What do you lexicalise in your motion verbs?

[Jetboy]

Right, but in that case, what would be used instead?

[Trailsend]

How do you mean? The most obvious would be adverbs (which need not be related to other finite verbs) meaning "in a walking/running/bouncing/etc. manner."

[Přemysl]

Right, but in that case, what would be used instead?

Adverbs or instrumental phrases.

adverb: I entered the cave bouncily.
instrumental phrase: I entered the cave by means of bounces.

In Majiusgaru (my conlang) slipping on ice would be something like I was forced to go because of ice. A path language could easy say I fell because of ice or I fell slippery or even I fell icily (the nature of ice and falling taken into account).

[Sevly]

Dautian very heavily tends to emphaize manner over path, the expression of the latter being left to prepositions. This is certainly true for verbs of motion:

Dut mee datee dait zie tie.
[ˈdʌtsmɛ ˈdatsɛ ˈdəɪtsɪtɪ]
ø-dut mee da-tee dait zie tie
DET-house in that-to run COP.1 from
I ran into the house.

Dut mee datee hede zie tie.
[ˈdʌtsmɛ ˈdatsɛ ˈʏɛdəztɪ]
ø-dut mee da-tee hede zie tie
DET-house in that-to blink COP.2 from
I snuck into the house.

Moreover, this general idea applies other verb types as well. The 'path'--or the relation between semantic and grammatical roles--is conveyed by prepositions rather than being lexicalized on the verb. The Dautian equivalent of give/receive, for example, is essentially lexicalized as 'transfer':

Demorie tee dras mue mene zie tie.
[ˈdɛmrɪtsɛ ˈdr̩smʊ ˈmɛnəztɪ]
ø-morie tee dras mue mene zie tie
DET-Moris to money on transfer COP.1 from
I gave the money to Morris.

Demorie tie dras mue mene zie tie.
[ˈdɛmrɪtɪ ˈdr̩smʊ ˈmɛnəztɪ]
ø-morie tie dras mue mene zie tie
DET-Moris from money on transfer COP.1 from
I got the money from Morris.

[Chuma]

If it weren't for your location, I'd think you were in my class or something.

Are you by any chance using a book by a guy called Saeed?

It is indeed one of those things that make you realise how hard it is not to copy your natlang. Pity for me the only three languages I know are Germanic...

[roninbodhisattva]

It is indeed one of those things that make you realise how hard it is not to copy your natlang. Pity for me the only three languages I know are Germanic...

In these kind of situations I often find myself copying things outright from some natlangs that are completely unrelated to the languages I know, and the tweaking the shit out of them to fit in with the rest of the conlang. *sigh*

[Ulrike Meinhof]

If it weren't for your location, I'd think you were in my class or something.

Are you by any chance using a book by a guy called Saeed?

Actually not. What's the course you're taking? We had a guest lecture on this and related subjects with Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm, who you've probably never heard of, as part of our semantics course.

In these kind of situations I often find myself copying things outright from some natlangs that are completely unrelated to the languages I know, and the tweaking the shit out of them to fit in with the rest of the conlang. *sigh*

When I've realized that the situation even exists, it's usually not too hard to come up with something interesting. The annoying part is that there's things like this everywhere, but you only rarely notice the complexity.

[roninbodhisattva]

When I've realized that the situation even exists, it's usually not too hard to come up with something interesting. The annoying part is that there's things like this everywhere, but you only rarely notice the complexity.

Read as many grammars as possible. Really, it helps a shit load.

[Ulrike Meinhof]

When I've realized that the situation even exists, it's usually not too hard to come up with something interesting. The annoying part is that there's things like this everywhere, but you only rarely notice the complexity.

Read as many grammars as possible. Really, it helps a shit load.

Yeah. I'm beginning to think though that I'll never actually get to creating a proper conlang, because I'm always learning more and more that I want to make use of, it never stops.

I should plow through the university library's typological reference section.

[Jetboy]

Would this sort of thing also apply to say, not moving oneself, but moving other things? i.e., would a language that lexicalizes path not have a specific word for "throw," but instead something like "cause to go towards?"

[Ser]

Japanese forms a compound verb with go/enter, so it seems to me to be closer to your Semitic example:

瓶は洞窟の中に浮かんで行った。
bin wa doukutsu no naka ni uka-nde i-tta.
bottle TOP cave GEN inside DAT float-CNJ go-PST
The bottle went floating into the [inside of the] cave.

Nope, both path and manner are separated from the verb (中に, 浮かんで and 行った respectively), so this is more similar to the system commonly found in languages with serial verbs. If it were as in Romance or Semitic, including 中に would be ungrammatical, since the sense of "to the inside" would be implied in the verb.

• La botella entró en la cueva flotando.
  the bottle entered the cave floating
  
  دخل القنينة المغارة عائمةً
  /daxala l-qinniːnat-u l-maɣaːrat-a ʕaːʔimat-an/
  3SG.entered DEF-bottle-NOM.DEF DEF-cave-ACC.DEF floating-ACC

[maıráí]

Maka, redone:

Either manner or path may be lexicalized. It is more literary to make path the main point, as it is often left vague the other way around.

Tómo kidzòrko shòsòn.
Tó-mo kidzòr-tò shòsòn-(nu).
cave-LOC bottle-NOM float-(Implied as Verb)
The bottle floated (in/into/to/towards/in the direction of/etc) the cave.

The bottle may be moving directly to it, or it may be going a bit to the side; it may or may not have entered the cave, or it may already be in the cave.

Tómo kidzòrko shòsòn pi ke.
Tó-mo kidzòr-ko shòsòn pi ke.
cave-LOC bottle-NOM float METHOD.POSS enter
The bottle floating-entered the cave.

(I gloss pi as Method Possessive because it comes from the word phin way or method, and is used in the same manner as other possessive articles. Also, because idk what it should be technically called.)

[Bob Johnson]

Nope, both path and manner are separated from the verb (中に, 浮かんで and 行った respectively), so this is more similar to the system commonly found in languages with serial verbs. If it were as in Romance or Semitic, including 中に would be ungrammatical, since the sense of "to the inside" would be implied in the verb.

Hmm, I hadn't thought of it that way. The naka-ni I stuck on at the last moment to clarify that it wasn't just "toward" the cave... what if I said:

瓶は洞窟へ浮かんで入った。
bin wa doukutsu e uka-nde hai-tta.
bottle TOP cave LAT float-CNJ enter-PAST

with an allative/lative/whatever you call it and a definite enter verb? Maybe I'm just confusing myself with the way compound verbs work compared to adverbs (floatingly) and absolute gerund thingies like "floating, it entered." To be clear, ukabu is a full verb: 空に浮かぶ -- it's floating in the air/sky.

(Today is not a good day for technical vocabulary for me.)

[Ser]

That is an int'eresting question. I know certain mesoamerican languages actually use body parts for position, e.g. I travel it's-head mountain = I went to the top of the mountain.

I'm taking a course on Native American languages, and a few weeks ago we discussed this. I can't remember the name of the language and don't have my papers at hand, but one of the grad students in my class is working with a language like this. 'X is in front of him' and 'X is on his forehead' are only distinguishable by context; the form is the same.

Well, if you take a good look at the etymology of the English preposition "in front of"...

front
late 13c., "forehead,"

How would you express manner in a system that mostly lexicalizes path? It seems that are so many manners that something along the line of prepositions would be difficult.

And yet another solution to the ones above would be to coordinate another sentence. For example in Arabic you could translate "he entered the house running" as

• دخل البيت وهو راكض.‏
  /daxala l-bayt-a wa-huwa raːkidˤ-un/
  3SG.entered DEF-house-ACC.DEF and-he running-NOM.INDEF
  "he entered the house and he [is] running"
  
  or دخل البيت وهو يركض.‏
  /daxala l-bajt-a wa-huwa yarkudˤu/
  3SG.entered DEF-house-ACC.DEF and-he 3SG.runs
  "he entered the house and he runs"

(as well as using a participle of the verb to "run" as an adverb).

Would this sort of thing also apply to say, not moving oneself, but moving other things? i.e., would a language that lexicalizes path not have a specific word for "throw," but instead something like "cause to go towards?"

I guess that some would, but at least Spanish, French and Arabic don't for "to throw", you would use adverbs. Although they do for other verbs such as "to elevate sth." (=move sth. up), "to lift sth." (=take sth. up), "to climb (a mountain)", etc.

I think it's more naturalistic to have a combination of verbs with lexicalized paths and verbs that need other words to express direction of motion. Da hell, even in so isolating a language like Chinese you can find verbs such as 入 rù/yahp "to enter".

For example, I could've also translated the sentence above with the bottle into Spanish as:

• Se fue la botella flotando adentro de la cueva.
  Went the bottle floating into the cave.

...with the verb, manner and path separated.

Nope, both path and manner are separated from the verb (中に, 浮かんで and 行った respectively), so this is more similar to the system commonly found in languages with serial verbs. If it were as in Romance or Semitic, including 中に would be ungrammatical, since the sense of "to the inside" would be implied in the verb.

Hmm, I hadn't thought of it that way. The naka-ni I stuck on at the last moment to clarify that it wasn't just "toward" the cave... what if I said:

瓶は洞窟へ浮かんで入った。
bin wa doukutsu e uka-nde hai-tta.
bottle TOP cave LAT float-CNJ enter-PAST

Yep, now here the path is lexicalized in 入った.

[din]

Thanks for those insights

[Kvan]

Lethwîn (since I sadly have no computer at the moment I couldn't properly transcribe the name which in the digraph 'th's stead would be thorn), originally had a case system swamped in locative and directional cases which I found borderline obscene. I then shifted all locatives and directionals to be lexicalized in verbs. I find that the finer distinctions one can make with aspect in conjunction with these verbs of motion brings out a nice finely analyzed dimension of motion. Such as having an inchoative, perambulative, repetitive, perfective and superfective (to name some) used on a verb which may mean "to move away from".

But as was mentioned further up in this document some Amerindian Languages (particularly Athabaskan languages, Haida and I think Mohawk too) utilize classificatory stems. I fell in love with the idea and thus incorporated it into Lethwîn in a two tier system of inflectional/necessary distinctions made in verbs of motion, handling, acquisition, hiding, finding, ingestion, preservation, creation, destruction et cetera. The second, or lower tier in the hierarchy are deriivational affixes which tweak the primary distinction in class. For instance the primary class for Long Objects, can be amended by an affix which indicates flexibility, tapperedness, sharpness, rigidity, or crookedness.

So on top of inflecting for "path" my language maintains a rich classificatory system, Haidaesque (with some Elkarîl influence) primarily because I found the systems to be great platforms for derivation as is the case for Elkarîl and also because Haida has 20+ classes which reflect the idiosyncrasies of the speakers of the area (i.e. for instance the prefix in Haida squd- means "red huckleberries" and only that.)

As for the question of manner, again taking from inidigineous languages of America, the language has a rich set of lexical affixes indicating manner. Not uncommon though secondary verbs can be used.

[dwnielsen]

Ulrike, I haven't formally studied language, but it doesn't feel entirely overwhelming. Path vs. manner is a pretty basic distinction. So is the temperature distinction, since it should be of primary importance in the development of a conlang, I would think, that one determines which sensations are allowed for each included sense. In that instance, I would think it might be something like this.
Touch sensation:
Heat:
1) Outer solid
2) Outer gas
3) Self
Yes, I've found language to be broad and mysterious, but my feeling is that if it seems overwhelming, it is because you are being swamped with linguistics papers. At root, most things seem to me distinguishable by location (including inside and out), orientation, and movement in space and time, basic activity, state of matter, what it belongs to or its general type, what its usual cause is, whether it is universally representative or merely an instance, logical operations (and, or, not, xor), the ability to get or ignore unknown or unnecessary information (such as "question" words or "whatever the value of X happens to be"), conditionals ("if", "iff"), and whether these things belong to desires, the imagination, or perceived/remembered reality with whatever level of associated confidence. I don't even see part-of-speech, tense, mood, aspect, grammatical number, and such as being necessary to a usable construction of a conlang, although they can be very useful encoding schemes.

[Ulrike Meinhof]

At root, most things seem to me distinguishable by location (including inside and out), orientation, and movement in space and time, basic activity, state of matter, what it belongs to, what its usual cause is, whether it is universally representative or merely an instance, logical operations (and, or, not, xor), the ability to get or ignore unknown or unnecessary information (such as "question" words or "whatever the value of X happens to be"), conditionals ("if", "iff"), and whether these things belong to desires, the imagination, or perceived/remembered reality with whatever level of associated confidence.

You mean that if you think about every lexical field in these terms, you'll get more or less the full picture?

[dwnielsen]

Right, I think these things represent the essence of whatever phenomenon is being discussed (BTW, I wasn't using the word "root" in its linguistic sense). I realized I left something out - call it "definition" or "equality" - that allows one to describe thing A in terms of the existence of other things B. There are almost certainly other concepts I left out that would be very useful as well.

That's not to say this represents a perfect picture of the way human memory handles these concepts; according to popular human memory models (eg Baddeley-Hitch), we are very good at storing visuospatial information - almost preferring it (eg method of loci). There are bound to be times when our imaginations incorrectly fill in the gaps left by the interpretation of words. What you say is exactly right, though: " mean that if you think about every lexical field in these terms, you'll get more or less the full picture" - and if the picture isn't more or less full, more words/inflections could be added elegantly within the same framework to make it full. I'm currently basing my conlang project on this idea, so I should let my results make the argument, but I too am a conlanging tortoise at the moment.

[Rui]

[possiblydumbquestion]
Does anyone know of any languages that don't lexicalize either path or manner, but also lexicalize something else? For example, what about lexicalizing speed (ex: The bottle go-fast into the cave floating vs. The bottle go-slow into the cave floating, with no verbs for "enter" or anything) or time (...would that just be tense and no lexicalization?), or something?
[/possiblydumbquestion]

[Kvan]

None tht I know of do this, but it could make for a fun philosophical/art/just-for-fun language.

[TomHChappell]

[possiblydumbquestion]
Does anyone know of any languages that don't lexicalize either path or manner, but also lexicalize something else? For example, what about lexicalizing speed (ex: The bottle go-fast into the cave floating vs. The bottle go-slow into the cave floating, with no verbs for "enter" or anything) or time (...would that just be tense and no lexicalization?), or something?
[/possiblydumbquestion]

Speed is part of manner.

The biggest type of languages after those that lexicalize path and those that lexicalize manner, is a kind of small one compared to them; it's the class of languages that lexicalise the (type of) substance that is moving. Like "pour" and "ooze" and so on, for instance.

So, yes, I've seen it claimed that there are such natlangs, and I'm pretty sure that author offered at least one example, but I've forgotten the example and I've forgotten the author. Sorry.

[Bob Johnson]

Tlingit uses different classifiers in its verb template depending on what is being handled (thrown, found, etc). It's still the same root, though, and only 3 slots change.

[Ser]

[possiblydumbquestion]
Does anyone know of any languages that don't lexicalize either path or manner, but also lexicalize something else? For example, what about lexicalizing speed (ex: The bottle go-fast into the cave floating vs. The bottle go-slow into the cave floating, with no verbs for "enter" or anything) or time (...would that just be tense and no lexicalization?), or something?
[/possiblydumbquestion]

If you restrict the subject to [+human], I guess you could say that English somewhat does this with "to walk" and "to speed-walk".

[Jetboy]

Do languages which tend to lexicalize path also tend to have verbs like "be in" or "be under" instead of ones like "sit" or "stand"?