Motion in Toposa: is Toposa a verb frame or satellite frame language?
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Helga Schröder
Helga Schrӧder received her Ph.D. from the University of Nairobi, Kenya, where she is currently senior lecturer in the Department of Linguistics and Languages. She is also a member of SIL International, an organization for which she does extensive consulting and conducts workshops in the area of morpho-syntax and discourse of African languages. Her research interests revolve around the morpho-syntax-discourse features of African languages and their interface with pragmatics. She has published internationally in linguistic journals and volumes and has been working on ergativity, antipassive, clause chaining and pragmatics in Nilotic languages. Lately she has started research on various issues in the cognitive approach to grammar of space particularly in Nilotic languages.
Abstract
The goal of this paper is to discuss motion events in Toposa, an Eastern Nilotic language of South Sudan in the light of Talmy’s (1985) dichotomy of verb frame (V) and satellite frame (S) languages. The paper will demonstrate that Toposa is a typical verb-framed language that conflates the path of the motion event into the verb root. In addition, it will show that in line with the lack of prepositions found in the language, Toposa developed a hybrid frame where manner of motion and path of motion are lexicalised. This hybrid frame can be regarded as a new category for the classification of motion events, as it also does not fit into the double framing or equipollent framing category of motion events, suggested by Slobin (2003) and Croft et al. (2010).
About the author
Helga Schrӧder received her Ph.D. from the University of Nairobi, Kenya, where she is currently senior lecturer in the Department of Linguistics and Languages. She is also a member of SIL International, an organization for which she does extensive consulting and conducts workshops in the area of morpho-syntax and discourse of African languages. Her research interests revolve around the morpho-syntax-discourse features of African languages and their interface with pragmatics. She has published internationally in linguistic journals and volumes and has been working on ergativity, antipassive, clause chaining and pragmatics in Nilotic languages. Lately she has started research on various issues in the cognitive approach to grammar of space particularly in Nilotic languages.
Appendix
Abbreviations
- 1P
first person
- 3P
third person
- ABL
ablative
- ALL
allative
- BEN
benefactive
- DIM
diminutive DIS discourse marker
- DEP
dependency marker
- F
feminine
- IMP
imperfect
- INF
infinitive
- LOC
locative case
- M
masculine
- MID
middle voice
- PAS
passive
- PER
perfective
- PL
plural
- RLF
reflexive
- SG
singular
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