cogl.2005.16.1 ozacaliskan motion events metaphor
TRANSCRIPT
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Metaphor meets typology: Ways of movingmetaphorically in English and Turkish
SEYDA OZCALISKAN*
Abstract
Earlier work on literal motion has shown that English and Turkish belong
to typologically distinct classes of languages, with English speakers paying
greater linguistic attention to the manner dimension of motion events (e.g.,
O zcalıskan and Slobin 1999a, 2003). As a further step, this article inves-
tigates whether typological di¤erences hold true for the metaphorical
extensions of motion events. Thus, the article compares two types of lan-
guages with regard to their lexicalization patterns in encoding metaphorical
motion events: (1) verb-framed languages (or V-languages, represented by
Turkish), in which the preferred pattern for framing motion events is the
use of a path verb with an optional manner adjunct (e.g., enter running),
and (2) satellite-framed languages (S-languages, represented by English),
in which path is lexicalized in an element associated with the verb, leaving
the verb free to encode manner (e.g., run in). The analysis of written texts
and elicited responses in the two languages shows clear typological contrast,
with English speakers encoding manner of motion in their metaphorical de-
scriptions more frequently and extensively than Turkish speakers, using a
variety of linguistic devices (e.g., verbs, adverbials). Overall, the resultsindicate that the degree of codability of a semantic dimension in a lexical
item (i.e., motion verb) has a spillover e¤ect on the choice of other lexical
items in a sentence, suggesting the conceptual salience of this dimension for
its speakers. This e¤ect is observable in both the literal and the metaphori-
cal uses of the lexicon.
Keywords: motion events; metaphorical motion; verb-framed typology;
satellite-framed typology; manner of motion.
Cognitive Linguistics 16–1 (2005), 207–246 0936–5907/05/0016–0207
6 Walter de Gruyter
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1. Introduction
Earlier theoretical and experimental work on conceptual metaphor theory
has shown that both English and Turkish pervasively structure a widerange of abstract domains using motion in space, including time (e.g., mo-
ments slip by), ideas (e.g., the idea sprang back into his mind ), emotions
(e.g., she felt a sudden surge of emotions), the economy (e.g., prices plum-
met, inflation skyrockets), and so forth (Lako¤ and Johnson 1980, 1999;
Ozcalıskan 2002, 2003a, 2003b). Furthermore, theoretical work on the
linguistic organization of motion events has shown it to be a domain
that can be construed in radically di¤erent ways in di¤erent languages,
but which at the same time can be described by a limited set of under-
lying universal patterns (Talmy 1985, 2000). As proposed by Talmy, theworld’s languages can be grouped into a two-category typology in terms
of the way the core feature of a literal motion event—which is the path of
motion —is expressed linguistically, with some languages encoding this
feature in the verb, and others in a satellite to the verb (a particle or a pre-
fix). Talmy refers to these two types as verb-framed and satellite-framed
languages (or V-languages and S-languages), respectively.1 This article fo-
cuses specifically on the metaphorical extensions of motion events (e.g.,
hours crawl by, the idea bounces back into my mind ), and compares the
lexicalization patterns of two typologically distinct languages, English(an S-language) and Turkish (a V-language), in encoding various seman-
tic components of a metaphorical motion event. The article investigates
whether the typological di¤erences extend to the metaphorical uses of
spatial motion, and if so, what consequences this has for our conceptual-
ization of various target domains that are structured by the source do-
main of motion in space.
1.1. Outline of the typology
As proposed by Talmy, path of motion constitutes the core feature of a
motion event, and languages show two distinct lexicalization patterns by
typically encoding path of motion in either a verb (e.g., exit, ascend ) or
an associated satellite (e.g., go out, go down). Motion events also di¤er
in terms of their degree of structural complexity. Thus, one can di¤erenti-
ate between a unitary event (e.g., he went into the room) and a complex
one (e.g., he crawled into the room). A unitary event indicates only one
dimension of motion, which, in this case is the path information (into).
On the other hand, a complex event encodes both the manner (crawling )and the path (into) components of a motion event within a single clause
(Talmy 2000). Languages di¤er in their ways of expressing the compo-
nents of a complex event, with S-languages typically conflating manner
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with motion, and V-languages conflating path with motion in the main
verb of a clause. The di¤erence in conflation patterns has significant
e¤ects on the relative codability of the semantic domains that con-
stitute the components of a motion event. Since S-languages prefer toencode path using satellites, the main-verb slot becomes available for a
manner verb (e.g., walk /run/crawl ... in/out/across ...).2 This provides
S-language speakers with a more accessible and easily codable linguistic
option for indicating manner of motion. As a consequence, S-language
speakers encode manner habitually, develop a richer lexicon of manner
verbs, and make finer lexical distinctions within the domain of manner
(Slobin 2000, 2003). By contrast, in V-languages, the main verb is chiefly
reserved for encoding path information, and there is no other easily cod-
able linguistic slot with which to encode manner of motion. Therefore, in
contexts where attention to manner is salient, V-language speakers typi-
cally rely on subordinated manner verb constructions (e.g., enter/exit by
running ) to indicate manner, but due to the relative syntactic complexity
of subordinated expressions, manner information is omitted in most in-
stances in V-languages.3
The typological contrast becomes particularly salient with events that
involve the crossing of a boundary (e.g., motion into or out of a bounded
space), where the lexical constraints on encoding manner in the main verb
are stricter for V-languages. Thus—as depicted in Figure 1—the pre-
ferred patterns for describing a simple motion event which involves both
manner (running) and path (interior of the house as the goal of move-
ment) components will be such that English speakers will choose to
encode both manner and path by conflating motion with manner in the
main verb and indicating path with the particle into as in he ran into the
house. Turkish speakers, on the other hand, will typically encode only
path by conflating motion with path in the main verb and leaving out
manner information, as in eve girdi ‘he entered the house’. However, ininstances where manner becomes perceptually salient, Turkish speakers
may choose to encode manner as well, typically by subordinating manner
Figure 1. A typical motion event
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to the main path verb of a clause (eve kosarak girdi ‘he entered the house
running’). These linguistic di¤erences, in turn, are likely to have e¤ects on
the organization of mental representations, leading to di¤erent mental
imagery regarding how one navigates in space (Slobin 1997, 2000, 2003).Speakers of English have linguistic access to a richer array of motion
events that involve manner due to the high codability of this dimension
in their native language. Therefore, compared to Turkish speakers, En-
glish speakers may be more likely to pay greater linguistic attention to
and detect more fine-grained variations in the manner dimension of
motion events, which in turn may increase the conceptual salience of this
dimension for them.4
Empirical research based on analysis of written texts and orally eli-
cited narratives from child and adult native speakers has provided con-
vincing evidence for the proposed typological di¤erences, with clear indi-
cations of di¤erential linguistic attention paid to manner of motion by
speakers of these two groups of languages for literal motion events (e.g.,
Ibarretxe-Antunano 2001; Naigles et al. 1998; Oh 2003; Ohara 1999; Pa-
pafragou et al. 2002; Ozcalıskan and Slobin 1999a, 1999b, 2000a, 2000b,
2003; Slobin 1996, 1997, 2000). The studies have shown higher frequency
of mention and greater lexical diversity with regard to the manner com-
ponent of motion events by S-language speakers. The typological contrast
seems to have even wider applicability across various other languages of
the world, and to crosscut boundaries of culture, language family and
geographical location (Slobin 1997, 2003).
This article investigates the applicability of the proposed distinctions
of the typology to metaphorical extensions of motion events, in a com-
parison between English (S-language) and Turkish (V-language). Meta-
phor is defined as a conceptual-linguistic mapping between two conceptual
domains: the source domain, which serves as the source of vocabulary and
conceptual inferences, and the target domain, to which vocabulary and in-ferences are extended metaphorically (Lako¤ and Johnson 1980, 1999).
The article focuses on metaphors that use motion in space as the source
domain. Metaphorical motion is defined as any verb of motion—self or
caused—with a nonmotion interpretation and metaphorical change of lo-
cation.5 The article focuses only on metaphorical motion events, and all
the tables and figures presented in the results section refer only to such
metaphorical uses. Nonmetaphorical (i.e., literal) motion events (e.g., he
ran into the house) were not included in the analysis.
The study involves both descriptive (analysis of di¤erent types of written texts) and experimental (structured elicitations from adult na-
tive speakers) data collection techniques. It aims to reveal the di¤erences
between the two languages in encoding the manner component of meta-
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phorical motion events. The expectation is twofold: On the one hand—in
line with the results of earlier work on literal motion—metaphorical mo-
tion-event descriptions in S-languages (here, English) are expected to in-
volve finer lexical distinctions at the level of manner of motion, with agreater amount and diversity of manner verb use. On the other hand,
one might argue that V-language speakers (here, Turkish) may have re-
course to other means of encoding manner of motion in addition to man-
ner verbs. Lexical means such as adverbials of manner (hesitantly, rap-
idly), descriptions of the physical or inner state of the moving entity ( he
was exhausted ) or of the terrain of movement (the road was slippery) can
also serve as tools for conveying manner information. Given the equal ac-
cessibility of such alternative lexical means of encoding manner for both
language types, Turkish speakers may use these means to encode manner
that is not easily expressed at the level of motion verbs, and thereby con-
vey manner information at comparable rates to English speakers.
Statements of metaphorical mappings are presented in small capitals
throughout the text, and the linguistic metaphors in the examples
are underlined, unless indicated otherwise. For the examples in Turkish,
morpheme-by-morpheme glosses are only provided for the underlined
segments of the excerpt, together with a free translation of the full ex-
cerpt. An explanation of the abbreviated labels for the morphemes is pro-
vided in the Appendix.
2. Sample
2.1. Written texts
The sample included twenty novels, ten in each language, and five widely
read daily newspapers in each language. The novels included works of
both contemporary and earlier writers, and an e¤ort was made to includenovels that were richer in metaphorical motion events in both languages.
2.2. Elicitations
The sample included twenty adult native speakers of English and twenty
adult native speakers of Turkish. The English data were collected in
Berkeley, California and the Turkish data were gathered in Istanbul. The
participants ranged in age from 23 to 63, with a mean age of 31 for theTurkish sample and 33 for the English sample. An attempt was made to
include people with di¤erent backgrounds including editors, college pro-
fessors, writers, architects, and graduate students in various social science
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fields, in order to take into account the variation in the metaphorical uses
of motion events.
3. Procedure
3.1. Procedure for data collection
3.1.1. Written texts Each novel was opened randomly ten times, and
at each opening the first five instances of metaphorical motion events
were recorded, resulting in about 50 such instances from each novel.
Each newspaper was followed for three consecutive days. On each day,
all the opinion sections (i.e., editorials, columns) and a front-page news
story were extracted, and all instances of metaphorical motion eventswere recorded.6
3.1.2. Elicitations Each consultant was interviewed individually and
given a two-page questionnaire in his/her native language that asked for
metaphorical motion descriptions for various target domains. The first
page of the questionnaire included instructions, along with an example
response. The instructions were as follows:
We human beings have the tendency to formulate abstract concepts in concrete(or physical) terms. We think of arguments as wars (e.g., he battled over his
ideas), emotional states as locations (e.g., he fell in love), theories as buildings
(e.g., he has a solid argument), and so forth. Similarly, our everyday thinking has
the tendency to conceptualize an abstract set of things (e.g., love, life, conscious-
ness) in terms of a concrete or physical set of things or events. For instance, we
think of human personality types in terms of temperature, and talk about a person
as being a warm person, a cold person, having a chilly personality, and so forth.
Similarly, we conceptualize our romantic a¤airs in terms of a journey, and talk
about our relationship as not going anywhere, hitting a dead-end street, running
pretty smoothly, and so forth. In the next page, you will find a set of questions
that involve such abstract concepts. The task at hand is to think of all these
abstract concepts in terms of the motion of a moving entity—this entity can be a
human being, an animal, a river, wind, or any moving artifact such as a car, a
plane, a boat—and come up with descriptions for each one of them. Think of
this as a creative exercise, but limit yourself to the possibilities available in your
language.
The second page of the questionnaire included the entries to be filled in.
There were two forms, A and B, with five di¤erent target conceptual do-mains in each form. Each subject received one of the two forms. The
choice of target domains was based on the analysis of written texts, which
revealed that the domains of mental/emotional states, time, death, life,
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and sickness were described most extensively in terms of motion in space
in both languages. For each domain, the consultant responded to the fol-
lowing question:
If you think of DOMAIN X as a moving entity, what are the di¤erent movements
that it could make? List the first five motion verbs that come to your mind.7
Subjects faced no time limits in filling out the questionnaire.
3.2. Procedure for data analysis
Metaphorical motion events (e.g., the idea races through her mind like a
flame, he drifts into a state of utmost solitude, the ambiguity in her voice pulls his worst fears to the surface) were taken as the unit of analysis, and
the two languages were compared in terms of the extent to which they
encoded manner information. The analysis involved quantitative and
qualitative comparisons of the English and the Turkish data in terms of
various linguistic categories that encoded manner of motion, including
verbs and nominalized verbs of motion, aspectual marking on the verbs,
and adverbials, adjectives, and verb complements qualifying verbs of
motion. Motion verbs were divided into three categories (manner, path,
neutral), based on the information encoded in the verb. A list of motionverb types included in the analysis is provided below.8
i. Manner verbs (V-manner), e.g., run, fly, jump, plunge, drag, launch,
push, creep.
ii. Path verbs (V-path), e.g., enter, exit, ascend, descend, follow,
approach, withdraw.
iii. Verbs with no manner or path (V-neutral), e.g., go, move.
4. Findings9
4.1. Written texts
4.1.1. Verbs of motion Analysis of verbs and verbal nouns of meta-
phorical motion suggests a clear typological dichotomy. As can be seen in
Figure 2, novels written in English include a significantly (w2ð1Þ ¼ 18:05,
p < :001) higher percentage of manner verbs (59%) than novels written
in Turkish (21%). Turkish novels, on the other hand, mainly rely on bare
path verbs (71%) in describing metaphorical motion events.A few examples from the data are provided to illustrate the di¤erence
between the two languages. All the examples show a clear preference for
manner verbs in English (clamber, creep, whirl, fly), and path verbs in
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Turkish ( pass, come, enter, approach). The preference is clearly markedacross conceptual domains that constitute the target domain of the meta-
phorical mappings. Each of the following metaphor pairs map onto dif-
ferent target domains, including the body ([1] and [2]), death and sickness
([3] and [4]), and emotional states ([5] and [6]). However, regardless of
the target domain, English writers consistently prefer manner verbs, while
Turkish speakers choose non-manner verbs.
(1) She had the impression now that he had clambered back inside him-
self and shut the door. (Bowles 1966: 182)(2) ‘‘I stanbul’u
Istanbul-ACC
dinliyorum,’’
listen-PRESENT-1SG
diye gecirdi
pass-CAUS-PAST
icinden.
interior-POSS:3SG-ABL
‘‘Beyog ˘ lu artık I ˙stanbul deg ˘ il. I ˙stanbul
arka sokaklara kacıstı.’’ (Mungan 1993: 133)
‘‘‘I am listening to Istanbul’’, he let it pass from his inside.
‘‘Beyoglu is not Istanbul anymore. Istanbul ran to the back
streets.’’ ’
(3) The town was a shambles; corpses, mangled by butchers andstripped by plunderers, lay thick in the streets; wolves sneaked from
the suburbs to eat them; the black death and other plagues crept in
to keep them company, and the English came marching on; while
7%
59%
34%
8%
71%
21%
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
manner path neutralverb type
p e r c e n t v e r b u s e
EnglishTurkish
Figure 2. Percentage of metaphorical motion verbs in novels (computed by dividing the total
number of manner, path, or neutral verbs by the total number of motion verbs in
each language)
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the danse macabre whirled about the tombs in all the cemeteries . . . .
(Miller 1961: 43)
(4) Bu ilk karsılasmamız deg ˘ ildi. O lu mle
death-INS
ilk
first
yu z
face
yu ze
face-DAT geldig ˘ imde
come-PAST-NOM-1SG
do rt yasındaydım. Bir dag ˘ mantarının
cekici kılıg ˘ ına bu ru nmu s olarak sokuldu
approach-PAST
yanıma. (Aral 1999: 23)
side-POSS:1SG-DAT
‘This was not our first encounter. When I first came face to face
with death I was four years old. It approached me disguised in the
attractive outfit of a mountain mushroom.’
(5) When Evelyn learned of my pregnancy with little Pierre, as Adam
and I and my parents used to call him, she flew into a rage that sub-
sided into a years-long deterioration and rancorous depression.
(Walker 1993: 127)
(6) Yu zlerde okuyacag ˘ ı ve yavas
slow
yavas
slow
icine
interior-POSS:3SG-DAT
gireceg ˘ i
enter-FUTURE-NOM-POSS:3SG
dehsete
terror-DAT
iste bo yle bo yle
yaklasmaya
approach-NOM-DAT
basladı. (Pamuk 1996: 284)
start-PAST
‘He started approaching the terror just like this, the terror that he
would read in the faces of others and he himself would slowly enter
into.’
The patterns are found to be the same in the newspapers. As in the case
of novels, newspapers in English include a significantly (w2ð1Þ ¼ 13:9,
p < :001) higher percentage of manner verbs (50%) than newspapers in
Turkish (19%). Turkish journalists, on the other hand, mainly rely onbare path verbs in their metaphorical motion-event descriptions (76%;
see Figure 3).
A few excerpts from the newspaper articles in the two languages are
presented below. Similar to novelists, journalists writing in English rely
mainly on manner verbs in their metaphorical descriptions that tap into
a wide variety of target domains, including economy, politics, foreign af-
fairs, demographics, and so forth.
(7) The human race has never had it so good. Per capita wealth hadsoared in this century. Frightful diseases have been eradicated.
Infant mortality has plummeted. (Je¤ Jacoby, Boston Globe, 14
October 1999)
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(8) . . . Bradley is surfing a wave that threatens to capsize Vice Presi-
dent Al Gore. (Commentary, LA Times, 30 September 1999)
(9) Whereas Bluefields children somersault through complex sentences,
Winston lumbers along slowly, one sign at a time. (Lawrence Os-
borne, NY Times Magazine, 25 October 1999)
(10) The economy continues to steam ahead and inflation continues to
lie on the floor . . . ( Robert Dodge, Dallas Morning News, 29 Octo-
ber 1999)
The pattern is reversed for the Turkish newspapers, in which case journal-
ists mostly use bare path verbs to talk about similar issues:
(11) Ekonomiye
economy-DAT
destek
support
paketinden
package-POSS:3SG-ABL
beklenen
expected
vergi
tax
yumusaması
soften-NOM-POSS:3SG
cıkarsa
exit-COND
ve buna bag ˘ lı
olarak piyasaya
market-DAT
para
money
girisi
enter-NOM-POSS:3SG
devam ederse yeni bir tarihi zirveye dog ˘ ru hareket yaratılabilir.
(Esin Cetinel, Posta, 19 July 1999)
‘If the expected tax cuts exit from the economy support package,and in relation to this, if the entry of money to the money market
continues, a movement can be created towards a new historic
summit.’
9%
50%
41%
5%
76%
19%
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
manner path neutralverb type
p e r c e n t v e r b u s e
EnglishTurkish
Figure 3. Percentage of metaphorical motion verbs in newspapers (computed by dividing the
total number of manner, path, or neutral verbs by the total number of motion verbs
in each language)
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(12) Bunlar ‘‘su re’’ yiyecekler. Tuhaf bir sekilde hayatına
life-POSS:2SG-DAT
girip
enter-CONV
bir daha do nmemek
return-NEG-INF
u zere
so.as
cıkıp
exit-CONV gidiyorlar.
go-PRESENT-PLU
Bazı insanlar gibi. Bir de tabii hic
never
hayatından
life-POSS:2SG-ABL
cıkmayacak
exit-NEG-FUTURE
olanlar
be-NOM-PLU
var. Patates gibi, kalkan balıg ˘ ı gibi . . . (Perihan Magden, Radikal ,
exist
21 July 1999)
‘These are ‘‘temporary’’ food. They enter one’s life in a strange
way, and exit and go without any promise of return. Like somepeople. And, of course, there are the ones that will never exit from
one’s life. Like potatoes or shield fish . . .’
I should add a word of caution here about encoding of path in English.
Even though English writers do not typically encode path of motion
in the verb, they nevertheless include detailed path information in their
metaphorical descriptions using directional particles and prepositions
(Ozcalıskan 2004). In fact, most verbs of motion in English are accom-
panied by at least one directional particle that conveys path informa-tion (see examples [13]-to-[15]; directional particles and prepositions are
underlined).
(13) Her mind stumbled backwards to other embraces of his, and back
all the way to that night in Florida years ago. (Oates 1967: 244)
(14) Then she fell back almost voluptuously into a world of undi¤eren-
tiated flapping things where words were silent and colors became
textures. There were blossomings and explosions. From where she
had floated far down the coastline of her consciousness, she calledout. (Bowles 1966: 116)
(15) It is about the demise of the era of big-city bosses, the way televi-
sion changed electoral politics, how the Irish in America climbed
out of their immigrant poverty on a ladder of politics . . . (Je¤
Jacoby, Boston Globe, 25 October 1999)
The typological contrast is also quite evident in the diversity of the
manner verb lexicon. As can be seen in Table 1, novels written in English
contain three times as varied a manner lexicon as Turkish novels (95 to 30types). Similarly, newspapers in English contain more than three times as
varied a manner lexicon as their Turkish counterparts (110 to 32 types).
The di¤erence becomes even more pronounced when the verbs from
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novels and newspapers are combined together, with texts in English hav-
ing four times as varied a manner lexicon as the Turkish texts (145 to 41
types; w2ð1Þ ¼ 58:15, p < :001). Lists of all the manner verbs observed
in novels and newspapers in the two languages are provided in the
Appendix.
Typically, for a single verb in Turkish that describes a motion with
manner, English has at least two or more verbs that describe the same
motion event. An illustration of this phenomenon is provided in Table 2
with examples from the data.
It is evident from this summary that English makes finer distinctions
within domains of metaphorical motion that involve manner. This ex-
tensive di¤erentiation becomes especially striking in the variety of verbs
that are used in English to convey particular motor patterns such as walk-
ing and running. For the single Turkish verb, yu ru ‘walking’, English
texts use twenty-three di¤erent verbs (e.g., walk, drift, lumber, meander,
stride, trot). Similarly, for the single Turkish verb, kos ‘running’, English
texts employ nine di¤erent verbs (e.g., run, flee, flit, race, charge), all of
which encode nuances on a basic motor pattern of running. In summary,
the analysis strongly supports the typological dichotomy between the two
languages in encoding manner of motion. Texts written in English includea greater frequency and diversity of manner verbs than texts written in
Turkish, and this di¤erence is marked in both novels and newspapers.
Interestingly, however, the analysis of verbs and nominalized verbs of
metaphorical motion in the two languages has also revealed the e¤ect of
an intervening variable, and this variable is narrative perspective. In both
languages, the shift in narrative perspective has an e¤ect on verb choice,
leading to a di¤erence between self-motion and caused-motion descrip-
tions. Novels and newspapers produced in both languages include a
higher percentage of manner verbs when the metaphorical motion eventsare rendered from a caused-motion perspective as opposed to a self-
motion perspective. As can be seen in Table 3, novels in English use al-
most twice as many manner verbs (94% to 55%), and novels in Turkish
Table 1. Frequency distribution of types of manner verbs in English and Turkish
English Turkish
Novels 95 30 (36)aNewspapers 110 32 (40)
Novels and newspapers combined 145 41 (53)
a Numbers in parentheses refer to counts that also include verbs with the same roots, but
with derivational su‰xes (e.g., atla-t ‘jump-CAUSATIVE su‰x’) counted as additional
verb types.
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include three times as many manner verbs in the caused-motion descrip-
tions as compared to the self-motion descriptions (45% to 15%). These
di¤erences are found to be statistically significant at the w2ð1Þ ¼ 10:20,
p < :01 level for English, and w2ð1Þ ¼ 15:0, p < :001 for Turkish.
Similarly, as can be seen in Table 4, newspapers in English contain al-
most twice as many (79% to 42%) manner verbs when the event perspec-
tive is one of caused motion as opposed to self-motion. The pattern is the
Table 2. Examples of Turkish and English verbs of motion encoding manner
Turkish English
ak ‘flow’ flow, streamdo k (u l ) ‘pour’ pour, spill, slop
sız ‘leak’ leak, drain
kay ‘slide’ slide, slip
yuvarlan ‘roll’ roll, tumble, wallow
su ru n ‘crawl’ creep, crawl
tırman ‘climb up’ climb, clamber, skyrocket, soar
sendele, to kezle ‘stumble’ falter, stagger, stumble, trip
atla, sıcra ‘jump, bounce’ bounce, bound, jump, plummet, skip, spring, scramble
atıl ‘leap’ leap, lunge, lurk, launch, swoop
fırla ‘dart’ dart, burst, bolt, surge, pop, spurt
dal ‘plunge’ dip, plunge
su r ‘ride, drive’ ride, drive
cek ‘pull’ draw, pull
it ‘push’ push, propel, shove
yu z ‘swim’ float, flood, swim
kos ‘run’ run, flee, fleet, rally, race, reel, surge, charge, flit
kovala ‘chase’ chase, pursue, track, trail
yu ru ‘walk’ walk, drift, ebb, flounce, linger, lumber, march, meander, roam,
rustle, stride, tread, worm one’s way, hike, pace, ramble,
snake, trample, trot, swarm, forge, hurry, rush
Table 3. Percentage of metaphorical motion verbs in novels by narrative perspectivea
English Turkish
self caused self caused
Manner verbs 55% 94% 15% 45%
Path verbs 38% 5% 75% 55%
Neutral verbs 7% 1% 10% 0%
Total 100% 100% 100% 100%
a Percentages were computed by dividing the total number of manner, path, or neutral verbs
by the total number of motion verbs separately for each language and narrative perspective.
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same in the Turkish newspapers, which include four times as many man-
ner verbs in the caused-motion descriptions as opposed to the self-motion
descriptions (45% to 11%). These di¤erences are found to be significant
for both English (w2ð1Þ ¼ 11:31, p < :001) and Turkish (w2ð1Þ ¼ 20:64,
p < :001).
A few examples are provided to give the reader a sense of the di¤er-
ences between self-motion and caused-motion descriptions in the two lan-
guages. The first in each pair describes a metaphorical motion event from
a self-motion perspective, and the second describes a similar motion eventfrom a caused-motion perspective. As examples (16) to (18) illustrate, in
both languages self-motion descriptions (16a, 17a, 18a) are less likely to
elicit manner verbs than caused-motion descriptions (16b, 17b, 18b).
(16) a. He could hear the words coming out of his mouth, but even
as he spoke them, he felt they were expressing someone else’s
thoughts . . . (Auster 1990: 36)
b. She made me tell her the whole story of my relations with
Georgie in detail; and . . . I poured it all out with relief, and asI talked Antonia held my hand. (Murdoch 1976: 99)
(17) a. ‘‘. . . sizi memnun edecek birtakım sonuclara
conclusion-PLU-DAT
varacag ˘ ınızı
arrive-FUTURE-2PL-NOM
umuyorum.’’ (Cuneyt
Arcayurek, Cumhuriyet, 27 July 1999)
‘ ‘‘. . . I am hoping that you will arrive at some conclusions
that will satisfy you.’’’
b. Tarihi historical
kisiliklerpersonality-PLU
bazensometimes
du su ndu klerinden
cok
very
farklı
di¤erent
sonuclara
consequence-PLU-DAT
Table 4. Percentage of metaphorical motion verbs in newspapers by narrative perspectivea
English Turkish
self caused self caused
Manner verb 42% 79% 11% 45%
Path verb 47% 18% 82% 55%
Neutral verb 11% 3% 7% 0%
Total 100% 100% 100% 100%
a Percentages were computed by dividing the total number of manner, path, or neutral verbs
by the total number of motion verbs, separately for each narrative perspective and language.
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dog ˘ ru
toward
su ru klenir, hic akıllarına gelmeyen
drag-CAUS-PRESENT
gelismelere yol
acarlar. (Turker Alkan, Radikal , 20 July 1999)
‘Historical personalities are sometimes dragged towardsconsequences very di¤erent from what they have ever thought
about, they open the way for developments that never come
to their minds.’
(18) a. September’s decrease in durable goods orders was led by a 3.9
percent drop in orders for transportation equipment . . . . ( News
report, New York Times, 27 October 1999)
b. Slackening demand for cars and airplanes in September helped
drive down overall orders for big ticket manufactured goods by
1.3 percent. (News report, New York Times, 27 October 1999)
In summary, the preference for describing a metaphorical motion
event from a caused-motion perspective leads to greater manner verb use
in both English and Turkish, a di¤erence also observed in literal-motion
events (Ozcalıskan 2000). One possible explanation for this is that caused-
motion perspective necessitates a stronger evaluative component than a
self-motion perspective, because it gives cues about narrative motivation
in a particular act and its associated outcome, leading to greater use of
manner verbs. However, even though Turkish writers employ more man-ner verbs when they utilize a caused-motion perspective, the typological
di¤erence in terms of the frequency of manner verb use is still marked be-
tween the two language types. That is, even when considering transitive
and intransitive verbs separately, English still uses manner verbs at a
higher rate than Turkish (in novels: self-motion 55% versus 15%, caused
motion 94% versus 45%; in newspapers: self-motion 42% versus 11%,
caused motion 79% versus 45%). Therefore, it is safe to claim that lex-
icalization preferences associated with the choice of a particular narrative
stance influence the extent to which the typological dichotomy exerts it-self, but do not override it.
4.1.2. Verbs of motion: subordination of manner As pointed out earlier,
encoding manner information in a V-language typically involves heavier
syntactic packaging (e.g., subordinate constructions). In most instances,
the syntactic overload renders this option less likely to be used by V-
language speakers. In fact, no instances of subordinated manner-verb
constructions are observed in the metaphorical uses of motion events in
the Turkish data, neither in the novels nor in the newspapers. Subordi-nated manner expressions are also found to be very rare in the English
data. There are only two instances of such, both of which come up in the
novels:
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(19) The days passed, and even though there was rarely a moment when
they were not together, he continued to say nothing about what
truly concerned him—nothing about the struggle to put his life
together again, nothing about how he saw the wall as a chance toredeem himself in his own eyes, nothing about how he welcomed
the hardships of the meadow as a way to atone for his recklessness
and self-pity—for once he got started, he knew that all the words
would come tumbling from his mouth, and he didn’t want to
make Pozzi any more nervous than he already was. (Auster 1990:
127)
(20) I let her take me to places I’ve never seen before, the swell bars
around the Champs-Elysees where the sound of jazz and baby
voices crooning seems to soak right through the mahogany wood-work. Even when you go to the lavabo these pulpy, sappy strains
pursue you, come floating into the cabinet through the ventilators
and make life all soap and iridescent bubbles. (Miller 1961: 177)
This finding presents an interesting contrast to Spanish, which is also a
V-language. Analysis of written and oral narratives in Spanish has shown
that Spanish speakers make heavier use of subordinated manner expres-
sions than Turkish speakers (Ozcalıskan and Slobin 1999a, 1999b). This
intra-typological di¤erence can be attributable to the word-order e¤ect.In a typical clausal construction in Turkish, the main verb comes at the
end of the sentence, and any verb subordinated to the main verb must
precede this main verb. Therefore, Turkish speakers have to make a deci-
sion to include a subordinated manner verb well in advance, before they
produce the main verb (e.g., Eve kosarak girdi ‘house-to by-running
entered-he’; ‘He entered the house at a run’). On the other hand, Spanish
speakers can add subordinated manner verbs ad hoc, after they have pro-
duced the clause in its full form (e.g., El e ntro en la casa corriendo ‘He
entered the house running’), resulting in a greater use of such subordi-
nated manner verb constructions in Spanish.
4.1.3. Verbs of motion: Aspectual marking and repeated verbs The in-
flectional morphology of Turkish provides one relatively easy, but some-
what constrained option of marking manner on the verb by means of as-
pectual su‰xes attached to the motion verb root. A purely directional
verb such as gir ‘enter’ with an aspectual su‰x -iver ( gir-iver ‘enter-give’)
conveys manner information (suddenness, abruptness) along with path.However, this aspectual su‰x is very limited in its use; it only encodes
information about the rate of motion by adding a sense of ‘‘suddenness’’
to whatever verb it is attached to. A search of the data for this aspectual
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marking has revealed only two instances, pointing to its limited use by
native speakers of Turkish.
(21) Umberto Eco’nun vurgulaması, bu haftaki Time dergisininkapag ˘ ıyla u stu ste gelince
bizim
our
ko semizde
column-POSS:1PL-LOC
de sag ˘ lık
health
konusu
subject-POSS:3SG
o ne
front-DAT
cıkıverdi. (Zulfu Livaneli, Sabah, 14 July 1999)
exit-give-PAST
‘When Umberto Eco’s emphasis overlapped with the cover story
of this week’s Time magazine, the subject of health suddenly
exited to the front in our column.’
(22) . . . Ecevit, alınan son ekonomik kararlarla sermaye
investment
du zeninin
sector-POSS:3SG-POSS:3SG
umudu
hope-POSS:3SG
haline
state-POSS:3SG-DAT
geliverdi. (Cumhuriyet, July 28, 1999,
come-give-PAST
Sadullah Usumi)
‘. . . with the latest economic decisions, Ecevit suddenly became the
hope of the investment sector.’
English, on the other hand, due to the lack of a rich inflectional mor-
phology, relies on di¤erent linguistic means to create somewhat similar
e¤ects. Especially novels written in English make use of repeated motion
verbs (e.g., run and run) and aspectual verbs (e.g., keep slipping ) in at-
tempts to amplify the manner component of a metaphorical motion
event, as in examples (23) to (25).
(23) She could feel him ebbing away, ebbing away, leaving her there like
a stone on a shore. He was withdrawing [mentally], his spirit wasleaving her. (Lawrence 1980: 185)
(24) He struggled to settle down again, but his mind kept wandering
back to the road, to the exhilaration he had felt for those two
weeks, and little by little he began to give himself up for lost.
(Auster 1990: 8)
(25) She felt her heart sinking just at the touch of him. Her mind kept
slipping o¤ the wedding ceremony and onto Lowry, imagining
him getting out of his car and going to the doorway, climbing the
stairs, and not finding her home. (Oates 1967: 167)
Turkish, on the other hand, does not make any use of repeated or as-
pectual verbs. There is only one instance of a repeated noun use, found in
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a novel, which indirectly adds manner to the path verb gel ‘come’. In this
example, the repetition of the word dalga ‘wave’ clearly conveys an in-
crease in force at every successive arrival of the wave:
(26) I cinden
inside-POSS:3SG-ABL
o nce
first
bir
one
sevinc
joy
dalgası
wave-POSS:3SG
kabarır gelir,
come-PRESENT
bu belli belirsizdir, sonra
then
bir
one
dalga,
wave
bir
one
dalga
wave
daha . . . (Kemal 1997: 248)
more
‘A wave of joy foams up and comes from his inside, at first this is
almost unnoticeable, then another wave, another wave . . .’
In summary, as the foregoing analysis suggests, the semantic domain of
manner of motion is much less di¤erentiated in Turkish. The di¤erence is
marked in terms of both the frequency of manner verb use and the rich-
ness of the manner verb lexicon. Apart from manner verbs, there are a
few other options Turkish speakers can use to mark manner on the verb,
either via subordinated manner verb constructions or aspectual su‰xes
attached to the verb root. However, as observed in the data, both of these
options are either completely disregarded or used very rarely by Turkish
native speakers. Manner is likely to constitute a perceptually salient di-
mension of a motion event for speakers of any language. However, as
the above analysis has shown, the encoding of manner information relies
heavily on codability (Slobin 2004), and speakers of a language are
more likely to pay attention to and elaborate manner if they use a lan-
guage in which this dimension is highly codable. As discussed earlier,
compared to Turkish, English allows for easier codability, where manner
can be expressed using a single, finite, high-frequency lexical item (i.e., a
main verb) rather than a phrase, or a nonfinite verb such as a subordinate
construction (Slobin 2004). This allows English speakers to encode man-ner habitually, develop a richer lexicon of manner verbs, and make finer
distinctions at the predicate level within the domain of manner.
This brings us to our second question. If Turkish does not provide a
slot for marking of manner information that is easily codable, and if the
only available option is to use a construction type that is syntactically
complex and speakers prefer not to use this option, then what do Turkish
speakers do? Do they leave out manner information in their description
of motion events, or do they use alternative lexical means of encoding
this information? I will address this issue in the next section.
4.1.4. Alternative lexical means There are, in fact, quite a few such
lexical alternatives that can be used to encode manner information. The
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most typical of these alternative means is the use of adverbials that
qualify verbs of motion. It is possible to add manner to a metaphorical
motion event, such as aklımdan gecti ‘it crossed my mind’ by adding an
adverbial to the verb, as in aklımdan yel gibi gecti ‘it crossed my mind
like the wind’. Apart from adverbials, other such alternative means of ex-
pressing manner include adjectives that qualify nominalized verbs of met-
aphorical motion (e.g., his rapid fall to poverty) and verb complements
(e.g., force his mind to go blank, struggle to come out of her illness) that
convey the degree of e¤ort or force involved in a metaphorical motionevent. It is possible that Turkish speakers use these optional markings as
an alternative tool to encode components of an event type (i.e., manner)
that are not easily expressed in a simple construction in Turkish. There-
fore, as a second step, I look at the extent to which these alternative lex-
ical means are used in the two languages. The analysis has revealed the
results shown in Table 5.
As Table 5 reveals, English uses a greater amount of alternative lexical
means that encode manner than Turkish, both in novels (81 to 43 in-
stances) and newspapers (52 to 38 instances). Adverbials in both lan-guages constitute the most—and verb complements the least—frequently
used option to convey manner information. A joint look at novels and
newspapers further shows that even if both languages employ all three al-
ternative means of encoding manner, English writers use each type more
frequently than their Turkish counterparts (see Figure 4).
Some examples from the data follow (metaphorical motion events are
underlined and alternative lexical means of encoding manner are set in
contrasting type):
(27) Adverbials
a. I wanted to get out and walk eastward toward the park
through the soft twilight, but each time I tried to go I became
Table 5. Frequency distribution of alternative lexical means of encoding manner in novels
and newspapers
Novels Newspapers
English Turkish English Turkish
Adverbials 72 41 26 28
Adjectives 8 2 23 8
Verb complements 1 0 3 2
Totals 81 43 52 38
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entangled in some wild, strident argument which pulled me
back, as if ropes in my chair. (Fitzgerald 1986: 36)
b. Extreme love is fed by everything. So it was that the shock of
Georgie’s decision, once the immediate pain had been
su¤ered, opened as it were a channel down which my desires
with an increased violence ran in the direction of Honor.
(Murdoch 1976: 164)
c. I felt my emotions surge painfully toward the hem of her
wrapper. (Walker 1993: 80)
d. Stocks rallied sharply for the first time in nearly two weeks . . .
(News report, Washington Post, 1 October 1999)e. If the college application process is not under way, or if it is
moving along with great ambivalence or foot dragging , it’s
time to figure out why. (Barbara F. Meltz, Boston Globe, 14
October 1999)
f. Kafamı
head-POSS:1SG-ACC
hızlı
rapid
hızlı
rapid
sallayarak
shake-CONV
bu
this
pis
rotten
du su nceyi
thought-ACC
bir
one
kovadan
bucket-ABL
copluge
waste-DAT
bosaltırcasınapour-NOM-MODIF
bosaltmak pour-INF
istedim. (Agaoglu 1998: 145)want-PAST-1SG
‘By shaking my head rapidly, I wanted to pour this rotten
thought as if I am pouring it from a bucket into the waste.’
4
98
31
2
10
68
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
adverbials adjectives verb complements
f r e q u e n c y o f u s e
EnglishTurkish
Figure 4. Frequency distribution of alternative lexical means of encoding manner (novels and
newspapers)
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g. Uzak bir gecmisteki bir anıyı hatırlar . . . gibi, kameraya
bakmıslardı; karanlık
dark
bir
one
bataklıkta
swamp-LOC
agır
slowly
agır
slowly
batmaktasink-INF-LOC
olanbe-NOM
kendi their
geleceklerini future-PLU-POSS:3PL-ACC
alıskın go zlerle seyreder
watch-PRESENT
gibi, kaybettikleri
as if
belleklerinin bir daha hic geri gelmeyeceg ˘ inden kuskusu
olmayan unutkanlar gibi . . . ( Pamuk 1996: 284)
‘They stared at the camera as if they were remembering a
memory from the long forgotten past . . . ; they stared as if
they were watching their future that was sinking slowly slowly
in a dark swamp, like the forgetful people who did not havethe slightest doubt that the memory they lost would never
come back.’
h. Haftalar boyu mansetlerden inmeyen konular,
subject-PLU
birden
one-ABL
bire
one-DAT
arka
back-DAT
sayfalara
page-PLU-DAT
oradan
there-ABL
da arsivlere
archive-PLU-DAT
itiliyor
push-PASV-PRESENT
ve tozlu raflarda yıllar su recek uykusuna dalıyor. (Zulfu
Livaneli, Sabah, 15 July 1999)
‘Subjects that do not descend from the headlines for weeks, all
of a sudden are pushed to back pages and from there to the
archives, and they plunge into a years long sleep on dusty
shelves.’
i. Bo ylece iktidar sahibi olmayanların en temel
haklarının
right-PLU-POSS:3PL
sistematik
systematic
bicimde
form-LOCcig ˘ nendig ˘ i bir siddet ortamı olusur. (Aslı Erdogan, Radikal , 20
trample-PASV-NOM
July 1999)
‘As a result of this, a violent environment is created in which
the rights of those who are not in power are trampled down in
a systematic fashion.’
(28) Adjectives
a. . . . Grossman has made a steady, unspectacular climb up the
rungs of the civic leadership ladder. (David Nyhan, BostonGlobe, 25 October 1999)
b. That is, only an unexpected and monumental stumble could
undercut the solid support Mr. Bush has built among both
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rank-and-file Republican voters and the party’s establishment.
(Carl P. Leubsdorf, Dallas Morning News, 29 October 1999)
c. Bu iki gelisme o ncesinde piyasanın
market-POSS
gecen hafta oldug ˘ u gibi
sıkısık
congested
seyrini
sail-POSS-ACC
koruması
protect-NOM
beklenmeli. (Esin Cetinel, Posta, 19 July 1999)
wait-PASV-NECES
‘Prior to these two developments, it must be awaited
[expected] for the market to continue its congested sailing.’
d. . . . u retimde
production-LOC
ve
and
satısta
sales-LOC
buyuk
big
bir
one
du su sfall-NOM
icinde oldug ˘ una dikkat cekiyor. (Sefer Levent,interior-LOC
Posta, 17 July 1999)
‘. . . he draws attention to being inside a big fall in production
and sales.’
(29) Verb complements
a. Thus she had evolved a kind of private commandment—those
inaudible words were simply ‘‘I must not’’—whenever the
physical female implications of her body, sexual, menstrual,
parturitional, tried to force an entry into her consciousness.
(Fowles 1981: 29)
b. On her own this year, Dole struggled to run as both the first
woman and one of the guys. (Ellen Goodman, Boston Globe,
24 October 1999)
c. I deolojinin
ideology-POSS:3SG
toplumun
society-POSS:3SG
zihinsel
mental
deg ˘ isimini
change-NOM-POSS:3SG-ACC
takip
follow-NOM
etmekte
do-NOMzorlandıgı
have.di‰culty-NOM
do nemlerde, bu teorisyenlerde de bir
period-PLU-LOC
kalite du smesi ve bag ˘ nazlasma yasaktır. (Etyen Mahcupyan,
Radikal , 21 July 1999)
‘Drop in quality and tendency towards conservatism are
forbidden among these theoreticians during periods where
ideology has di‰culty following the changes in societal
mentality.’
d. 5 þ 3 formu lu n5 þ 3 formula-POSS:3SG-ACC
o rtu lu covered-INS
birone
bicimde
form-LOC
hayata
life-DAT
gecirmeye
pass-CAUS-NOM-DAT
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zorlamaktır. ( Idris Akyuz, Posta, 18 July 1999)
force-INF-PRESENT
‘He forces the 5 þ 3 formula to be passed [applied] to life in a
disguised fashion.’
The analysis at the level of alternative lexical means, including adver-
bials, adjectives, and verb complements, shows that texts in English pay
more attention to the manner dimension of metaphorical motion events
than do texts in Turkish. Even though the di¤erence is not quite as pro-
nounced as in the case of motion verbs—with Turkish writers making
quite extensive use of adjunct manner expressions—their overall use of
such expressions is nevertheless significantly lower than that of English
writers (81 to 133 instances; w2
ð1Þ ¼ 12:63, p < :001).The analysis still leaves us with an unanswered question about the
function of these alternative lexical means of encoding manner in the
two languages. Do they serve similar functions in English and Turkish,
merely acting as an alternative tool to encode manner of motion? Or is
the function di¤erent in the two languages? To answer this question we
need to look at the distribution of these adjunct manner expressions by
verb type across di¤erent metaphorical motion events. If they are more
likely to accompany manner verbs, then their function will be to augment
the manner that is already conveyed by the verb. On the other hand, if they are more likely to accompany non-manner verbs, then we may claim
that they serve as an alternative tool to add manner information to mo-
tion event descriptions that do not carry this information. Interestingly,
the results of the distributional analysis point to a di¤erence between the
two languages. As can be seen in Table 6, alternative lexical means of en-
coding manner are more likely to accompany manner verbs in English
texts (64%) and non-manner verbs in Turkish texts (72%). The di¤er-
ence suggests that English speakers use these lexical means mainly to
emphasize manner (already encoded by the verb) in their metaphorical
Table 6. Distribution of alternative lexical means (ALM) of encoding manner by verb type
in novels and newspapers
English Turkish
V: manner
þ ALM
V: non-manner
þ ALM
V: manner
þ ALM
V: non-manner
þ ALM
Novels 54 27 12 31
Newspapers 31 21 11 27
Total (percentage) 85 (64%) 48 (36%) 23 (28%) 58 (72%)
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motion-event descriptions; whereas Turkish speakers use them predomi-
nantly as a means of adding manner to metaphorical descriptions that
do not carry this information at the predicate level. The rate with which
alternative manner expressions accompany manner verbs in the two lan-guages is found to di¤er significantly (64% for English, 28% for Turkish,
w2ð1Þ ¼ 14:08, p < :001).
4.1.5. Indirect evocations of manner Most of what has been discussed
so far describes the many direct ways with which one can convey manner
information in a metaphorical motion event. Of course, there are the
more indirect ways of indicating manner via descriptions of various
sorts. Here again, the pattern repeats itself, with texts in English showing
a higher incidence and more elaborate descriptions of implicit manner.
These indirect evocations include descriptions of the motion itself (exam-
ples [30], [31]), descriptions of the moving entity (32), and descriptions of
the landscape within which the motion takes place (examples [33], [34];
descriptions are underlined).
(30) For both companies and individuals, that means pacing, in one
way or another, in a race that is becoming a marathon and less a
sprint. (Steve Lohr, New York Times, 27 October 1999)
(31) So I can’t write any longer. Or only when I write fast, without
looking back at what I have written. For if I look back, then the
words swim and have no sense and I am conscious only of me,
Anna, as a pulse in a great darkness, and the words that I, Anna,
write down are nothing, or like the secretions of a caterpillar that
are forced out in ribbons to harden in the air. (Lessing 1979: 476)
(32) She was exhausted with this love for him, this physical frenzy that
was like a devil clawing and screaming inside her to get free. . . . It
took life feebly from her, tiny grasps of blood, but the devil she car-ried about with her to the most innocent places—even to church
one Sunday when she couldn’t stand the long ordeal of that day,
alone—was a creature that reached and lunged out into every part
of her body, prying, prodding, teasing, not content with anything
feeble or gentle. (Oates 1967: 191)
(33) It soothed him to indulge in these histrionics of grief, to sink to the
depths of a lurid, imponderable sadness, but even after he caught
hold of himself and began to adjust to his solitude, he never fully
recovered from Pozzo’s absence, and he went on mourning the kidas though a part of himself had been lost forever. (Auster 1990: 179)
(34) One is ejected into the world like a dirty little mummy; the roads
are slippery with blood and no one knows why it should be so.
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Each one is traveling his own way and, though the earth be rotting
with good things, there is no time to pluck the fruits; the procession
scrambles toward the exit sign, and such a panic is there, such a
sweat to escape, that the weak and the helpless are trampled intothe mud and their cries are unheard. (Miller 1961: 187)
In summary, analysis of written texts at the level of motion verbs and
alternative lexical means of conveying manner shows a clear di¤erence
between English and Turkish, with English paying greater linguistic at-
tention to the manner dimension of motion events than Turkish. Turkish
writers use various alternative lexical means (adverbials, adjectives) to
add manner to their metaphorical motion descriptions; however, their
use of such manner adjuncts is still lower than that of the writers inEnglish. Texts in English also employ such alternative lexical means of
encoding manner, but mainly as a tool to strengthen the manner compo-
nent of the metaphorical motion events, already encoded by a great vari-
ety of manner verbs.
4.2. Elicitations10
4.2.1. Verbs of motion Similar to the patterns observed in written
texts, elicitations from native speakers of English and Turkish point to a
typological di¤erence in motion verb choice in metaphorical uses of spa-
tial motion. As can be seen in Figure 5, elicitations in English include
a significantly higher percentage of manner verbs (68%) than those in
7%
25%
68%
12%
46%42%
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
manner path neutral
verb type
p e r c e n t v e r b
u s e
EnglishTurkish
Figure 5. Percentage of metaphorical motion verbs in elicited responses (computed by
dividing the total number of manner, path, or neutral verbs by the total number of
motion verbs in each language)
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Turkish (42%; w2ð1Þ ¼ 6:14, p < :05). The patterns hold true across dif-
ferent target domains, with English speakers consistently using higher
percentages of manner verbs than Turkish speakers (see Table 7). The dif-
ferences are particularly marked in descriptions pertaining to the domains
of time, mental and emotional states.11
The typological pattern becomes clearly evident in the diversity of the
manner verb lexicon as well. In their metaphorical descriptions, English
speakers use a manner lexicon that is almost three times as varied as that
of Turkish speakers, showing a significant di¤erence between the two lan-
guages (95 to 34 types; w2ð1Þ ¼ 28:84, p < :001). A list of all manner
verbs used by native speakers in the two languages can be found in the
Appendix.
Interestingly, the percentage of manner verbs is found to be higher in
the elicited speech than in the written texts for both English and Turkish(compare Figures 2, 3, and 5). This di¤erence becomes even more pro-
nounced in the diversity of the manner lexicon, especially for English.
English speakers use more expressive (i.e., low-frequency) manner verbs
(e.g., flitter away, e¤ervesce, shoot through, slither) in describing various
target domains in terms of spatial motion. The di¤erence is likely to be
an outcome of the task demands, with the elicitation task being construed
as a more creative exercise by native speakers. However, regardless of
the di¤erences, the typological e¤ect is highly apparent in the elicited re-
sponses, allowing a clear contrast to be drawn between the two languagesin their di¤erential attention to manner of motion. Some example adult
responses pertaining to each of the domains are presented below, in ex-
amples (35) to (43):
Table 7. Percentage of metaphorical motion verbs in elicited responses by target domain a
English Turkish
manner non-manner manner non-manner
Anger/fear 76% 24% 31% 69%
Sadness/despair 56% 44% 27% 73%
Happiness/ joy 75% 25% 47% 53%
Thoughts/feelings 76% 24% 43% 57%
Mind/consciousness 86% 14% 48% 52%
Illness/pain 58% 42% 37% 63%
Life 64% 36% 55% 45%
Death 49% 51% 37% 63%
Time 70% 30% 46% 54%
Total 68% 32% 42% 58%
a Percentages were computed by dividing the total number of manner or non-manner verbs
by the total number of motion verbs separately for each domain and each language.
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(35) Time
a. Time flashes by.
b. The hours flittered away.
c. Zamantime
akıpflow-CONV
gitti.go-PAST
‘Time flew and went.’
d. Gelecek
future
elimden
hand-POSS:1SG-ABL
kacıverdi.
escape-give-PAST
‘The future escaped suddenly from my hands.’
(36) Life
a. Life drains away.
b. His life faded away.
c. Hayatlife
akıpflow-CONV
gidiyor.go-PRESENT
‘Life flows and goes.’
d. Hayat
life
gelip
come-CONV
gecer.
pass-PRESENT
‘Life comes and goes.’
(37) Death
a. Death stalks.
b. Death wafts.
c. O lu m
death
yaklasıyor.
approach-PRESENT
‘Death is approaching.’
d. O lu mler
death-PLU
birbirini
one.another-ACC
kovaladı.
chase-PAST
‘Deaths chased one another.’
(38) Sickness, pain
a. The cancer crept through him.
b. The illness bore down on him.c. Pain shoots through your limbs.
d. Kanser
cancer
midesinden
stomach-POSS:3SG-ABL
bag ˘ ırsaklarına
intestine-PLU-DAT
yu ru du .
walk-PAST
‘Cancer walked from his stomach to his intestines.’
e. Hastalık
illness
bir
one
vu cuttan
body-ABL
dig ˘ er
other
vu cuda
body-DAT
gecer.
pass-PRESENT
‘Illness passes from one body to the other.’(39) Thoughts, feelings
a. Thoughts tumble through your mind.
b. A thought popped into my head.
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c. Feelings tumble through your body.
d. Du su ncelerim
idea-PLU-POSS:1SG
konudan
subject-ABL
konuya
subject-DAT
atlıyor. jump-PRESENT
‘My thoughts jump from subject to subject.’
e. Aklımdan
mind-POSS:1SG-ABL
du su nceler
idea-PLU
gecer.
pass-PRESENT
‘Thoughts pass from my mind.’
f. Duygularım
feeling-PLU-POSS:1SG
yitip
disappear-CONV
gitti.
go-PAST
‘My feelings disappeared and went away.’
(40) Minda. Mind wanders.
b. Mind drifts.
c. Aklı
mind-POSS:3SG
baska
other
yerlerde
place-PLU-LOC
dolasır.
wander-PRESENT
‘His mind wanders in other places.’
d. Gu zel
beautiful
kızı
girl-ACC
go ru nce
see-NOM
aklı
mind-POSS:3SG
cıktı.
exit-PAST
‘His mind exited when he saw the beautiful girl.’
(41) Happiness, joy
a. Happiness washed over her.
b. Happiness soars.
c. Mutluluk
happiness-PLU
yayılıyor.
spread-PRESENT‘Happiness spreads.’
d. Sevinc
joy
tasar.
overflow-PRESENT
‘Joy overflows.’
(42) Anger, fear
a. Anger pulses through one’s vein.
b. Fear crept through his bones.
c. O fkem
anger-POSS:1SG
dig ˘ er
other
insanlara
human being-PLU-DATsıcradı.
jump-PAST
‘My anger jumped to other people.’
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d. I ˙cime
interior-POSS:1SG-DAT
korku
fear
du ser.
fall-PRESENT
‘Fear falls inside me.’
(43) Sadness, despaira. Sadness seeps.
b. Despairs clobbers.
c. Bu tu n
all
u zu ntu leri
sorrow-PLU-POSS:3SG
gecer.
pass-PRESENT
‘All his sorrow passes.’
d. Acı
pain
tırmanıyor.
climb.up-PRESENT
‘Pain climbs-up.’
4.2.2. Verbs of motion: Subordination of manner and aspectual mar-
king Similar to written texts, subordination is not observed in either lan-
guage, except for one instance in Turkish. The description pertained to the
domain of life ( yasam topallayarak yu ru r ‘life walks limping by’). There
are also two instances of aspectual marking, one in the domain of emo-
tional states (mutluluk kacıp gidiverdi ‘happiness escaped and went-
suddenly’), and one in the domain of time ( gelecek elimden kacıverdi
‘The future escaped-suddenly from my hand’). No instances of repeatedor aspectual verbs are observed in either of the two languages, except
for one repeated verb use in Turkish ( yasam kosar, kosar, kosar ‘life
runs, runs, runs’).
4.2.3. Alternative lexical means The elicitation task was designed to
extract only motion verbs. Nevertheless, a few participants—who an-
swered the questionnaire using full sentences—also used various alterna-
tive lexical means of conveying manner. Most of these were adverbials of manner. There is also one instance of a verb complement construction,
used by an English speaker (Time strains to move forward ). Speakers of
the two languages were comparable in their use of alternative lexical
means of encoding manner. The reason for the lack of di¤erence between
the two languages is likely to be the outcome of the Turkish speakers’
greater tendency to answer questions using full sentences, see examples
(44) to (50) (adverbials are underlined).
(44) Zamantime
cok very
hızlıfast
akıyor.flow-PRESENT
‘Time flows very rapidly.’
(45) The plague spread rapidly.
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(46) Hastalık
illness
hızla
fast
ilerledi.
advance-PAST
‘Illness advanced rapidly.’
(47) His life passed quickly.(48) Hayatın
life-POSS:3SG
yavas
slow
yavas
slow
ilerledig ˘ ini
advance-NOM-ACC
farkettim.
realize-PAST
‘I realized that life is moving forward slowly slowly.’
(49) Thoughts run freely.
(50) Anger comes upon me by surprise.
In summary, the elicited responses show clear typological di¤erences atthe level of motion verbs, with English speakers using a greater number
and variety of manner verbs than Turkish speakers.
5. Concluding remarks
This article compares lexicalization options provided by a V-language
and an S-language in metaphorically extended uses of motion-event de-
scriptions. Turkish and English di¤er in their preference for encoding the
path of motion in a verb (e.g., exit, ascend ) or an associated particle (e.g.,
go out, go down), respectively. The di¤erence in how path information is
encoded has significant e¤ects on the relative codability of other semantic
components of a motion event (e.g., manner). This article focuses on the
component of manner, which is less likely to be encoded in V-languages.
The data include novels and newspapers written in English and Turkish,
along with responses elicited from adult native speakers of each language.
The article investigates the possibility that Turkish speakers may rely on
alternative lexical means to encode manner information, marking manner
outside the main verb of a clause describing a metaphorical motion event.The analysis of written texts and elicited responses from native
speakers in the two languages indicates a strong typological di¤erence
between the two language types in encoding manner of motion. Overall,
when compared to Turkish speakers and writers, English speakers and
writers encode manner of motion at a higher rate, both in the use of mo-
tion verbs (59% compared to 27%) and in using alternative lexical means
to encode it (133 instances to 81 instances; see Figure 6). English speakers
and writers also make more fine-grained distinctions within particular do-
mains of manner, using a far richer lexicon of manner verbs than Turkishspeakers/writers.
Interestingly, these alternative lexical means of encoding manner show
a di¤erence in function in the two languages. Turkish speakers/writers
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use these means mainly to add manner information to their metaphorical
motion-event descriptions, thus encoding what they cannot easily convey
at the level of motion verbs. On the other hand, English speakers/writers
predominantly use these means to augment the manner that has already
been encoded by the verb in their motion event descriptions. Thus, the
same linguistic forms serve di¤erent functions in the two language types,
due to di¤erences in lexicalization patterns. However, even if Turkish
speakers/writers attempt to add manner by using various alternative lex-
ical means, the level of use still does not reach that of English speakers/
writers. Analysis of the data across written texts and adult responses
shows that sixty percent of all metaphorical motion-event descriptionsin English contains some indication of manner (i.e., a manner verb, a sub-
ordinated manner verb, or alternative lexical means of conveying manner
attached to a non-manner motion verb), whereas in Turkish, only twenty-
eight percent of metaphorical motion-event descriptions conveys some
indication of manner. In summary, the typological dichotomy proposed
by Talmy (2000) exerts itself as strongly in the metaphorically extended
uses of motion events as in the case of nonmetaphorical motion descrip-
tions, with Turkish (V-language) paying less linguistic attention to the
manner dimension of motion events, and making fewer distinctions with-in the domain.
This overall result is important in three basic respects. First of all,
it shows that cross-linguistic variation in a semantic domain—when
59%
133 instances
81 instances
27%
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
manner verbs alternative lexical means of manner
a m o u n t o f u s e
EnglishTurkish
Figure 6. Summary: Manner-of-motion encoding in English and Turkish (novels, newspa-
pers, elicitations; percentages were computed by averaging the total percentage of
manner verb use in each context separately in each language)
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observed—is evident not only in the literal uses of the lexicon, but also
becomes apparent in the metaphorical extensions of the lexicon. In con-
trast to a literal motion event (e.g., he runs into the house) which involves
only one conceptual domain (i.e., motion in space), a metaphorical mo-tion event is composed of a source domain (i.e., motion in space), a target
domain (e.g., time, mind, states), and a conceptual mapping between the
two domains (e.g., time passage is motion along a path, mind is a con-
tainer, states are locations). Thus, the source domain of ‘‘motion in
space’’ remains the same for a literal and a metaphorical motion event,
and therefore any typological e¤ect that is evident in a literal motion
event will unavoidably be observable in the metaphorical extensions of
the event, as became evident in the data.
In fact, earlier analysis of the metaphorical structure of various concep-
tual domains in English and Turkish has revealed the structure of the
source domain to be the best candidate for language-based variation in a
metaphorical event (Ozcalıskan 2003a, 2003b). A cross-linguistic compar-
ison of metaphorical motion events in English and Turkish in terms of the
types of target domains and metaphorical mappings has shown a striking
degree of similarity between English and Turkish. Both languages are
found to conceptualize a finite, almost identical set of target domains in
terms of motion in space. Furthermore, the two languages are found to
rely on the same mappings to describe each of these target domains (e.g.,
time is a container, ideas are moving entities, seeing is touching). The
high degree of cross-linguistic similarity in the target domains and the
types of metaphorical mappings is counterbalanced by a high degree of
cross-linguistic variation in the specification of the source domain struc-
ture (Ozcalıskan 2002, 2003a). As demonstrated in this article, the lexical-
ization preferences associated with the choice of motion verbs and the use
of various other lexical means of encoding manner show a strong typo-
logical contrast between English (S-language) and Turkish (V-language).Secondly, the contrast in the encoding of manner in the source domain
is also likely to have e¤ects on our conceptualization of the target domain
of a metaphorical mapping. In a metaphorical event, the mapping is al-
ways unidirectional—from source to target—where the target domain is
conceptualized and understood in terms of the source domain. Thus, it
is the structure of the source domain that determines the structure of
the target domain, and any cross-linguistic e¤ect that is true of the source
domain—which in this case is motion events—will unavoidably be true
of the target domain. As an example, if we take the target domain of time, it is likely that English speakers have a more elaborate representa-
tion of time as a moving entity, with the ability to detect and report
more fine-grained distinctions in their experience of time (e.g., time creeps
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versus time crawls versus time drags). For Turkish speakers, on the other
hand, the metaphor, time is a moving entity, may trigger a more general
sense of time passage as motion along a path (e.g., time passes), with
fewer shades of di¤erence in the way time is conceptualized to move.Thirdly, the results show that the codability of a semantic dimension in
a lexical item (e.g., a motion verb) has a spill-over e¤ect on the choice of
other lexical items or descriptions in a sentence. Since English speakers
have the option of easily encoding manner of motion in the main verb,
and use this option extensively, the manner dimension becomes a concep-
tually salient category for them. In turn, the e¤ect of this conceptual sa-
lience is reflected in the choice of other lexical items in the sentence. Thus,
English speakers encode manner not only by using manner verbs, but
also various other lexical items that encode manner (e.g., adverbials,
verb complements, indirect evocations), pointing to their greater aware-
ness of this dimension as a salient conceptual category. Relying on these
findings, it could be argued that native speakers producing texts within an
S-framed language type have recourse to mental images of metaphorical
motion-event scenes with more focus on manner of movement than do
speakers of a V-framed language.
Received 17 October 2001 University of Chicago
Revision received 22 December 2003
Appendix
List of abbreviated morphemes
ABIL abilitative marking
ABL ablative markingACC accusative marking
CAUS causative marking
CONV converb
COND conditional marking
DAT dative marking
FUTURE future-tense marking
INF infinitive marking
INS instrument marking
INTENSIFIER adjectival intensifierLOC locative marking
MODIF modifier
NEG negation marking
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NOM nominalization marking
POSS possessive marking (marking varies by subject type)
PLU plural marking
PASV passive voice markingPAST past-tense marking: simple past or past progressive
PRESENT present-tense marking: generic or present progressive
1SG subject marking: first-person singular
3SG subject marking: third-person singular
1PL subject marking: first-person plural
2PL subject marking: second-person plural
List of all manner verbs observed in novels and newspapers in the two
languages
English (145 types)
bail out, blow away, bob, bolt, bounce, break away, burst, butt out, capsize,
catapult, cave into, cha-cha into, charge, chase, clamber, climb, collapse,
crash through, crawl, creep, crowd, dart, dip, dispel, drag, drain, draw,
drift, drive, ebb, elude, eject, escape, falter, filter in, flee, fleet, flit, float,
flood, flounce, flow, fly, glide, hike, hurry, inch, jack into, jerk, jump,
knock, launch, leak, leap, linger, loom out, lumber along, lunge, lurk,
march, meander, pace, percolate into, plummet, plunge, pop, port into, pour, propel, pull, pump, pursue, push, race, rally, ramble, rebound, reel,
ride, roam, roll, run, rush, rustle, sail, scramble, shoot up, shove, shower,
shuttle, sink, siphon away, skip, skyrocket, slide, slip, slop, snake, slow,
soar, somersault, spill, spin, spring, spurt, stagger, stamp out, steam
ahead /take the steam, steer, step, stream, steamroller, stride, stumble,
surf, surge, swarm, sway, sweep, swerve, swim, swing, swirl, swoop, throw,
tip out, topple, toss, track, trail, trample, tread, trip, trot, tumble, veer,
vent, verge, walk, wallow, wander, wash over/through, whirl, worm one’s
way, wrench.
Turkish (41 types)
adım at ‘step’, ak ‘flow’, at ‘throw’, atıl ‘leap’, atla ‘jump’, bat ‘sink’, cek
‘pull’, cig ˘ ne ‘trample down’, co k ‘sink’, dal ‘dive, plunge’, dolan ‘wander’,
dolas ‘wander’, do k ‘pour’, fırla ‘dash, dart’, gezin ‘stroll’, it/itele ‘push’,
kac ‘escape’, kacıs ‘run scattering’, kapıl ‘be carried away with force’, kay
‘slide’, kos ‘run’, kovala ‘chase’, sac ‘throw scatteringly’, savur ‘hurl’, sen-
dele ‘stumble’, seyir et ‘move at a steady pace’, sıcra ‘bounce’, sıyrıl ‘sneak away’, sız ‘leak’, su r ‘ride, drive’, su ru n ‘crawl’, su ru kle ‘drag’, tas
‘overflow’, takıl ‘trip’, tırman ‘climb up’, to kezle ‘stumble’, uc ‘fly’, u su s
‘crowd running’, yuvarlan ‘roll’, yu ru ‘walk’, yu z ‘swim’.
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Additional verbs with the same roots, but with derivational su‰xes (14
types)
aktar ‘flow-CAUSATIVE (CAUS)’, akıt ‘flow-CAUS’, atlat ‘jump-
CAUS’, batır ‘sink-CAUS’, cektir ‘pull-CAUS’, dolastır ‘wander-CAUS’,do ku l ‘pour-CAUS’, fırlat ‘dart-CAUS’, gezdir ‘stroll-CAUS’, kacır
‘escape-CAUS’, kaydır ‘slide-CAUS’, savrul ‘hurl-CAUS’, su ru klen
‘drag-CAUS’, yu ru t ‘walk-CAUS’, and variations on verbþgive ( giriver
‘enter-give: enter suddenly’, cıkıver ‘exit-give: exit suddenly’.
List of all manner verbs used by adult native speakers in the elicitation task
English (95 types)
attack, bear down, bounce, break in, bubble up, burst (out/in), cavort,charge, climb, collapse, course through, crawl, creep, dance, drip, drag on,
drain, drift, drive, engulf, escape, escalate, evade, evaporate, fade away,
flash by, flee, flit, flitter away, float, flow, fly, gallop, hop, invade, jet, jum-
ble, jump, leap, limp, linger, lump along, lurk, march, meander, melt away,
pace, penetrate, permeate, pierce, plod by, pop, plunge, pulse, push itself,
race, rain down, rebound, retract, roll, run, rush, sag, sail, scatter, seep,
shoot through, sink, skate, skip, slide, slip (away), slither, slump, sneak
(up on), soar, spin, spring, stalk, step ahead, stomp, stream, stride, swarm,
sweep, swim, tiptoe, trickle, tumble, waft, walk, wane, wander, wash over,well up.
Turkish (34 types)
ak ‘flow’, atla ‘jump’, bas ‘step’, cag ˘ la ‘flow forcefully’, co k ‘sink’, damla
‘drip’, devril ‘collapse’, dolas ‘wander’, emekle ‘crawl’, gez ‘wander’,
hızlan ‘accelerate’, hopla ‘hop’, kac ‘escape’, kay ‘slide’, kos ‘run’, kovala
‘chase’, sacıl ‘scatter’, savrul ‘be hurled’, saplan ‘pierce’, sıcra ‘bounce’, sız
‘leak’, sıyrıl ‘squeak’, su ru n ‘creep’, takla at ‘somersault’, tas ‘overflow’,
tırman ‘climb’, topalla ‘limp,’ uc ‘fly’, yag ˘ ‘rain’, yarıs ‘race’, yavasla‘slow down’, yu ru ‘walk’, yu z ‘swim’, zıpla ‘bounce’.
Notes
* I thank Dan I. Slobin, Eve Sweetser, and Bradley M. Cooke for their helpful comments
on an earlier draft of this article, along with the Chancellor’s O‰ce, Graduate Divi-
sion, and the Center for Middle Eastern Studies the at the University of California,
Berkeley for providing research grants and fellowships that made this study possible. I
also thank Hodgen Publication Fund at the University of California, Berkeley for pro-viding a writing grant for the article. Last, but not least, I thank the two anonymous
reviewers for their helpful comments. E-mail address: [email protected].
1. The satellite-framed construction type applies to Germanic, Slavic, and Finno-Ugric
languages. Verb-framed languages include Turkic, Semitic, and Romance languages,
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along with Japanese, Korean, Basque, and American and Netherlands signed
languages (Slobin 1997, 2004). In his revision of the typology, Slobin (2003) adds
another category of languages, which he calls equipollently framed languages. These in-
clude serial-verb (Niger-Congo, Hmong-Mien, Sino-Tibetan, Tai-Kadai, Mon-Khmer,
Austronesian), bipartite-verb (Algonquian, Athabaskan, Hokan, Klamath-Takelman),
and Jaminjungan languages.
2. ‘‘Manner’’ refers to a broad set of factors including motor pattern (e.g., he runs into
frustrations, the idea creeps into her mind, the day moves along at a fine tempo), or the
rate of metaphorical motion (e.g., his mind plunges in an awkward thought, she bursts
out with happiness, he suddenly comes to the realization, she slowly comes out of her ill-
ness), or the degree of e¤ort involved in the metaphorical motion (e.g., he pulls himself
out of depression, they clamber out of poverty, she struggles to enter his life, his anger
comes out violently). ‘‘Path’’ refers to the direction of motion, which, in its most elabo-
rated sense, involves metaphorical motion from a source to a goal, passing through one
or more milestones (e.g., the fear in his eyes creeps from his gaze into her heart, making its way through the labyrinths of her unconscious).
3. The typological dichotomy as presented in this article provides a general outline with-
out going into an in-depth account of some of the more recent attempts to revise the
binary typology. This is mainly because English and Turkish—as demonstrated by ear-
lier work on literal motion—constitute good exemplars of the two language types in
terms of the typological distinctions outlined by Talmy. For the interested reader, how-
ever, some of the more recent work suggests a revision of Talmy’s typological dichot-
omy, by ranking languages on a continuum of manner salience rather than assigning
them to one of the two typological categories (Slobin 2003). Some languages even
show patterns characteristic of both language types (e.g., serial-verb languages,
bipartite-verb languages), suggesting a trichotomy of language types (Slobin 2003).
4. The e¤ect of language on cognition is a highly controversial issue. Researchers seem to
be split in their findings regarding the e¤ect of language on di¤erent aspects of spatial
cognition. Some researchers argue for a clear cross-linguistic e¤ect on cognitive pro-
cesses, as demonstrated by significant performance di¤erences in various spatial navi-
gation tasks (e.g., Levinson et al. 2002), spatial relation tasks (e.g., Bowerman and
Choi 2000), and in memory tasks for motion events (Oh 2003) by speakers of di¤er-
ent languages. Some other researchers argue spatial cognition to be free of language-
based variation, as shown in memory tasks for motion events (e.g., Papafragou et al.
2002) and spatial navigation tasks (e.g., Li and Gleitman 2003). The analysis con-
ducted in this article is linguistic, and does not involve any cognitive tasks. The claimsraised about the potential e¤ects of language on cognition is only a prediction—which
is in line with the author’s position on this issue—and therefore should be regarded as
in need of future empirical verification.
5. Some of these motion-event metaphors involve more idiomatic expressions, such as he
runs for president, he runs out of time, he runs the company. These instances are also
included in the analysis, because even though these forms have become linguistically
frozen over time, they are still conceptually ‘‘alive’’. That is, they constitute conceptual
mappings that can be extended systematically and in novel ways. For instance, in the
metaphor he runs for president, the political race is conceptualized as a foot race, where
candidates correspond to athletes, and winning the presidency corresponds to crossing
the finish line in the first place. Furthermore, this metaphor can be extended in novel
ways by conceptualizing the race as a horse race (the candidates are running neck and
neck ), or a sailboat race (he is sailing smoothly towards the primaries). Similarly, in the
metaphorical expression he runs out of time, time is conceptualized as a resource and
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this (linguistically frozen) metaphor can be extended systematically, as in he is short of
time, he wasted a lot of time, or he does not have enough time. Therefore, even though
the linguistic expression is conventionalized and has become frozen over time, the
mapping remains alive and can be varied systematically, leading to a variety of such
expressions that conceptualize time as resource (see Lako¤ 1987 for a more detailed
discussion of this issue).
6. The total number of motion verbs used metaphorically was 827 for the newspapers in
English, and 894 for the newspapers in Turkish.
7. The total number of motion verbs used metaphorically by adult native speakers was
380 for English and 375 for Turkish. The reason the responses did not add up to a total
of 500 verbs in either of the two languages was that subjects’ responses also included
verbs that did not express motion (e.g., time eats your life, anger boils). These instances
were excluded from the analysis, since the study only focused on metaphorical exten-
sions of spatial motion.
8. The category of manner verbs includes both bare manner verbs (e.g., run, walk, crawl )and manner verbs conflated with path (e.g., skyrocket, plummet, sink ). The category of
path verbs, on the other hand, includes only bare path verbs (i.e., verbs that only en-
code direction of motion). Lastly, the category of neutral verbs include verbs that do
not indicate either path or manner information.
9. All percentages presented in the results section are computed by dividing the number
of manner or path or neutral verbs of metaphorical motion by the total number of mo-
tion verbs used metaphorically, separately for novels and newspapers in each of the
two languages.
10. All percentages presented in the results section are computed by dividing the number of
manner or path or neutral verbs of metaphorical motion by the total number of motion
verbs used metaphorically in adult productions in each of the two languages.
11. The only two exceptions to this pattern are the domains of death and life, where the
di¤erence between the two languages in the rate of manner verb use is less marked.
However, for these two target domains, the typological di¤erence becomes more pro-
nounced when the diversity of the manner verb lexicon is considered, with English
speakers using a greater variety of manner verbs to describe these domains than Turk-
ish speakers (25 to 15 types). Yasam akar ‘life flows’ is a common metaphorical expres-
sion in Turkish that was frequently used in the elicitation task, resulting in a higher per-
centage of manner verb use in the domain of life for Turkish. Similarly, for death,
English speakers use a variety of manner verbs (e.g., drift, float, lurk, sink, slide, stalk,
waft) in describing death as a moving entity, while Turkish speakers use only a fewtypes of manner verbs (e.g., kovala ‘chase’, yu ru ‘walk’).
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