Traci S. LINDSEY (University of California, Berkeley)
The balkanization of motion verbs
According to Talmy, verbal lexicalization patterns indicate a typology in which
most languages can be categorized as either verb-framed and low-manner languages,
such as Spanish, Hebrew, and Turkish, or satellite-framed and high-manner languages,
such as English and German, depending on the range of meaning their motion verbs
typically express. The division is based on whether the verbs express the direction/path of
motion, typically with minimal indication of the manner of motion, or whether they focus
on the manner of motion, with the path of motion being relegated to a secondary element,
commonly a preposition or prefix. Among those who have expanded on Talmy’s theory
is Slobin, who has contributed Slavic and Turkish data. In subsequent research on motion
verb typology, “Slavic” is referred to as a satellite-framed and high manner language
family; many conclusions drawn, however, seem to be based on Russian. As the Balkan
South Slavic languages diverge from other Slavic languages in a number of ways, though,
manner of motion in Slavic languages as a whole cannot be conclusively discussed
without considering evidence from Bulgarian and/or Macedonian. For example, Slobin
states that Slavic languages have no independent “come” verb and hence must use a
manner verb for ‘come’, but this does not hold true for Bulgarian: the Bulgarian aspect
pair идвам/дойда, meaning ‘come’, may be used where Russian would use прийти
‘come [on foot]’, приехать ‘come [by vehicle]’, прилететь ‘come [by means of
flight]’, and so on, depending on exact means of motion. This alone suggests that the
possibilities for describing motion in Bulgarian vary from those in Russian and
demonstrates the need to study manner verbs in Bulgarian.
Furthermore, research indicates that manner in motion cannot simply be classified
as “high” or “low,” and “satellite-framed” or “verb-framed,” but rather that it exists along
a cline: Within a language family, some languages will show greater or lesser manner in
motion or degrees of typical path framing than others. Research has demonstrated that
Italian, perhaps through contact with German, makes greater use of directional adverbs
with both path and manner verbs than other Romance languages; similar tendencies have
been shown for Brussels French through Dutch contact, as well as for Romance-German
contact-induced convergence in Switzerland. Thus, it would not be surprising to find
decreased manner salience in Bulgarian, as well as increased manner salience in
Romanian, attributable to Balkan contact phenomena.
I am looking at the system of motion verbs in Bulgarian, with particular attention
to how the Bulgarian system differs from other Slavic language systems, and whether the
Bulgarian system has developed in a direction attributeable to contact phenomena with
Turkish and Romanian (both low-manner motion verb languages). Particular areas of
focus are the prefixation of Bulgarian motion verbs and how this differs from other Slavic
systems, and the existence and development of manner-neutral motion verbs in
Bulgarian. My research uses literary texts, as well as oral narratives I am collecting in
Bulgaria. Through this work I hope to contribute both to the understanding of the
Bulgarian verbal system and to the understanding of the extent to which a motion-verb
typology can be utilized as a measure of areal convergence and genetic stability in the
Balkan Sprachbund.
Slobin, Dan I. 2003. The many ways to search for a frog: Linguistic typology and the expression
of motion events. In S. Strömqvist and L. Verhoeven, eds., Relating Events in Narrative:
Typological and Contextual Perspectives. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Talmy, Leonard. (1985). Lexicalization patterns: Semantic structure in lexical forms. In T.
Shopen (Ed.), Language typology and syntactic description: Vol. 3. Grammatical
caetgories and the lexicon (pp. 36-149). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.