Lexico-semantic groups of motion verbs in modern English

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Lexico-semantic groups of motion verbs in modern English

Lyubov Krainyk, Lecturer of the Foreign Languages Department

Lviv Polytechnic National University

Abstract

Verbs of motion represent a significant layer of verbs in the lexical system of English. Therefore, they often have been the subject of research in modern linguistics (J. Sternin, V. Levytsky Y. Apresian, D. Sobin, L. Talmy, B. Levin, C. Fillmore, etc.).

In the article, there have been studied the structural-semantic peculiarities of verbs of motion in English, in particular lexical-semantic groups of verbs of motion. However, we should take into consideration that the lexical system is dynamic; it is developing constantly which is characterized by the change of the old and the replenishment of new values. That is why the appeal to the traditional research material, along with the new scientific approaches, has always been relevant.

The article outlines a clear perspective on the object of the study, namely the principles of grouping verbs, as well as the definition of common and distinct components of verbs of motion. At the same time, proper attention is paid to the study of lexical-semantic peculiarities of verbs of motion studied by other outstanding linguists.

This article provides opportunities for using its results in teaching English, translation and other applied tasks.

Keywords: motion; lexico-semantic groups; lexical system; semantic components; grouping; semantic relations; common; distinct; manner of motion; features; spatial; domain; category.

Любов Крайник, викладач кафедри іноземних мов Національний університет "Львівська політехніка"

ЛЕКСИКО-СЕМАНТИЧНІ ГРУПИ ДІЄСЛІВ РУХУ В СУЧАСНІЙ АНГЛІЙСЬКІЙ МОВІ

Дієслова руху складають значний пласт дієслівної лексики англійської мови, тому неодноразово були предметом дослідження у сучасній лінгвістиці (Й. Стерніна, В. Левицького, Ю. Апресяна, D. Sobin, L. Talmy, B. Levin, Ch. Fillmore та ін.).

У статті детально вивчені структурно-семантичні особливості дієслів руху в англійській мові, зокрема лексико-семантичні групи дієслів руху. Проте, слід відзначити, що лексична система є динамічною, перебуває у постійному розвитку, характеризується зміною старих і поповненням нових значень. Саме тому, звернення до традиційного дослідницького матеріалу, разом із новими науковими підходами, не втрачає своєї актуальності.

Стаття окреслює чітку проблематику об'єкта дослідження, а саме принципи поділу дієслів руху на групи, а також визначення спільних та відмінних компонентів дієслів руху. При цьому, належна увага звертається на дослідження лексико-семантичних особливостей дієслів руху опрацьовані іншими відомими лінгвістами. semantic movement verbs

Ця стаття дає можливості використання її результатів у викладанні англійської мови, перекладацькій діяльності та інших прикладних завданнях.

Ключові слова: рух; лексико-семантичні групи; лексична система; семантичні компоненти; поділ на групи; семантичні зв 'язки; спільний; відмінний; спосіб руху; просторовий; домен; категорія.

Introduction

The article sets out to explore the lexico-semantic groups of the verbs of motion in modern English as part of a single lexico-semantic system of the English verb. In spite of the long history of study of the basic properties of the verbs of motion, they still remain poorly understood. The category of verbs of motion is very broad and complex. Thus, a considerable amount of research has been devoted to the classification and characterization of motion verbs. Quite few attempts have been made to investigate the verbs of motion in the semantic field and the lexical system of English.

Analysis of recent research and publications. Throughout the history of linguistics, scholars have always been interested in the semantic field of motion. The problem of identifying the lexico-semantic groups has been a subject of special interest. The issue of verbs of motion in modern English has been extensively studied in recent years. The interest in verbs of motion has been due to the necessity to determine the criteria which distinguish the verbs of motion from other verb classes.

The problem of verbs of motion in modern English has been explored by many researchers. The studies of the semantic field of motion were undertaken by Beth Levin in the 1990s. The other studies were completed by Leonard Talmy, Dan Sobin, Victor Levytskiy, Yosif Sternin, etc.

The aim is to present the results of the previous research concerning verbs of motion and investigate these verbs in terms of the lexical system of English. The task is to study and analyze the lexico-semantic groups of motion verbs, namely main principles of grouping words, common and distinct semantic components of motion.

Results

There are two main principles of grouping words together considering the properties of their content side [7]. The first principle is to classify words proceeding from the basic types of semantic relations. The second one is to group words together due to associations that connect the given words, namely motion verbs with other vocabulary units expressing "motion".

Words describing sides of one and the same general notion are united in a lexico-semantic group if 1) the underlying notion is not too generalized and all-embracing, like notions of "time", "space", "life", "process", etc.; 2) the reference to the underlying notion is not just an implication in the meaning of the lexical unit but forms an essential part in its semantics [1, 70].

So, it is possible to distinguish different lexico- semantic groups of words. In this article, we investigated the lexico-semantic group of verbs denoting `physical movement or motion', for example, the following verbs to go, to turn, to run, etc. belong to this lexico-semantic group.

In linguistics the term "motion verb" can be defined in different ways [2]. There is no single agreement on how to classify motion verbs in the groups. In this article, we included the verbs that express physical action of transference, shift, and displacement of objects which can be done by a person or nonperson.

The verbs like go, run, come, walk, etc. are considered to be the most frequently used motion verbs. The meanings of these verbs have a common feature and are distinct ones [8]. The common semantic component unites the verbs into groups expressing.

Having analyzed the semantic component of movement, we can divide all motion verbs into two large groups [5]:

1. The verbs whose basic meaning is motion: go, move, walk, run, come.

2. The verbs followed by spatial prepositions or postpositions: come into, go through, run away, walk around [6, 26].

According to Ray Jackendoff, it is quite difficult to single out the sets of components of motion in verbs as their content is rather wide.

Another reason is that some motion verbs can express a different idiosyncratic manner of motion, of a sort not easily decomposable into features. For example, it is hard to imagine features of the verb "wriggle", and that might distinguish it from other possible motion [3. p. 88].

In his work, Jackendoff mentions Peterson (1985) and explains why natural actions are difficult to decompose. "Like natural kinds, natural actions are difficult to describe in words but easy to point out (in this case, demonstrate)" [3, 88].

Jackendoff explains the problem of decomposing natural actions into plausible features as follows. "Both the shapes of objects and the spatial configurations of natural actions are not decoded at all in the essentially algebraic (featurelike) format of conceptual structure. Rather, they are represented in a quasi-geometrical format, a suitable extension of Marr's (1982) 3 D model level of representation for the visual system. If this is the case, visual distinctions of "manner of motion" (or at least a great many of them) are not the business of conceptual structure at all; conceptual structure has to encode primarily an appropriate argument structure, linked in the lexicon to a more detailed spatial structure encoding" [3, 88].

Thus, we can suppose that the common component of motion refers all the motion verbs to the semantic domain of motion. All other components distinguish motion verbs from other verbs.

While analyzing the component of motion, we can divide motion verbs into the following types:

a) Motion as a consequent change of position. This feature is characteristic of a great number of motion verbs, for example, run, walk, stroll.

Run: "move with quick steps";

Walk: "move along by putting one foot in front of the other";

Stroll: "walk in a slow, relaxed manner".

b) Motion away from the observer, interpreted in English by means of the verb "go", the so-called verb of external motion [3, 89], for example "cross" which means "to go over to the other side". Similar meanings have the verbs depart, flee, return.

c) Movement directed to an observer by means of motion verbs like come, arrive, bring. For example, the verb "bring" means "to carry or cause to come with one or towards someone".

Motion verbs were also studied by Beth Levin. In her work "English Verb Classes and Alternations" (1993) [4], she divides the broad category of motion verbs according their specific properties and behavior into the following subgroups:

1) Path verbs represent a class of verbs that incorporate the direction of movement. Their characteristic feature of this category is DIRECTION, hence the name "verbs of direction". Levin called them "verbs of inherently directed motion" in her classification of English verbs. Path verbs give the information only about the direction of motion, for example, "John left / John arrived... " Or, as Levin says, "the meaning of these verbs include a specification of the direction of motion, even in the absence of an overt directional complement" [4, 263].

2) Manner of Motion is another class of verbs. This type of verbs gives the information about the physical modality of motion and arte in opposition to Path verbs.

Manner of Motion is not a single lexico-semantic class, but instead it is further subdivided, and includes a number of so-called subtypes.

According to Levin's classification of motion verbs, there are 9 classes (Levin 1993) [4].

1. Inherently directed motion: arrive, go, depart, come.

2. Leave verbs: abandon, leave, desert.

3. Manner of Motion: bounce, slide, travel, twist.

This class is further subdivided into:

- Roll verbs: bounce, spin, whirl;

These verbs relate to manner of motion characteristic of inanimate entities, that is, then there is no protagonist control on the part of the moving entity. In the absence of the directional phrase none of these verbs indicate the direction of motion. Many of those that describe motion around an axis take a restricted set of prepositions indicating the path of motion. For example, "The ball rolled down the hill" [4, 265].

- Run verbs: bounce, jump, rush.

Run verbs or later renamed as agentive verbs of manner of motion is the largest and most important class. It encompasses verbs which describe the manners in which animate entities can move. Although they usually imply displacement, no specific direction is implied without the directional [4, 265 - 266]. For example, "The horse jumped over the stream. "

4. Manner of Motion using a vehicle.

This class of verbs incorporates new members through conversion or zero derivation of a noun into a verb. It can be of two types:

- Vehicle name verbs: skate, ferry, rocket;

- Verbs not associated with vehicle names: cruise, fly, paddle, row.

5. Waltz verbs: waltz, clog, shuffle, dance.

These verbs are zero-related to names of dances and mean roughly "perform the dance". Although the members of this set of verbs describe motion, no specific direction of motion is implied unless there is an explicit directional phrase present. In this respect, these verbs pattern like the run verbs above, for example, "They waltzed across the room." [4, 269].

6. Chase verbs: chase, persue, trail, follow.

For example, Jackie chased the thief down the street. (a directional phrase)

7. Accompany verbs: accompany, guide, lead, conduct.

For example, Jackie accompanied Rose to the store.

Both Chase and Accompany verbs involve two participants following the same route.

8. Avoid verbs: avoid, dodge, evade, shun.

9. Verbs of Lingering and Rushing.

- Verbs of Lingering: delay, hesitate, linger, loiter;

- Verbs of Rushing: rush, hurry, hasten.

Conclusions and further development prospects

On balance, we can state that verbs of motion falls into many lexico-semantic groups according to their distinct and common components. Many scholars such as R. Jackendoff, B. Levin, L. Talmy, etc studied the issue of the lexico-semantic groups of motion verbs. Among them the work of B. Levin is of a great importance as she developed a classification of verbs including motion verbs. Although her classification is a syntagmatic one, it neatly outlines the semantic subgroups of motion verbs in English. That is why, it was useful to apply this classification in the research of lexico-semantic groups. Thus, we can conclude that motion verbs can be divided into 9 main lexico-semantic groups: Inherently directed motion, Leave verbs, Manner of Motion, Manner of Motion using a vehicle, Waltz verbs, Chase verbs, Accompany verbs, Avoid verbs and Verbs of Lingering and Rushing.

The issue of motion verbs is one of the most crucial in semantics and lexical system of English. Among the further development prospects worth studying, we can suppose paradigmatic lexico-semantic and syntagmatic relations of motion verbs, cognitive aspects of motion in modern English.

Література

1. Влавацкая М.В. English Lexicology in Theory and Practice: учебное пособие. Новосибирск: изд-во НГТУ, 2010. 295 с.

2. Geeraerts, D. Theories and of Lexical Semantics. Oxford Universitz Press.

3. Jackendoff, Ray S. Semantic structures, 1990. The MIT Press.

4. Beth Levin. English Verb Classes and Alternations: a preliminary investigation, 1993. University of Chicago Press

5. Leonard Talmy. Toward a Cognitive Semantics. Vol.

1.2000. The MIT Press.

6. Leonard Talmy. Toward a Cognitive Semantics. Vo2.

1.2000. The MIT Press.

7. Taylor, John R. Linguistic Categorization, 1989. Oxford Universities Press

8. Zeno Vendler JOURNALARTICLE. Verbs and Times. The Philosophical Review, Vol. 66, No. 2 (Apr., 1957), pp. 143-60.

9. Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English. LDOCE URL: http://www.ldoceonline.com/

10. Cambridge Dictionary - Cambridge University Press URL : http://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/ english/

REFERENCES

1. Vlavatskaya, M.V (2010). English Lexicology in Theory and Practice: tutorial. Novosibirsk, 295 p. [in Russian].

2. Geeraerts, D. Theories and of Lexical Semantics. Oxford Universitz Press. [in English].

3. Jackendoff, Ray S. (1990). Semantic structures. The MIT Press. [in English].

4. Beth Levin (1993). English Verb Classes and Alternations: a preliminary investigation. University of Chicago Press. [in English].

5. Leonard Talmy (2000). Toward a Cognitive Semantics. Vol. 1. The MIT Press. [in English].

6. Leonard Talmy (2000). Toward a Cognitive Semantics. Vo2. 1. The MIT Press. [in English].

7. Taylor, John R. Linguistic Categorization, 1989. Oxford Universities Press. [in English].

8. Zeno Vendler JOURNALARTICLE. Verbs and Times. The Philosophical Review, Vol. 66, No. 2 (Apr., 1957), pp. 143-60. [in English].

9. Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English. LDOCE Available at: http://www.ldoceonline.com/. [in English].

10. Cambridge Dictionary - Cambridge University Press. available at: http://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/ dictionary/english/. [in English].

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