Take it up, down, and away
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Loretta O’Connor
Abstract
This paper offers a structural and semantic analysis of expressions of caused motion in Lowland Chontal of Oaxaca, an indigenous language of southern Mexico. The data were collected using a video stimulus designed to elicit a wide range of caused motion event descriptions. The most frequent event types in the corpus depict caused motion to and from relations of support and containment, fundamental notions in the description of spatial relations between two entities and critical semantic components of the linguistic encoding of caused motion in this language. Formal features of verbal construction type and argument realization are examined by sorting event descriptions into semantic types of placement and removal, to and from support and to and from containment. Together with typological factors that shape the distribution of spatial semantics and referent expression, separate treatments of support and containment relations serve to clarify notable asymmetries in patterns of predicate type and argument realization.
Abstract
This paper offers a structural and semantic analysis of expressions of caused motion in Lowland Chontal of Oaxaca, an indigenous language of southern Mexico. The data were collected using a video stimulus designed to elicit a wide range of caused motion event descriptions. The most frequent event types in the corpus depict caused motion to and from relations of support and containment, fundamental notions in the description of spatial relations between two entities and critical semantic components of the linguistic encoding of caused motion in this language. Formal features of verbal construction type and argument realization are examined by sorting event descriptions into semantic types of placement and removal, to and from support and to and from containment. Together with typological factors that shape the distribution of spatial semantics and referent expression, separate treatments of support and containment relations serve to clarify notable asymmetries in patterns of predicate type and argument realization.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Contributors ix
- Preface xi
- Putting and taking events 1
-
Part I. Lexical semantics
- The linguistic encoding of placement and removal events in Jahai 21
- “She from bookshelf take-descend-come the box” 37
- To ‘put’ or to ‘take’? 55
- The encoding of placement and removal events in ǂĀkhoe Haiǁom 79
- The semantics of placement and removal predicates in Moroccan Arabic 99
- Placement and removal events in Basque and Spanish 123
- On the use of PUT Verbs by multilingual speakers of Romansh 145
- Probing the linguistic encoding of placement and removal events in Swedish 167
- The semantic role of agentive control in Hungarian placement events 183
- Putting and Taking in Tamil and Hindi 201
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Part II. (A)symmetries in encoding placement vs. removal events
- The Thaayorre lexicon of putting and taking 233
- The expression of ‘putting’ and ‘taking’ events in Japanese 253
- Put and Take in Yélî Dnye, the Papuan language of Rossel Island 273
- Take it up, down, and away 297
- Semantic granularity of placement and removal expressions in Polish 327
- How to put and take in Kalasha 349
- Language index 367
- Subject index 369
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Contributors ix
- Preface xi
- Putting and taking events 1
-
Part I. Lexical semantics
- The linguistic encoding of placement and removal events in Jahai 21
- “She from bookshelf take-descend-come the box” 37
- To ‘put’ or to ‘take’? 55
- The encoding of placement and removal events in ǂĀkhoe Haiǁom 79
- The semantics of placement and removal predicates in Moroccan Arabic 99
- Placement and removal events in Basque and Spanish 123
- On the use of PUT Verbs by multilingual speakers of Romansh 145
- Probing the linguistic encoding of placement and removal events in Swedish 167
- The semantic role of agentive control in Hungarian placement events 183
- Putting and Taking in Tamil and Hindi 201
-
Part II. (A)symmetries in encoding placement vs. removal events
- The Thaayorre lexicon of putting and taking 233
- The expression of ‘putting’ and ‘taking’ events in Japanese 253
- Put and Take in Yélî Dnye, the Papuan language of Rossel Island 273
- Take it up, down, and away 297
- Semantic granularity of placement and removal expressions in Polish 327
- How to put and take in Kalasha 349
- Language index 367
- Subject index 369
