Motion, Path, and Aspect

Abstract

Previous research has revealed that polysemy patterns observed in spatial adpositions may correlate systematically with differences in the aspectual perspective that the speaker takes on the spatial event as a whole. Given the close interaction in the sentential context of the spatial adposition, the verb, the case marking, and the functional properties of the trajector and landmark, I claim that the perspectivization of a spatial event depends on the conceptualization of every single internal conceptual entity making up that event as a whole. In this paper, I want to explore the systematic general regularities that underlie and structure the path concepts conventionally associated with German durch 'through' and über 'over'. After a brief presentation of the cognitive construal operations that are at work in German adpositions, I propose three different, yet interrelated Gestalts of path, which are schematic with respect to the path concepts specified by durch and über alike. They are incomplete traversal, complete traversal, and obstacle/boundary traversal. It is shown that these three schematic Gestalts vary substantially with respect to the aspectual properties of the complex motion events to which they belong.

Visualization and conceptual metaphor as tools for the teaching of abstract motion in German

“…But either the explanations are too complex (e.g. Meex 2004) and would take hours of teaching -which is not possible in the tight school or university schedule -, or they highlight just one aspect (Carroll, 1997;Serra-Borneto, 1997) or deal with a single preposition (Bellavia, 1996;Di Meola, 1998;Meex, 2002). My study suggests a simpler, more general and more accessible teaching approach.…”

“…To express it in Talmy's terminology, in (4a) a path and a goal ('into the street') are expressed, (4b) simply expresses a location (see also the studies on the dative/accusative alternation by Di Meola, 1998;Draye, 1996;Leys, 1989Leys, , 1995Meex, 2002Meex, , 2004Meex & Mortelmans, 2002;Serra-Borneto, 1997;Smith, 1987Smith, , 1993Smith, , 1995. They all propose different explanation frames, referring among others to the notions of trajector and landmark.…”

“…How can the learning of this German way of viewing things and the morpho-syntactic realization (with an accusative) be facilitated? Several explanation attempts have been proposed in scientific literature, like in Bellavia (1996), Di Meola (1998), Meex (2004), or Smith (1995, to name just a few. But either the explanations are too complex (e.g.…”