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Fictive motion in French

Where do the data lead?

Abstract

This chapter reports the results of a corpus study on fictive motion (the use of motion verbs to describe motionless scenes) in French, carried out to investigate some proposals made by Langacker, Matlock, Matsumoto, and Talmy regarding this topic. The 589 attested utterances collected show that fictive motion involves more verbs and entities than is generally assumed. The suggested explanations draw on Aurnague’s semantic analysis of motion verbs and Vandeloise’s account of the meaning of spatial markers in terms of force dynamics and functional properties. The phenomenon is also analyzed in its discursive context, with a presentation of some properties of the “discourse mode” in which fictive motion expressions appear.

Abstract

This chapter reports the results of a corpus study on fictive motion (the use of motion verbs to describe motionless scenes) in French, carried out to investigate some proposals made by Langacker, Matlock, Matsumoto, and Talmy regarding this topic. The 589 attested utterances collected show that fictive motion involves more verbs and entities than is generally assumed. The suggested explanations draw on Aurnague’s semantic analysis of motion verbs and Vandeloise’s account of the meaning of spatial markers in terms of force dynamics and functional properties. The phenomenon is also analyzed in its discursive context, with a presentation of some properties of the “discourse mode” in which fictive motion expressions appear.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Contributors vii
  4. Acknowledgments ix
  5. Recent advances in the study of motion in French 1
  6. Part I. Arguments, modifiers, asymmetry of motion
  7. About asymmetry of motion in French 31
  8. French motion verbs 67
  9. From il s’envole hors to il sort du nid 109
  10. Part II. Manner of motion and fictive motion
  11. Manner as a cluster concept 141
  12. Motion verbs and evaluative morphology 179
  13. Fictive motion in French 217
  14. Part III. Psycholinguistic issues
  15. Casting an eye on motion events 249
  16. Structure of French expression of motion 289
  17. Part IV. Formal and computational aspects of motion-based narrations
  18. A computational account of virtual travelers in the Montagovian generative lexicon 323
  19. Geoparsing and geocoding places in a dynamic space context 353
  20. Subject index 387
The Semantics of Dynamic Space in French
This chapter is in the book The Semantics of Dynamic Space in French
https://doi.org/10.1075/hcp.66.06cap

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Contributors vii
  4. Acknowledgments ix
  5. Recent advances in the study of motion in French 1
  6. Part I. Arguments, modifiers, asymmetry of motion
  7. About asymmetry of motion in French 31
  8. French motion verbs 67
  9. From il s’envole hors to il sort du nid 109
  10. Part II. Manner of motion and fictive motion
  11. Manner as a cluster concept 141
  12. Motion verbs and evaluative morphology 179
  13. Fictive motion in French 217
  14. Part III. Psycholinguistic issues
  15. Casting an eye on motion events 249
  16. Structure of French expression of motion 289
  17. Part IV. Formal and computational aspects of motion-based narrations
  18. A computational account of virtual travelers in the Montagovian generative lexicon 323
  19. Geoparsing and geocoding places in a dynamic space context 353
  20. Subject index 387
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