Traci S. Lindsey (University of California, Berkeley)
The balkanization of motion verbs
According to Talmy, verbal lexicalization patterns indicate a typology in which most languages can be categorized as eitherverb-framed and low-mannerlanguages, such as Spanish, Hebrew, and Turkish, or satellite-framed and high-mannerlanguages, such as English and German, depending on the range of meaning their motion verbs typically express. The division is based on whether the verbs express the direction/path of motion, typically with minimal indication of the manner of motion, or whether they focus on the manner of motion, with the path of motion being relegated to a secondary element, commonly a preposition or prefix. Among those who have expanded on Talmy’s theory is Slobin, who has contributed Slavic and Turkish data. In subsequent research on motion verb typology, “Slavic” is referred to as a satellite-framed andhigh manner language family; many conclusions drawn, however, seem to be based on Russian. As the Balkan South Slavic languages diverge from other Slavic languages in a number of ways, though, manner of motion in Slavic languages as a whole cannot be conclusively discussed without considering evidence from Bulgarian and/or Macedonian. For example, Slobin states that Slavic languages have no independent “come” verb and hence must use a manner verb for ‘come’, but this does not hold true for Bulgarian: the Bulgarian aspect pair идвам/дойда, meaning ‘come’, may be used where Russian would useприйти ‘come [on foot]’, приехать ‘come [by vehicle]’, прилететь ‘come [by means of flight]’, and so on, depending on exact means of motion. This alone suggests that the possibilities for describing motion in Bulgarian vary from those in Russian and demonstrates the need to study manner verbs in Bulgarian.
Furthermore, research indicates that manner in motion cannot simply be classified as “high” or “low,” and “satellite-framed” or “verb-framed,” but rather that it exists along a cline: Within a language family, some languages will show greater or lesser manner in motion or degrees of typical path framing than others. Research has demonstrated that Italian, perhaps through contact with German, makes greater use of directional adverbs with both path and manner verbs than other Romance languages; similar tendencies have been shown for Brussels French through Dutch contact, as well as for Romance-German contact-induced convergence in Switzerland. Thus, it would not be surprising to find decreased manner salience in Bulgarian, as well as increased manner salience in Romanian, attributable to Balkan contact phenomena.
I am looking at the system of motion verbs in Bulgarian, with particular attention to how the Bulgarian system differs from other Slavic language systems, and whether the Bulgarian system has developed in a direction attributeable to contact phenomena with Turkish and Romanian (both low-manner motion verb languages). Particular areas of focus are the prefixation of Bulgarian motion verbs and how this differs from other Slavic systems, and the existence and development of manner-neutral motion verbs in Bulgarian. My research uses literary texts, as well as oral narratives I am collecting in Bulgaria. Through this work I hope to contribute both to the understanding of the Bulgarian verbal system and to the understanding of the extent to which a motion-verb typology can be utilized as a measure of areal convergence and genetic stability in the Balkan Sprachbund.
Slobin, Dan I. 2003. The many ways to search for a frog: Linguistic typology and the expression of motion events. In S. Strömqvist and L. Verhoeven, eds., Relating Events in Narrative: Typological and Contextual Perspectives. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Talmy, Leonard. (1985). Lexicalization patterns: Semantic structure in lexical forms. In T. Shopen (Ed.), Language typology and syntactic description: Vol. 3. Grammatical caetgories and the lexicon (pp. 36-149). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.