The typology of motion and posture verbs

Berthele, Raphael

doi:10.1515/9783110197327.93

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Book chapter

The typology of motion and posture verbs : A variationist account

Berthele, Raphael Université de Fribourg

2004

Published in:

Dialectology meets typology : dialect grammar from a cross-linguistic perspective / Kortmann, Bernd (ed.). - de Gruyter. - 2004, p. 93-126

English According to work by Talmy, Slobin and others, satellite-framed (S)-languages tend to express the path of motion in a verb particle and the manner of motion in the verb (jump, run, etc.), whereas verb-framed (V)-languages express the path in the verb (enter, exit) and the manner in an adverbial – if at all. In this paper, this typological distinction will be applied to data from Swiss German (Muotathal dialect), Standard German and French. As expected, French narratives use more path verbs than German narratives. However, there are surprising differences within the S-framed German varieties: Muotathal dialect rarely expresses manner, in some cases even less frequently than French. It is argued that two typological categories are not sufficient once dialects are taken into account. The categories not only need to be refined. It also needs to be recognized that there are additional dimensions (e.g. orality/literacy) which are important factors affecting typological affiliations.

Faculty

Faculté des lettres et des sciences humaines

Department

Département de plurilinguisme et didactique des langues étrangères

Language