[Lingtyp] motion verbs

[Guillaume Jacques]

> 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".
>

Good point ! The example with birds stopping in the wind is particularly
appropriate; we could also think of hummingbirds, or insects that are able
to do static flight to collect flower nectar.


>  would be typically used to reinforce motion from one place to another,
> i.e. "run go (to) store" rather than just "run (to) store".
>

In cases like this however, the use of "go" might be rather to express
deixis (run go vs. run come, as in  Chinese 跑去 vs. 跑来), since "run" is
generally deixis-neutral.


-- 
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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