 UTC 2004
RE: [Lexicog] sit vs. sitI like Rich's discussion, but the semantics of
these words gets even better. We have positionals, which in English come out
as 'be + preposition' (he's at home, he's in the shower, he's on the bed),
or simply prepositions in some sort of clause (he just stepped on my freshly
mopped floor with his muddy boots). Then we have linear movement verbs, some
incorporating manner (walk, run), and some incorporating starting and ending
points (come, go, arrive), and all sorts of other fun stuff (bang around).
These movement verbs can be intransitive, transitive (send, push), or
bitransitive (give) with all sorts of fun extras (accompany, follow). Then
there are the verbs with multiple objects (arrange, gather, scatter) with
all sorts of fun extras (join, tie). We also have directionals (toward,
from, upwards, north), which can get incorporated (rise, raise). Most of
these involve movement from one place to another. But the words we are
interested in belong to a large group of non-linear movement verbs that
still involve movement, but the object doesn't move from one place to
another. In this class we have verbs like 'shake, oscillate, swing (back and
forth), rotate'.
The verbs we have been discussing belong to the domain I call 'Posture'
(sit, stand, lie, lean). But here we have two lexical sets, those that
indicate a static state resulting from the movement, and those that involve
the movement itself. So a person can be sitting, or he can sit down.
FrameNet has two corresponding frames 'Change posture' and 'Posture'.
Although the FrameNet people don't say so, I believe 'Change posture'
inherits from the large frame 'Change of state scenario', which in turn has
the subframe 'Change of state endstate'. Prototypically (?) the posture
words refer to human posture. But they can be (universally?) extended to
animals and non-animate things that can assume similar postures. So a person
can lean against a wall, a bear can lean against a tree, and a ladder can
lean against a wall. Presumably animal postures are more similar to human
postures than inanimate objects, so I would guess that posture terms can be
easily applied to animals. At least animals can volitionally change posture
whereas inanimate objects cannot. For inanimate objects we have to have
accidental/non-volitional lexical items (fall over, collapse, topple) or
transitive verbs with an animate/volitional subject 'set (vt), stand (vt),
lean up against (vt), lay (vt)', or transitive verbs with a
non-volitional/unintentional causer as the subject '(the man/the wind)
knocked over the ladder'. When applied to an inanimate object, the 'Posture'
verbs must have a secondary sense. Although on the surface 'He was standing
outside the door' and 'The vase was standing on the desk' appear to be the
same meaning of 'stand', they don't yield the same implicatures (The vase is
standing because it stood up) or take directional adverbial complements
(stand up, sit down, lean over). Rich correctly points out that 'The ladder
is standing up' is incorrect. But I accept 'The cup is sitting on the
table'. It isn't that inanimates can't take a locative, it's that they can't
take a directional. However it is probably more accurate to say that 'stand
up' is a phrasal verb that takes an animate/volitional subject. I've already
analyzed 'the cup is sitting on the table' as a positional rather than a
posture. So I would guess that these inanimate subject verbs must take a
locative. The animate subject verbs answer the question 'What is he doing?'
The inanimate subject verbs answer the question 'Where is it?' On the other
hand I really like Rich's analysis of the "predominant dimension"
relationship between the animate and inanimate verbs. Which only goes to
show you how complex and interrelated lexical semantics is. Somebody should
check out the corpus evidence and find out if any of this will stand up :)
in the face of the evidence.
Ron
-----Original Message-----
From: rrhodes at cogsci.berkeley.edu [mailto:rrhodes at cogsci.berkeley.edu]
Sent: Monday, March 22, 2004 1:02 PM
To: lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [Lexicog] sit vs. sit
Wayne,
You've gotten a lot of good suggestions, but ...
English sit is part of a three-way system of verbs of location that are
distinguished by the shape and orientation of the object in question,
regardless of its animacy. (This sounds rather Athabaskan.) Various versions
of this are found in all Germanic languages. It works like this:
stand object with a single predominant dimension is located in a place
oriented vertically, supported from the bottom.
He was standing outside the door.
The vase was standing on the desk.
stand object without a third predominant dimension is located in a place
oriented horizontally, supported from the bottom.
He was lying outside the door.
The book was lying on the desk.
sit object with three predominant dimensions is located in a place,
supported from the bottom.
He was sitting outside the door.
The cup was sitting on the desk.
(You have to say something about the support because if the object is on a
vertical surface or the bottom of a horizontal surface, you are required to
use a verb that references how the object remains in place, e.g. The paper
is *lying on/stuck on the wall. If you say The paper is lying on the wall.
It can only mean that the wall has no ceiling or roof attached and the paper
is lying on the top of it. You can work out ceilings for yourself.)
Notice that people can change shape. The various Germanic languages differ
in how the extensions of these prototypes work. English, extends stand to
what animals do when all their legs are extended supporting them. German
often uses setzen 'sit' in metaphorical contexts, where English would use
lie (or be or something else).
In meiner Brust da sitzt ein Weh. 'Within my breast there lies an
ache' (Heine poem, trans. by Emily Ezust)
Das Glück sitzt im Gehirn. 'Happiness resides in the brain.' (Title of
a recent research article, my translation)
It's also worth noting that some locative is almost obligatory, esp. when
the subject is inanimate.
The ladder is standing *(next to the shed).
The boy is standing (next to the shed).
The cup is sitting *(on the table).
The man is sitting (on the table).
The log is lying *(across the driveway).
The girl is lying (across the driveway).
*The ladder is standing up.
The boy is standing up.
*The cup is sitting down.
The man is sitting down.
*The log is lying down.
The girl is lying down.
What does this all mean for Cheyenne lexicography? Probably that there
should be a BE_IN_A_PLACE category as Ron suggests, or better, BE_AT, since
the relevant verbs are all relative roots and the complement isn't included
in the verb form. It just appears that it is sometimes because null
complements are possible.
This question brings up a good theoretical point. We have to be every bit
as sophisticated about the semantics of the glossing language as we are
about the semantics of the target language. English (or French or Spanish)
aren't truly metalanguages. We just tend to use them that way. A point
frequently missed.
Rich
Longman's Language Activator puts this meaning of 'sit' under their
domain
'Place', although interestingly they don't list 'sit' as one of the
words.
However I set up a separate subdomain for 'Be in a place', since PLACE
is a
primitive in NSM and a major section heading in my system. LLA separates
the
notion 'be in a place' into two lexical sets, (1) ways of saying that an
object is in a particular place, (be, stand, lie) (2) ways of saying
that
something, such as a country, town, building, or organization is in a
particular place (be, lie, be situated, be located, be sited, stand, be
based). If you want a single English word to capture this idea, I think
a
good option would be 'located' (as in 'be located', not 'has been
located',
which means 'discovery the location of').
Ron
-----Original Message-----
From: Wayne Leman [mailto:wayne_leman at sil.org]
Sent: Sunday, March 21, 2004 7:20 AM
To: lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Lexicog] sit vs. sit
John Koontz asked:
> In the Siouan languages the analogs of the 'sit/set, 'lie/lay',
'stand'
> verbs are termed positionals. Is that the term you're looking for,
Wayne?
Not really, John. I just needed some English word to act as a keyword by
which I could extract from my lexical database the intransitive verbs
which have inanimate subjects and an ending (the Algonquian language
label is "final", from
Bloomfield). I was hoping for some simple synonym of 'sit' which I
already
have in use for the morphologically corresponding intransitive verbs
with
animate subjects and 'sit' finals. I suspect that the Sioun positionals
may
not be as morphologically transparent as are the Algonquian finals for
'sit'
(or 'be at'), but, of course, there would be some functional
similarities.
Thanks,
Wayne
-----
Wayne Leman
Cheyenne website: http://www.geocities.com/cheyenne_language
Yahoo! Groups Links
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