[Lexicog] sit vs. sit

[Richard Rhodes]

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
>
>
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>
>Yahoo! Groups Links
>
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>
>Yahoo! Groups Links
>
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>
>


-- 
******************************************************************

Richard A. Rhodes
Associate Dean, Undergraduate Division
Interim Director, Office of Undergraduate Advising
College of Letters & Science
113 Campbell Hall
University of California
Berkeley, CA 94720-2924
Phone: (510) 643-4184
FAX: (510) 642-2372

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