Lexicalization patterns in Japanese motion verbs and its influence on cognition
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23 May 2017
10:00 AM – 11:30 AM - posluchárna B2.13, FF MU, Arna Nováka 1, 60200 Brno
Open lecture of Prof. Mucumi IMAI (Keio University, Tokyo). The lecture will be held in English.
Motion verbs in various languages differ in the features of the action-motion they reflect. Talmy (1976, 1985) suggests that the main features a verb lexicalizes are figure, ground, manner and path. Also, he hypothesizes, languages vary in terms of which of these features are expressed by the verb and which are expressed by “satellites” (e.g. prepositional phrases etc.). Talmy observes that for verbs in various languages, manner and path are the easiest features to be reflected, and that there is a tendency to be indifferent towards the ground of a movement. Japanese is said to be a language with verbs expressing mainly directionality and path of a movement, but there are also verbs like tōru, koeru, nukeru or wataru that contain also information about the ground within their meaning. Manner of movement is in Japanese often expressed by onomatopoeia.
In this lecture we will be dealing with events of motion from the perspective of the four aforementioned features and consider 1) verbs expressing directionality, such as deru, hairu, agaru, oriru etc., verbs containing the feature of ground, such as tōru, nukeru, kosu, and some of their related syntactic limitations; 2) universal cognitive tendencies in construal of a movement; 3) acquisition of these lexicalizations by children in their native tongue and 4) the relationship between the verbal semantic structure and the perception.
- Organized by
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Department of Japanese Studies (Faculty of Arts)
- Responsibility
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Mgr. Jiří Matela, M.A., Ph.D.