[Lingtyp] motion verbs

Mon Jun 6 21:37:50 UTC 2022

Dear Sergey, Guillaume and everyone,

Guillaume, thank you for bringing up Associated Motion in response to
Juergen's question about languages having a grammatical category for
motion. What seems to be at the core of that category is "fact-of-motion"
(in the sense of "translational motion" as you said). In other words, AM is
distinct from (pure) directionals in that it predicates motion, whereas
directionals describe the path of a motion verb that already lexically
predicates fact-of-motion. These two categories do overlap in some (but not
all languages), and that is surveyed in 325 languages my chapter in the
recent AM volume and also discussed in many other chapters in the book.

Sergey, regarding Akkadian in particular, it is my understanding that the
ventive is primarily a (pure) directional morpheme, with limited, if any,
uses as AM. A recent comprehensive overview is provided in this thesis,
including maybe most helpfully a very thorough literature review:
Fix, S. A. 2021. The Semantics of a Semitic Ventive in Cognitive
Perspective: Akkadian Ventive Construals Based on Lexical Verb Types.
Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America.
http://hdl.handle.net/1961/cuislandora:223941

(As an aside, it is fascinating that the first observations related to this
were made by the Akkadians themselves, as the first early linguists to
recognize such a category in comparison to Sumerian. See p.272, footnote
240 of my dissertation here: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5546425)

It should be noted that the term "ventive" (like it's
"away-from-deictic-center" counterpart "itive", and other variants of each)
is ambiguous in traditional usage, referring to either (pure) directional
or AM morphemes. Thus "ventive" refers to the directional
("toward-deictic-center") component of the meaning, but may either add
fact-of-motion to non-motion verbs, or may be purely directional in
combination with motion verbs. This varies by language.

When writing my chapter in the recent AM volume, I considered the possible
relationship between AM and fact-of-motion (and between AM and
directionals), with implications for the idea that there might be a
category of "motion" verbs in a language. This is briefly discussed on
p.68, but unfortunately available descriptions of the languages did not
make it entirely clear what happens with AM combines with non-motion verbs,
so I wasn't able to establish a full typology.

Ross, Daniel. 2021. A cross-linguistic survey of Associated Motion and
Directionals. In Antoine Guillaume & Harold Koch (eds.), *Associated Motion*,
31–86. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110692099-002

In principle, there should be a three-way typology of possible
relationships between AM and motion verbs:
1. AM morphemes function as AM when combined with motion verbs, so a
ventive would mean "come and EAT" or "come and run" (i.e. arrive from
elsewhere, then run here, such as around a field).
2. AM morphemes function as directionals when combined with motion verbs,
so a ventive might mean either "come and EAT" (non-motion verb) or "RUN
toward the deictic center" (motion verb).
3. AM morphemes cannot combine with motion verbs at all, so that there is
no ventive form for "run" at all, or there may be a separate set of
directional morphemes in the language, distinct from and not overlapping
with AM.

Type 1 and Type 2 are well-attested (or at least there is overlap of this
type in some languages). Type 3 is harder to identify with confidence
(based on available descriptions), but it is certainly my impression that
some languages tend to avoid AM forms of motion verbs (perhaps because
meanings like "come and run" are unusual, so they would be infrequent, if
not ungrammatical).

Thus if this typology is correct, languages with consistent Type 2 or Type
3 systems would suggest some kind of lexical distinction between motion
verbs and non-motion verbs. I would like to investigate this possible
distinction more, but I think it would require additional documentation of
languages to see whether such a distinction is fully consistent in any
language or just a tendency. But that is as close as I can imagine to a
grammatical contrast between motion and non-motion verbs.

As an aside, I have been wondering about whether manner verbs like "run"
(for example) are truly motion verbs, in the sense that they necessarily
predicate fact-of-motion. If we think of exercising on a treadmill, we can
say "I ran in place without moving", where it seems like "run" refers to a
bodily motion (moving legs, moving arms, bouncing up and down, etc.) but
not strictly translational motion of the person from one place to another.
Similarly, birds can "fly" into the wind without changing position. So in
that sense, I would also question what exactly it means to be a "motion
verb". Of course verbs like "run" and "fly" will readily combine with other
components of motion events, at least in many languages, although I believe
there are some languages where a directional morpheme or serial verb
construction, etc., would be typically used to reinforce motion from one
place to another, i.e. "run go (to) store" rather than just "run (to)
store". (That kind of pattern seems typical of some creoles, for example,
but it's hard to be certain about precisely the fact-of-motion status of
"run" without specific investigation.) In short, the relationship between
AM and directional morphemes is complicated, and they may overlap in
different ways depending on what we assume regarding predication of
fact-of-motion for different "motion" verbs.

I hope that's helpful!
Daniel

On Mon, Jun 6, 2022 at 1:02 PM Guillaume Jacques <rgyalrongskad at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Dear Sergey,
>
> By "translational motion", Guillaume simply means "spatial
> displacement/change of location" (the deixis can be trans- or
> cis-locative). Akkadian has a ventive morpheme which indeed seems to have
> some associated motion uses, though it should be classified as a
> *non-dedicated* AM marker.
>
> Le lun. 6 juin 2022 à 19:03, Sergey Loesov <sergeloesov at gmail.com> a
> écrit :
>
>> Dear Guillaume,
>>
>> Thanks a lot, this message of yours is important for my research into
>> verbal allative markers in Old Babylonian Akkadian!
>>
>> Is *translational motion *same as translocation motion?
>>
>> Best,
>>
>> Sergey
>>
>> On Mon, 6 Jun 2022 at 18:56, Guillaume Jacques <rgyalrongskad at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> I think that any definition of a motion verb should take into account
>>> the concept of *associated motion*, about which a collective book
>>> edited by Harold Koch and Antoine Guillaume was published last year.  A.
>>> Guillaume's (2016) definition of AM is the following: "An AM marker is a
>>> grammatical morpheme that is associated with the verb and that has among
>>> its possible functions the coding of translational motion." The notion of *translational
>>> motion* seems to me useful to define motion verbs too (as opposed to
>>> motion involving part of the body, for instance).
>>>
>>> In addition, a non-motion verb taking an associated motion marker is
>>> turned into a motion verb, so that languages with grammaticalized AM have
>>> an open class of motion verbs.
>>>
>>>
>>> Reference
>>> Guillaume, Antoine 2016 Associated motion in South America: Typological
>>> and areal perspectives. Linguistic Typology, De Gruyter, 2016, 20 (1),
>>> ⟨10.1515/lingty-2016-0003⟩. ⟨halshs-01918336⟩
>>> Guillaume, Antoine and Harold Koch 2021. Associated Motion. Berlin:
>>> Mouton de Gruyter.
>>>
>>> Le lun. 6 juin 2022 à 16:36, Juergen Bohnemeyer <jb77 at buffalo.edu> a
>>> écrit :
>>>
>>>> Dear Sergey — Interesting question! I don’t think there’s anything in
>>>> the grammar of most languages that corresponds to or expresses the concept
>>>> of ‘motion.’
>>>>
>>>> The various subclasses of motion verbs can be defined on semantic
>>>> grounds: path verbs entail change of location; manner verbs describe
>>>> activities of agents/effectors that can cause change of location or
>>>> describe change of orientation in those same agents/effectors; transport
>>>> verbs are either causative path verbs or locate an object on a carrier
>>>> (‘carry on back’, ‘carry on hip’, etc.), and so on.
>>>>
>>>> But there’s no overarching definition that would encompass all those
>>>> subclasses, but no events that don’t involve motion. So a definition such
>>>> as ’The class of all verbs of a given language that is used to describe
>>>> exclusively motion events’ can at best be met disjunctively and thus
>>>> doesn’t define the most “natural” concept.
>>>>
>>>> The supposedly primitive concept ‘motion’ apparently just isn’t.
>>>>
>>>> An important reference on the typology of motion verbs is Wälchli
>>>> (2009).
>>>>
>>>> HTH! — Juergen
>>>>
>>>> Wälchli, B. (2009). Motion events in parallel texts: A study in
>>>> primary-data typology. Habilitation thesis, University of Bern.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> > On Jun 6, 2022, at 9:50 AM, Sergey Loesov <sergeloesov at gmail.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>> >
>>>> > Dear colleagues,
>>>> >
>>>> >  How do we properly define the concept “motion verb”? I am especially
>>>> interested in the telic variety, both transitive and intransitive ones.
>>>> >
>>>> >  Best wishes,
>>>> >
>>>> >
>>>> > Sergey
>>>> >
>>>> > _______________________________________________
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>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Juergen Bohnemeyer (He/Him)
>>>> Professor, Department of Linguistics
>>>> University at Buffalo
>>>>
>>>> Office: 642 Baldy Hall, UB North Campus
>>>> Mailing address: 609 Baldy Hall, Buffalo, NY 14260
>>>> Phone: (716) 645 0127
>>>> Fax: (716) 645 3825
>>>> Email: jb77 at buffalo.edu
>>>> Web: http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jb77/
>>>>
>>>> Office hours Tu/Th 2:30-3:30pm in 642 Baldy or via Zoom (Meeting ID 585
>>>> 520 2411; Passcode Hoorheh)
>>>>
>>>> There’s A Crack In Everything - That’s How The Light Gets In
>>>> (Leonard Cohen)
>>>>
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>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Guillaume Jacques
>>>
>>> Directeur de recherches
>>> CNRS (CRLAO) - EPHE- INALCO
>>> https://scholar.google.fr/citations?user=1XCp2-oAAAAJ&hl=fr
>>> https://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/295
>>> <http://cnrs.academia.edu/GuillaumeJacques>
>>> http://panchr.hypotheses.org/
>>>
>>
>
> --
> Guillaume Jacques
>
> Directeur de recherches
> CNRS (CRLAO) - EPHE- INALCO
> https://scholar.google.fr/citations?user=1XCp2-oAAAAJ&hl=fr
> https://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/295
> <http://cnrs.academia.edu/GuillaumeJacques>
> http://panchr.hypotheses.org/
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