Expressions of Location and Directed Motion: Fourth questionnaire, Wordy
version by Peter Svenonius, CASTL, University of Tromsø.
This is a part of a cross-linguistic survey of expressions of spatial relations. Your
collaboration is appreciated.
Below you will find several sentences and some questions about them. The most
useful responses will include a glossed translation of some of the numbered sentence
into your native language, together with comments. If you type your examples
directly into the Word document, please use the short version if possible, since it
doesn’t contain as much distracting text.
I. MOTION WITH MANNER OF MOTION VERBS, AGENTIVE
We want to know whether basic locative expressions can combine with verbs that
describe manners of motion.
For example, in English the following verbs can describe motion in a particular
manner.
1. Mary walked.
2. She ran.
3. The lizard crawled.
4. The bird flew.
5. The fish swam.
6. The boat sailed.
7. The monkey climbed.
8. The snake slithered.
All of these can combine with a goal phrase, in English.
9. Mary walked to the office.
10. She ran to the classroom.
11. The lizard crawled to the hole.
12. The bird flew to the tree.
13. The fish swam to the bridge.
14. The boat sailed to the pier.
15. The monkey climbed to the mango.
16. The snake slithered to the door.
Many languages resist this kind of direct combination, and prefer to add a verb like
go, expressing (9-16) as something like Mary went to the office, walking, or Mary
went walking to the office.
Q4.1: Is your language like or unlike English, in this respect? Can you translate (916) into your language? If your language has no natural equivalent for some of the
sentences in (9-16), please translate the corresponding sentence in (1-8), and indicate
that the goal phrase cannot be naturally added.
II MOTION WITH MANNER OF MOTION, NON-AGENTIVE
Another set of motion descriptions is the following.
17. The ball bounced.
18. The log rolled.
19. The rock tumbled.
20. The car slid.
21. The boat sank.
22. The bag floated.
23. The top spun.
In English, again, these can easily be used in motion descriptions.
24. The ball bounced over the wall.
25. The log rolled into the street.
26. The rock tumbled onto the car.
20. The car slid off the road.
21. The boat sank to the bottom of the lake.
22. The bag floated along the river.
23. The top spun behind the couch.
Q4.2: Are such combinations possible in your language? Please provide examples.
III LOCATIVE/DIRECTIONAL AMBIGUITY
In the following English sentence, there is an ambiguity, between a locative reading
and a goal or directional reading. On the locative reading, the bird flew, and that
occurred over the lake. On the goal reading, the bird started out somewhere else, and
wound up over the lake. In many languages the goal reading is impossible here.
24. The bird flew over the lake.
The two readings can be disambiguated with a temporal expression.
25. The bird flew over the lake for five minutes.
26. The bird flew over the lake in five minutes.
In (25), only the locative reading is natural: the bird flew in the area above the lake
for a duration of five minutes. In (26), only the goal reading is natural; it means that
the bird started somewhere else, and it took the bird five minutes to get to the space
over the lake.
Q4.3: Please translate (25-26), and comment on whether the directional reading is
possible in your language.
IV. DIFFERENT LOCATIVE EXPRESSIONS WITH MANNER OF MOTION VERBS
All of the following English sentences are ambiguous in the same way as (24) (each
example compresses six distinct sentences).
27. The monkey {walked/ran/crawled/swam/flew/climbed} in front of the house.
28. He {walked/ran/crawled/swam/flew/climbed} behind the house.
29. He {walked/ran/crawled/swam/flew/climbed} beside the house.
30. He {walked/ran/crawled/swam/flew/climbed} to the {left/right} of the house.
31. He {walked/ran/crawled/swam/flew/climbed} to the {north/east/south/west} of
the house.
32. He {walked/ran/crawled/swam/flew/climbed} inside the house.
33.He {walked/ran/crawled/swam/flew/climbed} outside the house.
34. He {walked/ran/crawled/swam/flew/climbed} through the house.
35. He {walked/ran/crawled/swam/flew/climbed} under the bridge.
36. He {walked/ran/crawled/swam/flew/climbed} over the wall.
37. He {walked/ran/crawled/swam/flew/climbed} above the treetops.
38. He {walked/ran/crawled/swam/flew/climbed} below the streets.
Q4.4: Please comment on whether your language is different from English in this
respect, and provide examples.
V. ‘JUMP’ AND ‘FALL’
In many language, there are some verbs with meanings like ‘jump’ and ‘fall’ which
behave differently from ‘fly,’ ‘climb,’ ‘roll,’ and so on. In these languages, sentences
like the following might be acceptable on a directional reading even if many of the
above sentences are not.
39. John jumped in the lifeboat.
40. The coin fell in the hole.
Compare these to the following.
41. John crawled in the lifeboat.
42. The coin rolled in the hole.
In many languages, the equivalent of (40) could mean that the coin went into the hole,
but the equivalent of (42) could not.
Q4.5: Is there a contrast in behavior, in your language, between verbs meaning
‘jump’ or ‘fall’ and other descriptions of motion? Please give examples.
VI MOTION WITH NON-MOTION VERBS
In English, verbs like dance and float can combine with path descriptions to give
motional meanings.
43. Michael danced into the kitchen.
44. The bottle floated under the bridge.
That is, (43) can mean ‘Michael went into the kitchen by dancing’ and (44) can mean
‘the bottle went under the bridge by floating.’ In contrast, verbs like sing and shake
cannot have this meaning.
45. Mary sang into the kitchen.
46. The bottle shook under the couch.
Mary could go into the kitchen singing, but that event could not be described by (45).
Similarly, if the house were shaking, then a bottle could go under the couch because
of the shaking, but that event could not be described by (46). (46) has only a locative
meaning, and (45) means that Mary aimed her singing into the kitchen, not that she
moved there.
Compare the following.
47. Mary sang her way into the kitchen.
48. *?The bottle shook its way under the couch.
(47) is fine as a description of Mary moving into the kitchen, singing as she goes. But
(48) is strange, requiring the bottle to have a mind of its own.
Q4.6: How would you express motion accompanied by activities like shaking or
singing, in your language? Please provide examples.