Motion event encoding in ancient greek. A typological corpus-based study of path and manner expression

Abstract

This dissertation is a corpus-based study of motion encoding in Ancient Greek. Among the conceptual components of motion identified in the relevant literature, the focus is on Path, i.e. the trajectory traced by the Figure during its displacement, and Manner, i.e. the mode of motion. Based on a fine-grained analysis of five Ancient Greek texts belonging to the historical and dramatic genres, and dating back to the 5th century BC, this study investigates the lexical, grammatical and constructional strategies involved in motion expression, as well as the distribution of the spatial information across five morphosyntactic and functional categories, namely the verb, the noun, the modifier, the satellite, and the adnominal. Exploiting the conceptual tools and theoretical premises of the functional-typological approach, the data analysis shows that, regardless of the traditional attribution of Ancient Greek to the Satellite-Framed type (cf. Talmy 1991; 2000) based on its rich inventory of directional preverbs and verb particles, several lexicalization patterns coexist in the language, and prevail over one another depending on the features of the motion event. Such patterns form a cline proceeding from a more overt to a more covert type of encoding. As far as Path is concerned, the hypothesis on the existence of an asymmetry between Source and Goal (cf., inter alia, Ikegami 1987; Stefanowitsch & Rohde 2004) is confirmed. [edited by author]