motion verbs

[Trebor]

yes, another one of those threads. i probably sound like a broken record player. what are some interesting things encoded in motion verbs besides path and method, and among the aforementioned, what are some interesting paths and methods encoded?

[chris_notts]

yes, another one of those threads. i probably sound like a broken record player. what are some interesting things encoded in motion verbs besides path and method, and among the aforementioned, what are some interesting paths and methods encoded?

Deixis. THe place the action is relative to. Go and come both encode motion towards a point, but go encodes motion towards a point "there" away from the Deictic centre, and "come" encodes motion towards a point "here" at the deictic centre.

[Soren]

yes, another one of those threads. i probably sound like a broken record player. what are some interesting things encoded in motion verbs besides path and method, and among the aforementioned, what are some interesting paths and methods encoded?

Russian has an interesting distinction between multidirectional and unidirectional verbs of motion. For example "jezdit'" and "jexat'" both mean "to go by vehicle", but the former is multidirectional, the latter unidirectional. There are lots of pairs like this.

Basically, multidirectional verbs are used for round trips, habitual motion, or to refer to the action in general (e.g. "being able to walk"). E.g.

"kazhdyj den' ja jezzhu na rabotu"
"every day I go to work"
(multidirectional verb "jezdit'")

"rebjonok ne xodit'"
"the child can't walk"
(multidirectional verb "xodit'")

Unidirectional verbs are used for motion in one direction:

"ja idu domoj"
"I'm going home"
(unidirectional verb "idti")

That isn't the full story: there is a lot to be said about Russian verbs of motion. Maybe someone who knows Russian well can add some interesting things.

Russian verbs of motion also have a set of prefixes that can denote certain directional features of the action. For example:

do + xodit' (to go by foot) > doxodit' (to walk up to, as far as)

u + jexat' (to go by vehicle) > ujexat' (to leave, travel away from)

My conlang has a pair of directional prefixes "na" and "u". "na" indicates motion from an island to the mainland, up a valley, or from a valley into hills or mountains; basically movement up or inwards. "u" is the opposite.

For example:

"ur?aran ainune ma"
u-swim-ACT-PFV-1.S island-PPL to
"I swam out to the island"

"naeljan monea ma"
na-go-PFV-ACT-1.S hill-PPL to
"I travelled into the hills"

These are only used when describing unidirectional motion. Unprefixed verbs are used for round trips:

"eljan r?ine ma"
go-PFV-ACT-1.S town-PPL to
"I went to the town (and came back)"

Unprefixed verbs are also used when there is no particular direction attached to an action. If a bird is "flying around" for instance, an unprefixed verb would be used for its motion: the prefixes would emphasise motion up and motion down.

[Xonen]

Many verbs in Russian can be altered by prefixes, they certainly aren't restricted to verbs of motion (although perhaps used slightly more extensively with them). Anyway, are "unidirectional" and "multidirectional" the official terms for these? Based on what little I've learned (and the even smaller amount that I actually remember from it) it looks like this could be some kind of aspectual distinction, something which Russian seems to be fond of.

[Miekko]

Many verbs in Russian can be altered by prefixes, they certainly aren't restricted to verbs of motion (although perhaps used slightly more extensively with them). Anyway, are "unidirectional" and "multidirectional" the official terms for these? Based on what little I've learned (and the even smaller amount that I actually remember from it) it looks like this could be some kind of aspectual distinction, something which Russian seems to be fond of.

It's not acknowledged as an aspectual distinction, but I'd actually say it's another aspectual distinction limited to a limited class of verbs (verbs of motion - tho' IIRC there are some verbs that do express motion that lack a pair, and when they are used in non-literal senses, they often drop the distinction too).

[Glenn]

Many verbs in Russian can be altered by prefixes, they certainly aren't restricted to verbs of motion (although perhaps used slightly more extensively with them). Anyway, are "unidirectional" and "multidirectional" the official terms for these? Based on what little I've learned (and the even smaller amount that I actually remember from it) it looks like this could be some kind of aspectual distinction, something which Russian seems to be fond of.

"Unidirectional" and "multidirectional" are indeed official terms, but not the only ones: one of my Russian textbooks uses the terms "unidirectional" and "multidirectional", while the other uses "determinate" and "indeterminate", respectively. (These are the English terms; Russian grammarians actually use однонаправленный odnonapravlennyj "unidirectional" and неоднонаправленный neodnonapravlennyj "non-unidirectional".)

The unidirectional/non-unidirectional distinction in verbs of motion parallels the classic Russian division of perfective vs. imperfective verb aspect in part, but not entirely. In the case of "non-prefixed" verbs of motion (i.e., without directional prefixes), there is a three-way distinction between unidirectional, multidirectional (both imperfective), and perfective, which is the unidirectional form with the prefix po-; thus:

idti = to go in one direction (impf.); also applied to inanimate objects that only travel in one direction, such as falling rain.

khodit' = to go in multiple directions, make a round trip, to go in general; this can be habitual, but note that one can travel habitually in one direction as well.

pojti = to go (perf.); this usually implies unidirectional motion as well, since it implies a completed action. Often encountered in the imperative form Pod?m(te)!, used to mean "Let's go!" (or, more colloquially, the past form Poshli, lit. "We're gone!" )

In the case of verbs of motion that contain directional prefixes (which are derived, at least for the most part, from prepositions, and often accompanied by prepositions following tbe verb), there is only a two-way distinction: the prefixed "unidirectional" form is perfective, and the prefixed "multidirectional" form is imperfective:

prikhodit' = To arrive (at a location) (impf.)
vs.
prijti = To arrive (perf.)

Hope that makes sense...

p@,
Glenn

[Xonen]

Many verbs in Russian can be altered by prefixes, they certainly aren't restricted to verbs of motion (although perhaps used slightly more extensively with them). Anyway, are "unidirectional" and "multidirectional" the official terms for these? Based on what little I've learned (and the even smaller amount that I actually remember from it) it looks like this could be some kind of aspectual distinction, something which Russian seems to be fond of.

"Unidirectional" and "multidirectional" are indeed official terms, but not the only ones: one of my Russian textbooks uses the terms "unidirectional" and "multidirectional", while the other uses "determinate" and "indeterminate", respectively. (These are the English terms; Russian grammarians actually use ???????????????? odnonapravlennyj "unidirectional" and ?????????????????? neodnonapravlennyj "non-unidirectional".)

The unidirectional/non-unidirectional distinction in verbs of motion parallels the classic Russian division of perfective vs. imperfective verb aspect in part, but not entirely. In the case of "non-prefixed" verbs of motion (i.e., without directional prefixes), there is a three-way distinction between unidirectional, multidirectional (both imperfective), and perfective, which is the unidirectional form with the prefix po-; thus:

idti = to go in one direction (impf.); also applied to inanimate objects that only travel in one direction, such as falling rain.

khodit' = to go in multiple directions, make a round trip, to go in general; this can be habitual, but note that one can travel habitually in one direction as well.

pojti = to go (perf.); this usually implies unidirectional motion as well, since it implies a completed action. Often encountered in the imperative form Pod?m(te)!, used to mean "Let's go!" (or, more colloquially, the past form Poshli, lit. "We're gone!" )

In the case of verbs of motion that contain directional prefixes (which are derived, at least for the most part, from prepositions, and often accompanied by prepositions following tbe verb), there is only a two-way distinction: the prefixed "unidirectional" form is perfective, and the prefixed "multidirectional" form is imperfective:

prikhodit' = To arrive (at a location) (impf.)
vs.
prijti = To arrive (perf.)

Hope that makes sense...

p@,
Glenn

It makes a lot more sense than the textbooks I studied with at school, at least. It seems that using any kind of linguistic jargon in school textbooks must be avoided at all costs, presumably because that would scare off potential students. So, instead, we get long, vague explanations that do succeed in containing only terms that pretty much everybody should be able to understand, but that end up pretty much explaining nothing at all (with the result that those with some knowledge of actual linguistics, such as myself, start making their own theories about what the books are really trying to say, often getting things quite right even, but sometimes failing miserably).

So, thanks. I think you just managed to teach me something I never learned at school despite trying for several weeks.

[Glenn]

So, thanks. I think you just managed to teach me something I never learned at school despite trying for several weeks.

You're very welcome; I'm glad that I was able to help. The explanation above is taken directly from my college Russian textbooks (which were very grammar-intensive--perhaps excessively so--and willing to engage in some basic linguistic jargon), as well as some additions of my own. Thank you again for the kind words!

Those are some long terms.

As Maknas noted in another thread, Russian seems prone to long words, at least from the perspective of English-speakers. In terms of the number of syllables, however, odnonapravlennyj and neodnonapravlennyj aren't any longer than the English equivalents "unidirectional" and "non-unidirectional" (not that those are necessarily short).

p@,
Glenn

[garrett]

I have heard about some languages that have very interesting verbs of giving; what do you all know about these?

it looks like this could be some kind of aspectual distinction, something which Russian seems to be fond of.

What are other aspects that russian uses?

[nebula wind phone]

English seems to encode intentionality in a lot of its motion verbs ("go to" vs. "head towards," "arrive" vs. "turn up").

[Xonen]

it looks like this could be some kind of aspectual distinction, something which Russian seems to be fond of.

What are other aspects that russian uses?

Heh... Don't ask me. As I just said, these things weren't taught too clearly to us at school. I believe the main distinction is between perfective/imperfective, but it doesn't seem like that's the whole story. The problem is that there are no clear aspect markers in Russian (or, at least, nobody told us if there are); basically, you use different verbs for different aspects (although usually derived by various means from the same basic stem). So what exactly counts as a different aspect and what counts as a totally different verb might not always be that clear. But I'd really want to hear the opinion of someone who actually knows something about the language.

Hmm... Now that I think about it, I think Finnish might do something a bit similar in some cases, but perhaps not quite as regularly.

[Gazariah]

Toumas,

Here's an answer from somebody who really knows Russian, although I may not understand well enough what you want to know.

Fact is, most verbs in Russian are "born" imperfective. That's not what the textbooks tell you, but it's the best way of looking at this. For example, "cut" is /rezat'/, an imperfective verb.

Now we want to say that something has been or will be cut. This will be a perfective verb. We will also have to decide how the action took place. Was it "cut off," or "cut up" for example.

"Cut off" is /otrezat'/ (for example) and "cut up" (as in slicing up a whole loaf of bread) is /narezat'/.

By definition, perfective verbs in Russian have only future and past tense, no present. So what if I want to say "She always cuts up the bread before dinner?"

Russian forms a new imperfective verb from the (prefixed) perfective. It's almost always a matter of adding a suffix.

"She will cut up" is /ona narezhet/.
"She cuts up" is /ona narezaet/.

The orthography obscures things a little. In morphophonemic representation:

Perfective {na-rez-a-t'}
Imperfective {na-rez-aj-t'}.

OK. Now a few verbs do have imperfective/perfective pairs where the two members are not similar. This is like "go" and "went" in English. Not common. An example is /brat'/ and /vzjat'/, imp. and perf. for "take."

Another interesting thing is how some of these pairs unite what are different actions from the point of view of English.

/ona pokupala tufli/ (imperfective verb) means "she was buying shoes". But usually the implication is that she was shopping for shoes, since the imperfective does not imply that shoes were bought.

/ona reshala zadachu/ (imperfective verb) means "she was working on the problem". The verb is translated "decide" or "solve" in a dictionary, but those verbs are lexically perfective in English. No way you can say "she decided the problem for three hours." But in Russian "solve" and "try to solve" can be expressed by one verb, in perfective and imperfective aspect.

OK, long enough. I am not going into the details of how aspect pairs are formed. The process is not simple, but it's mostly regular.

Motion verbs are a special category. Fourteen (some say fifteen) verbs with two imperfective forms, the so-called determinate and indeterminate, also called uni- and multi-directional. There's more to be said about them, another time.

[linguoboy]

yes, another one of those threads. i probably sound like a broken record player. what are some interesting things encoded in motion verbs besides path and method, and among the aforementioned, what are some interesting paths and methods encoded?

When you say "path", are you including such things as vertitives? In Osage (as in all Central Siouan languages, apparently) motion verbs can take a vertitive infix, which is really a special case of the suus infix ("to/for me/mine [e.g. my home, my belongings, my family, etc.]". This adds the meaning of "back" or "towards home". Thus:

a?ee "go there"
alee (< *a-kik-?ee) "go back there; go home"

[TomHChappell]

yes, another one of those threads. i probably sound like a broken record player. what are some interesting things encoded in motion verbs besides path and method, and among the aforementioned, what are some interesting paths and methods encoded?

An article I read not long ago (and I'm sorry I don't have a good bibliographical reference for you) said most languages could be grouped into three groups according to their usual way of handling verbs of motion.

The two biggest groups are the ones you mentioned;
* manner is part of the verb but path is adverbial (e.g. English)
* path is part of the verb but manner is adverbial (e.g. Spanish)

A smaller group, though, seems to have the substance which is doing the moving encoded in the verb, with both path and manner adverbial. English analogs might be "ooze", "drip", "flow", "pour", "drift", "tumble". (Or at least some of them.)

----

And of course someone else responding to you has already pointed out the distinction between the venitive (come) and the andative (go). But even this distinction can be more complicated;
* Is what's important whether or not the mover is approaching or receding from the speaker, or approaching or receding from the hearer?
* Is what's important whether or not the mover is approaching or receding from the location at the time of speaking, or the location at the time of the event?
* In some languages, what's important is whether the mover is approaching or receding from the mover's (or the speaker's or the hearer's) "home base" or usual location.

And I don't suppose that's all.

I believe in some languages more than one of the above counts as "what's important".

-----

Other responders have mentioned that some languages distinguish between one-way motion and round-trip motion. I didn't know that; I think it's interesting.

-----
Tom H.C. in MI

[chris_notts]

An article I read not long ago (and I'm sorry I don't have a good bibliographical reference for you) said most languages could be grouped into three groups according to their usual way of handling verbs of motion.

The two biggest groups are the ones you mentioned;
* manner is part of the verb but path is adverbial (e.g. English)
* path is part of the verb but manner is adverbial (e.g. Spanish)

A smaller group, though, seems to have the substance which is doing the moving encoded in the verb, with both path and manner adverbial. English analogs might be "ooze", "drip", "flow", "pour", "drift", "tumble". (Or at least some of them.)

I have read the same thing.

And of course someone else responding to you has already pointed out the distinction between the venitive (come) and the andative (go). But even this distinction can be more complicated;
* Is what's important whether or not the mover is approaching or receding from the speaker, or approaching or receding from the hearer?
* Is what's important whether or not the mover is approaching or receding from the location at the time of speaking, or the location at the time of the event?
* In some languages, what's important is whether the mover is approaching or receding from the mover's (or the speaker's or the hearer's) "home base" or usual location.

I believe that generally languages are flexible in this regard, and take the current "stage" as the location relative to which such motion tends to be assessed. That is, in telling a story or recounting past events, a location or item which is current in the dialogue, although not necessarily where the speaker or addressee are currently located, can be taken as the reference point.
It would be interesting to do a crosslinguistic study of this to see if any languages distinguish these possibilities (perhaps with verbs that mean come.to.me vs come.to.you vs come) or are more strict about what motion is assessed relative to.

[Pèglist I.]

I know a further aspect of motion: compare stroll <> to abscond <> to swim.

Which one can we odd out? Verb 3, because it denotes the method of motion, where as verb 1 and 2 denote the context, the motivation.


PG1.

[TomHChappell]

Pardon me for doing so, Pèglist I.; I'm posting, to this thread, a PM I sent Chris and his PM back to me in reply. I'm not really ignoring your post.

An article I read not long ago (and I'm sorry I don't have a good bibliographical reference for you) said most languages could be grouped into three groups according to their usual way of handling verbs of motion.
--CUT--
A smaller group, though, seems to have the substance which is doing the moving encoded in the verb, with both path and manner adverbial. English analogs might be "ooze", "drip", "flow", "pour", "drift", "tumble". (Or at least some of them.)

I have read the same thing.

Any idea where?

And of course someone else responding to you has already pointed out the distinction between the venitive (come) and the andative (go). But even this distinction can be more complicated;
--CUT--
* In some languages, what's important is whether the mover is approaching or receding from the mover's (or the speaker's or the hearer's) "home base" or usual location.

I believe that generally languages are flexible in this regard, and take the current "stage" as the location relative to which such motion tends to be assessed. That is, in telling a story or recounting past events, a location or item which is current in the dialogue, although not necessarily where the speaker or addressee are currently located, can be taken as the reference point.

Maybe most of them do. I fear I don't know; nor do I know where to find out. Do you?

It would be interesting to do a crosslinguistic study of this to see if any languages distinguish these possibilities (perhaps with verbs that mean come.to.me vs come.to.you vs come) or are more strict about what motion is assessed relative to.

I'm pretty confident I remember reading, in whatever place I read the above, of a language which has at least a two-dimensional andative-vs-venitive distinction among its verbs-of-motion.

One dimension is whether the mover approaches (moves closer to) or recedes (moves further from) the location of the speech-act. Of course this could be complicated by such things as moving past this location; or making a round trip (whether from "here" to "there" and back, or from "there" to "here" and back).

But the other dimension concerns whether the mover approaches or recedes from the mover's "home base". This is definitely complicated by the possibility that the mover's "home base" at the time the event spoken of begins, may be different from what it is at the time the event ends. An act of changing residences or of changing jobs requires a different verb-of-motion from an act of just going out for a while.

So they -- whoever they are -- have at least four different verbs; we might classify them as "go(from here)-go(from home)", "go(from here)-come(home)", "come(here)-go(from home)", "come(here)-come(home)". There's bound to be a neater and more technical way to do that, but that's the way I remember it.

I'm sorry I can't recall what book or article I saw that in.

-----
Tom H.C. in MI


And here's Chris's reply:

Any idea where?

I read it once in "Language Typology and Syntactic Description", edited by Shopen, IIRC. However, I've seen it in other books as well.

Maybe most of them do. I fear I don't know; nor do I know where to find out. Do you?

No. I'm not aware of any comprehensive surveys of this area. Most surveys of motion verbs so far seem quite basic in that they only investigate things like whether languages encode path, manner etc in their motion verbs. I'm not aware of any comprehensive studies that would give us answers in this area.