Chapter published in:Motion and Space across Languages: Theory and applications
Edited by Iraide Ibarretxe-Antuñano
[Human Cognitive Processing 59] 2017
► pp. 205–228
Non-actual motion in language and experience
Dynamic descriptions of static situations, e.g. The road goes through the forest, have attracted a lot of attention in semantics. In cognitive linguistics, terms such as “fictive motion” and “subjective motion” are often used to describe such sentences. While these terms are taken to be largely synonymous, I argue that they are analytically different, and furthermore point to different possible experiential motivations behind this phenomenon. This leads to the pluralistic and integrative framework of “non-actual motion”. Within this framework, an elicitation study with speakers of Swedish, French, and Thai was designed and conducted. The results suggest that non-actual motion expressions are conventionalized in all three languages. The language-specific resources for expressing actual motion are used, but with elements suggesting actual motion demoted.
Keywords: fictive motion, motion semantics, subjective motion, semantic typology
Published online: 14 August 2017
Barsalou, L. W.
Blomberg, J., & Zlatev, J.
Gibson, J. J.
Langacker, R. W.
Langacker, R. W.
Richardson, D., & Matlock, T.
Rojo, A., & Valenzuela, J.
Slobin, D. I.
Stosić, D., & Sarda, L.
Cited by other publications
Knop, Sabine De
Moore, Kevin Ezra
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 30 december 2020. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.