In this paper we compare motion event encoding / decoding in English and Italian using authentic data taken from translated texts, and we investigate how English sentences using a manner verb as main verb may receive a directional reading in a prevalently Verb-framed language like Italian, i.e. a language which lacks inherently directional particles, or other specific morphological means expressing telic directional meaning. We analyze directional boundary and non-boundary-crossing events and also use self-contained motion verbs as a comparative element. Analysis of our corpus shows that Italian uses manner verbs to encode dislocational events in about 42% of the cases, and that, contrary to our expectations, a similar percentage of manner verbs is used both in non boundary (42.6%) and boundary-crossing events (38.5%). Moreover, manner verbs are used in about 85% of Italian sentences expressing selfcontained motion events. In the discussion we illustrate how the semantic profiles of manner verbs differ in their availability to encode directional events: the encoding / decoding of dislocational meaning results from the interplay of inferential factors and linguistic means of different sorts distributed in the sentence which interact with the verb meaning.

The role of inference in motion event encoding / decoding: A cross-linguistic inquiry into English and Italian

IACOBINI, CLAUDIO;
2014-01-01

Abstract

In this paper we compare motion event encoding / decoding in English and Italian using authentic data taken from translated texts, and we investigate how English sentences using a manner verb as main verb may receive a directional reading in a prevalently Verb-framed language like Italian, i.e. a language which lacks inherently directional particles, or other specific morphological means expressing telic directional meaning. We analyze directional boundary and non-boundary-crossing events and also use self-contained motion verbs as a comparative element. Analysis of our corpus shows that Italian uses manner verbs to encode dislocational events in about 42% of the cases, and that, contrary to our expectations, a similar percentage of manner verbs is used both in non boundary (42.6%) and boundary-crossing events (38.5%). Moreover, manner verbs are used in about 85% of Italian sentences expressing selfcontained motion events. In the discussion we illustrate how the semantic profiles of manner verbs differ in their availability to encode directional events: the encoding / decoding of dislocational meaning results from the interplay of inferential factors and linguistic means of different sorts distributed in the sentence which interact with the verb meaning.
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11386/4497659
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