New Approaches to Slavic Verbs of Motion

This volume unifies a wide breadth of interdisciplinary studies examining the expression of motion in Slavic languages. The contributors to the volume have joined in the discussion of Slavic motion talk from diachronic, typological, comparative, cognitive, and acquisitional perspectives with a particular focus on verbs of motion, the nuclei of the lexicalization patterns for encoding motion. Motion verbs are notorious among Slavic linguists for their baffling idiosyncratic behavior in their lexical, semantic, syntactical, and aspectual characteristics. The collaborative effort of this volume is aimed both at highlighting and accounting for the unique properties of Slavic verbs of motion and at situating Slavic languages within the larger framework of typological research investigating cross-linguistic encoding of the motion domain. Due to the multiplicity of approaches to the linguistic analysis the collection offers, it will suitably complement courses and programs of study focusing on Slavic linguistics as well as typology, diachronic and comparative linguistics, semantics, and second language acquisition.

Thomas J. Garza, University of Texas at Austin, in Slavic and East European Journal 56(1):144 - 145. (2012):
The fifteen essays that comprise New Approaches to Slavic Verbs of Motion make up a unique and engaging conversation on the subject of this important, yet highly idiosyncratic grammatico-lexical verbal group. This valuable volume goes well beyond any conventional study on the subject, and it makes a substantial contribution with its original, innovative, and comparative studies that truly are, as the co-editors contend, interdisciplinary. The contributors bring together analyses in Slavic languages that include Russian, Polish, Serbo-Croatian, Old Church Slavonic, and Early Russian, as well several other non-Slavic languages for comparison. The end product is an innovative, interdisciplinary, and intelligent compilation of relevant and useful essays that should be required reading for every Slavic linguist and anyone interested in teaching, learning, or understanding Slavic verbs of motion.