Abstract
The expression of manner has been extensively studied in the case of motion event descriptions, unveiling significant typological differences between satellite-framed and verb-framed ...languages and cognitive differences between speakers of these languages. However, far from being restricted to this semantic domain, the expression of manner extends to other types of event descriptions and across virtually all verb classes. In this paper, by considering all the means of expressing manner and grounding our research in a domain-independent definition of this component, we investigate the expression and the transfer of manner under high cognitive pressure as evidenced by corpus data from French–English (FE) and English–French (EF) simultaneous interpreting. Unexpectedly, both French and English displayed an overall cross-domain preference for the verbal-lexical coding of manner in event descriptions, while still differing in the degree to which it was favored. In addition, although our study does not allow a direct measure of cognitive load, the FE interpreters transfer more manner from the source to the target speeches than the EF interpreters do, despite high pressure on cognitive resources, supporting the claim that manner can be cognitively more salient and accessible for English than for French speakers, not only in the domain of motion but also at a more general level, potentially in any semantic domain.
Complex Adpositions in European Languages Benjamin Fagard, José Pinto de Lima, Dejan Stosic, Elena Smirnova / Benjamin Fagard, José Pinto de Lima, Dejan Stosic, Elena Smirnova
2020, 2020-10-26, Volume:
65
eBook, Book
While much attention has been devoted to simple nominal relators, especially prepositions and case markers, complex nominal relators have not yet been the focus of a systematic and cross-linguistic ...study. The chapters of this volume provide not only a working definition of such constructions, but also a description of complex adpositions and other complex nominal relators in a variety of European languages, both Indo-European and non-Indo-European, including some languages for which this phenomenon had received little attention, such as Breton and Albanian. Building on synchronic and diachronic corpus-based investigations, the authors show commonalities and specificities of these linguistic items across languages, trying to explain why and how they emerged. The research presented in this volume confirms the wide-spread use of complex adpositions in Europe, and the data reviewed in the final discussion suggests it might be the same in other parts of the world, as well. This book thus offers not only detailed descriptions of complex nominal relators in fifteen languages, but also indications of what to look for in other languages, and how to distinguish between a syntactically free sequence and a genuine complex nominal relator.
In this paper we propose to put to the test an onomasiological approach of the notion of manner with attested data. This research is in line with Moline et Stosic (2016), who define manner as a ...complex semantic notion which, in French, can be expressed through syntactic, lexical, morphological, grammatical and prosodic means. The way these manner-encoding means are represented and exploited in spontaneous attested speech have never been empirically investigated in French. Therefore, we have worked thoroughly to identify all forms of expression of manner cited above (except from prosody) in two different corpora: a novel by JMG Le Clézio and a corpus of motion instructions uttered during four contemporary dance lessons. Three specific goals are pursued: the first is the establishment of a more fine-grained analysis grid for the study of manner expression in discourse; the second consists in quantifying the spontaneous use of the different possibilities for expressing manner that are offered by the language system; the third is to compare the expression of manner between two different genres, namely fiction and contemporary dance instructions.
Dans cet article, nous nous proposons de mettre à l’épreuve des données une approche onomasiologique du concept sémantique de manière. Les recherches présentées s’inscrivent dans le prolongement de Moline et Stosic (2016) qui définissent la manière comme une notion sémantique complexe susceptible d’être exprimée en français par des moyens syntaxiques, lexicaux, morphologiques, grammaticaux et prosodiques. L’exploitation et la représentativité de ces différents modes de codage de la manière dans des productions langagières attestées en discours n’ont jamais été examinées empiriquement en français. C’est pourquoi nous avons cherché à identifier de façon rigoureuse tous les moyens d’expression de la manière (excepté le dernier type cité) dans deux corpus différents : un roman de JMG Le Clézio et un corpus d’instructions de danse contemporaine. Trois objectifs plus spécifiques sont poursuivis : le premier consiste à commencer à élaborer une grille d’analyse plus fine pour l’étude de l’expression de la manière en discours, le deuxième, à quantifier le recours en discours aux différentes possibilités d’encodage de la manière offertes par le système de la langue et le troisième consiste à examiner les différences dans le codage de la manière entre les deux genres discursifs que sont la fiction et les instructions de danse contemporaine.
The aim of this paper is to investigate what makes some nouns belong both to the class of shell nouns (Schmid 2000, Legallois 2006) and to the class of ideality nouns (Flaux & Stosic 2015) (e.g. ...proposition, idea, hypothesis). Following a general overview of the main properties of these nominal classes and of their relative subdivision, we highlight their common features in order to delimit firstly the extent of their overlapping, and secondly the key factors which cause the dual membership at issue. Special attention is paid to the capacity of such nouns to allow propositional complements. With regard to the latter, we show that the range of specificational constructions in French is much broader than what is usually found in work dealing with shell nouns. This is all the more important not only to precisely delineate the extent of the intersection between shell and ideality nouns but also to refine the definition of the notion of under-specification and to better understand why some nouns pattern with propositional complements.shell nouns, ideality nouns, nominal lexicon, specification, propositional complementation
Dans cet article, nous nous proposons d’analyser la notion sémantique de manière dans trois genres discursifs : un corpus journalistique issu du Monde Diplomatique, un échantillon du roman Étoile ...errante de Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio et un corpus de consignes chorégraphiques énoncées dans quatre leçons de danse contemporaine. Ce travail adopte une approche onomasiologique de la manière, définie, à la suite de Moline & Stosic (2016), comme une notion sémantique complexe opérant une diversification qualitative des procès, états et qualités et susceptible d’être exprimée en français par des moyens syntaxiques, lexicaux, morphologiques, grammaticaux et prosodiques. En prolongeant les recherches présentées dans Minoccheri et Stosic (2022), cet article a pour objectif d’examiner empiriquement le recours aux différents modes d’encodage de la manière (excepté la prosodie) dans des productions linguistiques attestées issues de genres, contextes et modalités différents. Pour ce faire, les données sont étudiées des points de vue sémantique et syntaxique au moyen de la grille d’analyse introduite par Minoccheri et Stosic (2022), enrichie et affinée aux fins de la présente étude. Les trois corpus constitués sont contrastés afin d’examiner les différences dans le codage de la manière en français au travers de trois genres discursifs: la presse écrite, la fiction littéraire et le discours procédural de la danse contemporaine. Grâce à la diversité des données analysées, la notion de manière, abondamment étudiée dans le domaine spatial (dans la lignée de Talmy, 2000), est abordée ici avec une grille d’analyse affinée, mais aussi au travers de nombreux autres domaines sémantico-conceptuels (communication, interactions sociales, psychisme, etc.).
Research on the semantics of spatial markers in French is known mainly through Vandeloise's (1986, 1991) work on static prepositions. However, interest in the expression of space in French goes back ...to the mid-1970s and focused first on verbs denoting changes in space, whose syntactic properties were related to specific semantic distinctions, such as the opposition between "movement" and "displacement". This volume provides an overview of recent studies on the semantics of dynamic space in French and addresses important questions about motion expression, among which "goal bias" and asymmetry of motion, the status of locative PPs, the expression of manner, fictive or non-actual motion. Descriptive, experimental and formal or computational analyses are presented, providing complementary perspectives on the main issue. The volume is intended for researchers and advanced students wishing to learn about both spatial semantics in French and recent debates on the representation of motion events in language and cognition.
Several works inspired by Talmy’s typology provided a very complete survey and description of various kinds of linguistic elements and strategies across languages for expressing two basic components ...of motion events: path and manner. This research has mainly focused on lexical and syntactic means of expressing path and manner and how these elements are combined in a single clause. Morphological means are mentioned when talking about encoding the path of motion but hardly ever when studying the expression of manner. This article shows that some languages widely use many affixational and non-affixational processes of “evaluative” and “pluractional” morphology to express manner (e.g., Serbian "leteti" ‘to fly’ > "letuckati" ‘to flutter’, Zoque "wit" ‘to walk’ > "witwitnay" ‘to walk aimlessly’). This research mainly focuses on data from Serbian, but also offers a comparative perspective to highlight the widespread use of such morphological means in encoding manner. It pays particular attention to the role of morphology in the linguistic expression of manner in the semantic domain of motion.
In this paper, we analyse the morpho-syntactic and semantic functioning of the expression en passant par in French, in synchrony as well as in diachrony (1500-2011). A corpus-based study brings ...clearly out two very different behaviours of this expression respectively in the sixteenth century and in Modern French. All differences revealed by our analysis suggest an obvious evolution that results in a coexistence in contemporary French of a free construction corresponding to the gerund of the verb passer ‘to pass’ followed by a PP in par (e.g. J’ai vu une boulangerie en passant par cette rue) with the non compositional expression en passant par, similar in many ways to prepositions (e.g. Il a tout lu de Montaigne à Gary en passant par Gautier et Balzac). Neither lexicographers nor linguists acknowledge this prepositional status of en passant par. In order to explain this double behaviour of en passant par in Modern French, we study the hypothesis of an ongoing grammaticalization, and test it on the basis of data drawn from written literary and journalistic texts. More generally, this study brings to the fore the semantic and functional consequences of the categorial change that currently affects the gerund of the motion verb passer in French when followed by par.
After a wealth of studies on motion event descriptions, it seems hard to say something new: the Verb-framed/Satellite-framed typology proposed by Talmy has spawned a long debate. Among other things, ...previous work has shown within-type variation for one of the two language types defined by Talmy, namely Verb-framed languages. In this paper, we address this debate, showing within-type variation for the other type, Satellite-framed languages, with new data elicited from native speakers of Serbian. In order to do so, we compare it with five other languages, from three Indo-European language families (Romance, Germanic and Slavic). Our data show that Serbian is a particularly interesting case, since it is structurally Satellite-framed, but behaves like Verb-framed languages in that speakers do not always express manner and path jointly (i.e. manner in the verb and path in the satellite), as expected on the basis of Talmy’s typology. The main result of our paper is thus that there is a good deal of within-type variation for both language types identified by Talmy.
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