Transcript English posture verbs: An experientially grounded approach

English posture verbs
An experientially grounded approach
John Newman
University of Alberta
Conference on “Expressions of posture and motion in Germanic languages”
Facultés universitaires Saint-Louis, Brussels, Belgium
October 24, 2008
Structure of Talk
•
•
•
•
•
Preliminaries - experiential realities
SIT, STAND, LIE as cardinal posture verbs
Action vs. state meanings
Inanimate subjects, including locative use
Final remarks – experiential realities
•
•
•
•
•
Preliminaries - experiential realities
SIT, STAND, LIE as cardinal posture verbs
Action vs. state meanings
Inanimate subjects, including locative use
Final remarks – experiential realities
Basic-level categories
• Basic-level categories of things (cf. Lakoff 1987)
– ‘dog’ and ‘chair’
• Basic-level categories of events?
– ‘come’, ‘go’
– ‘see’, ‘hear’
– ‘eat’, ‘drink’
– ‘sit’, ‘stand’, ‘lie’
– ‘give’, ‘take’
Sit, Stand, and Lie (2004), clay sculptures by Francis O. Cuyler
Sitting, standing, lying
• The spatio-temporal domain
– a strong contrast between the spatial
configurations involved:
• a compact shape associated with sitting
• an upright, vertical elongation with standing
• a horizontal elongation in the case of lying
– a strong sense of the extension of a state through
time
Sitting, standing, lying
• The force-dynamics domain
– the states are typically entered into through
relatively brief movements
– the states themselves are typically maintained for
longer periods
– there are clear differences between these states in
terms of the sensorimotor control which is
needed in order to maintain the position.
Sitting, standing, lying
• The socio-cultural domain
– sitting is a relatively comfortable position
– standing allows a greater exercise of physical
power, vision over a greater distance and is a
prerequisite for walking, running etc.
– lying is the least compatible with physical action
and is associated with rest, sleep, sickness, and
death
•
•
•
•
•
Preliminaries - experiential realities
SIT, STAND, LIE as cardinal posture verbs
Action vs. state meanings
Inanimate subjects, including locative use
Final remarks – experiential realities
Posture verbs and locatives
• Posture verbs are the prototypical verbs
which define a language type in the MPI-based
research on “basic locative constructions”
“Revised” typology
Ameka and Levinson (2007)
• Type 0: No verb (Saliba)
• Type I: Single locative verb
– Ia: Copula (English)
– Ib: Locative verb (Japanese)
• Type II: A small contrastive set of locative verbs
– IIa: Postural verbs (Dutch)
– IIb: Ground space indicating verbs (Tidore)
• Type III: Multiverb Positional verbs (German)
“Revised” typology
Ameka and Levinson (2007)
• Type 0: No verb (Saliba)
• Type I: Single locative verb
– Ia: Copula (English)
– Ib: Locative verb (Japanese)
• Type II: A small contrastive set of locative verbs
– IIa: Postural verbs (Dutch)
– IIb: Ground space indicating verbs (Tidore)
• Type III: Multiverb Positional verbs (German)
‘sit’, ‘stand’, ‘lie’
• Posture verbs are the prototypical verbs
which define a language type in the MPI-based
research on “basic locative constructions”
• Among the posture verbs, the set {‘sit’, ‘stand’,
‘lie’} can have a special status in a language
SIT, STAND, LIE in English
• Corpora allow us to study usage
• Corpus-based study of posture verbs:
– ‘tell a lie’ sense found with lie(s) and lying
– transitive vs. intransitive lay
– both stand and lie are used as nouns
– numerous idiomatic uses
Two corpora
• SemCor 3.0:
– 700,000 words of the BROWN corpus
– all verbs lemmatized and sense-tagged according to Princeton
WordNet 3.0
– written usage of American English
• The Princeton WordNet Gloss Corpus:
– more than 1.6 million words of the glosses of the WordNet 3.0
dictionary
– a “gloss” is understood as the definition of a word and any
example sentences
VERB
WORDNET MEANING
STAND
SIT
LIE
SQUAT
‘be standing, be upright’
‘be sitting’
‘be lying, be prostrate, be in a
horizontal position’
‘be suspended or hanging’
‘incline or bend from a vertical
position’
‘sit on one’s heels’
KNEEL
SEM
COR
GLOSS
CORPUS
133
124
46
169
134
58
27
19
35
24
8
8
‘rest one’s weight on one’s knees’
7
9
CROUCH
‘sit on one’s heels’
4
7
STOOP
4
7
SPRAWL
‘bend one’s back forward from the
waist on down’
‘sit or lie with one’s limbs spread out’
4
8
PERCH
‘sit, as on a branch’
4
6
BEND
‘bend one’s back forward from the
waist on down’
‘sit or recline comfortably’
3
3
2
2
HANG
LEAN
LOUNGE
‘sit’, ‘stand’, ‘lie’ in Mbay
• In Mbay (Nilo-Saharan), locational and
existential constructions typically involve one
of the three verbs ‘sit’, ‘stand’ and ‘lie’ (Keegan 2002)
• Mbay also has a set of adverbs translating as
‘here’ and ‘there’ which are derived from ‘sit’,
‘stand’ and ‘lie’.
‘sit’, ‘stand’, ‘lie’ in Mbay
‘sit’, ‘stand’, ‘lie’ in Kxoé
• Kxoé (Khoisan), it is precisely ‘sit’, ‘stand’, and
‘lie’ which function as present tense markers
(Köhler 1962; Heine and Kuteva 2002)
‘sit’, ‘stand’, ‘lie’ in Euchee
• Euchee (Amerindian isolate) ‘sit, stay’, ‘stand’,
and ‘lie’ form the basis of a three-way nounclassification system
(Wagner 1933-1938; Watkins 1976; Linn 2000)
• The three forms function as
articles/demonstratives occurring with singular
inanimate nouns
‘sit’, ‘stand’, ‘lie’ in Euchee
‘sit’, ‘stand’, ‘lie’
• SIT, STAND, LIE are the cardinal posture verbs
in English
• ‘sit’, ‘stand’, ‘lie’ can be a distinctive set of verbs
in other languages
– Mbay locational/existential constructions
– Kxoé tense marking
– Euchee noun classification system
•
•
•
•
•
Preliminaries - some experiential realities
SIT, STAND, LIE as cardinal posture verbs
Action vs. state meanings
Inanimate subjects, including locative use
Summary
From state to location
• Posture verbs which are used with essentially
static, at-rest meanings are more likely to lead
to locative functions
Dunn, Michael, Anna Margetts, Sergio Meira, and Angela Terrill. (2007). Four languages from
the lower end of the typology of locative predication. Linguistics 45.5/6: 873–892.
Action and State (German)
• German sich hinsetzen is an “action” predicate
• German sitzen is usually a “state” predicate
• The “state” meaning is nevertheless often
contextually salient with sich hinsetzen
German sich hinsetzen
• Es kommt vor, daß ich mich dann für einige
Augenblicke hinsetze und zu erraten versuche,
was gerade passiert.
‘So I sit down [action predicate] for a few
moments then and try to guess what just
happened.’
[Mannheimer Morgen, 30.04.2002; Lo und Lu Roman eines Vaters]
German sich hinsetzen
• Es kommt vor, daß ich mich dann für einige
Augenblicke hinsetze und zu erraten versuche,
was gerade passiert.
‘So I sit down [action predicate] for a few
moments then and try to guess what just
happened.’
[Mannheimer Morgen, 30.04.2002; Lo und Lu Roman eines Vaters]
German sich hinsetzen und..
• keinen freien Augenblick, um sich hinzusetzen und nachzudenken
‘no free moment to sit down and reflect’
• dachte, die Kinder würden sich hinsetzen und malen
‘thought that the children would sit down and paint’
German sich hinsetzen und..
• keinen freien Augenblick, um sich hinzusetzen und nachzudenken
‘no free moment to sit down and reflect’
• dachte, die Kinder würden sich hinsetzen und malen
‘thought that the children would sit down and paint’
German sich hinsetzen, um...zu
• habe sich der jetzige Präsident hingesetzt, um sich auszuruhen
‘the current president sat down to rest’
• jeden Tag, wenn ich mich hinsetzen will, um etwas zu schreiben
‘every day, if I want to sit down to write something’
German sich hinsetzen, um...zu
• habe sich der jetzige Präsident hingesetzt, um sich auszuruhen
‘the current president sat down to rest’
• jeden Tag, wenn ich mich hinsetzen will, um etwas zu schreiben
‘every day, if I want to sit down to write something’
The “sitting” frame
Action is profiled: sich hinsetzen
State is profiled: sitzen
Action and State (English)
• Is SIT an ‘action’ or a ‘state’ verb?
State SIT in Bible
The neighbours therefore, and they which before had seen him
that he was blind, said, Is not this he that sat and begged?
John 9:8
Then Martha, as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming,
went and met him: but Mary sat still in the house. John 11:20
But to sit on my right hand and on my left hand is not mine to
give; but it shall be given to them for whom it is prepared.
Mark 10:40
O.E. SITTAN > SIT in state sense
West Saxon Gospels
c.990
West Saxon Gospels
c.1175
John Wycliffe Bible
c.1384
William Tyndale NT
1530-1534
Great Bible
1540
King James Bible 1611
John 9.8
3Sg. Past
sæt
John 11.20
3Sg. Past
sæt
Mark 14.54
3Sg. Past
sæt
sæt
sæt
set
sat
sat
sat
sate
sate
sat
sat
sate
sat
sate
sate
sate
Action SIT in Bible
And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister,
and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the
synagogue were fastened on him. Luke 4:20
For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down
first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish
it? Luke 14:2
And he said, An hundred measures of oil. And he said unto him,
Take thy bill, and sit down quickly, and write fifty. Luke 16:6
O.E. SITTAN > SIT in action sense
Luke 4.20
3Sg. Past
Luke 14.28 3Sg. Luke 16.6
Present
Sg. Imperative
West Saxon Gospels
c.990
West Saxon Gospels
c.1175
John Wycliffe Bible
c.1384
sæt
sytt
site
sæt
sit
site
sat
[sittinge]
sitte
William Tyndale NT
1530-1534
sate doune
sytteth doune
syt doune
Great Bible
1540
sate downe
sytteth downe
syt doune
King James Bible 1611 sate downe
sitteth downe
sit downe
Two corpora
• The Wellington Corpus of Written New Zealand
English (WWC)
– 1 million words of written New Zealand English (1986 to 1990),
comparable to the Brown Corpus of written American English and the
Lancaster-Oslo-Bergen corpus (LOB) of written British English
• The Wellington Spoken Corpus (WSC)
– 1 million words of spoken New Zealand English collected in the years
1988 to 1994
Action SIT
State SIT
SITTING DOWN in the spoken corpus
Is English SIT ‘action’ or ‘state’?
(with or without down) occurs in clauses
which range over ‘action’ and ‘state’ meanings
• STAND and LIE are probably similar
• The extension of English SIT, STAND, and LIE to
locative usage is presumably compromised by
these facts
•
SIT
•
•
•
•
•
Preliminaries - experiential realities
SIT, STAND, LIE as cardinal posture verbs
Action vs. state meanings
Inanimate subjects, including locative use
Final remarks - experiential realities
Global and local corpus methods
Search for all the forms of the posture verbs and inspect all
results, as in Schönefeld (2006) – “global” [Using a 3 million
word newspaper subcorpus of the BNC.]
Schönefeld, Doris. (2006). From conceptualization to linguistic expression: Where languages diversify. In
Stefan Th. Gries and Anatol Stefanowitsch (eds.), Corpora in Cognitive Linguistics: Corpus-based Approaches to
Syntax and Lexis, pp. 297- 344. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Search for a specific inanimate subject with a specific posture
verb – “local”.
Schönefeld (2006)
SIT
STAND
LIE
HUMAN BEINGS
87%
59.6%
man, people, proper proper nouns, people,
nouns
deputy, candidate
26.3%
Proper nouns,
people, man, child,
girl
CONCRETE
OBJECTS
3.9%
house, journal,
book, plant, building
8.8%
car, machine, book, tanks,
temple
29.5%
village, ship, coal,
clothes, boat
ABSTRACT
OBJECTS
2.3%
music,
superstructure
19.1%
42.1%
case, deal, things, directive, blame, responsibility,
conditions
problem, task
PERSONIFIED
OBJECTS
5.6%
government, court,
pentagon
8.8%
pronoun, world, Britain,
army, firm
1.7%
(sports) club, talent
ANIMALS
1.1%
fox, mouse, owl
1.4%
sheep, gelding, cat
0.4%
dog
Schönefeld (2006)
SIT
STAND
LIE
HUMAN BEINGS
87%
59.6%
man, people, proper proper nouns, people,
nouns
deputy, candidate
26.3%
Proper nouns,
people, man, child,
girl
CONCRETE
OBJECTS
3.9%
house, journal,
book, plant, building
8.8%
car, machine, book, tanks,
temple
29.5%
village, ship, coal,
clothes, boat
ABSTRACT
OBJECTS
2.3%
music,
superstructure
19.1%
42.1%
case, deal, things, directive, blame, responsibility,
conditions
problem, task
PERSONIFIED
OBJECTS
5.6%
government, court,
pentagon
8.8%
pronoun, world, Britain,
army, firm
1.7%
(sports) club, talent
ANIMALS
1.1%
fox, mouse, owl
1.4%
sheep, gelding, cat
0.4%
dog
A “LOCAL” APPROACH
• Corpus of Contemporary American English, COCA (Mark
Davies), 375 million words +
• Restrict verbs to the forms {sit, sits, sitting, sat} and {stand,
stands, standing, stood}
• The verbs occur within a window of three words to the left
or right of HOUSE.
• HOUSE functions as the head of the subject of the verb
• This search yielded more than 500 hits which were
subsequently inspected item by item
Refining the search
Excluded:
a. So the White House is sitting tight.
b. Well, the White House is still standing by Rove
and his comments.
Included:
c. The 1758 Cupola House sits on South Broad
Street in the heart of the business district.
d. The hill on which the Santa Fe Opera House
stands…
HOUSE in five genres of COCA
HOUSE in five genres of COCA
(= expected distribution of HOUSE + SIT/STAND)
HOUSE + SIT/STAND in five genres (observed)
Expected and Observed
expected
observed
Modifers/Complements
zero
And I don't even know if the house is standing.
locative
They were building a house sitting next to the waterfall,…
manner
The little houses sat hunched and still,…
temporal
Their two-story town house was still standing,…
locative + manner
those houses sat under water for the longest amount of time
+ temporal
there in St. Bernard Parish and there…
Zero vs. single vs. multiple
SIT
STAND
0
9
Single modifier
167
107
Multiple modifiers
29
186
Total
196
292
Zero modifier
Zero vs. single vs. multiple
SIT
STAND
0
9
Single modifier
167
107
Multiple modifiers
29
186
Total
196
292
Zero modifier
Zero vs. single vs. multiple
• the majority of SIT uses (167/196) occur with
single modifier types
• the majority of STAND uses (186/292) occur
with multiple modifier types
• the zero modifier type is found only with
STAND
zero modifier
a. Poor-white St. Bernard Parish had hardly a house
standing.
b. Once they knew the houses were standing and no one
had been injured, they talked on for half an hour
still
• When STAND occurs with a temporal
modifier type, the most common recurring
temporal expression is the adverb still.
big
• There is tendency for STAND, but not SIT, to
occur in contexts where HOUSE is qualified
by big, tall, large, sturdy
• No tendency for SIT to occur in contexts
where HOUSE is qualified by small, tiny, etc.
big
a. At wide intervals in the valley stood big houses
with white columns.
b. and the tall old houses standing in the sand
on the shore looked like beached vessels.
high
a. She had pictured a big fine country house
standing high over the ground on concrete
pillars with a sunburst carving in the gable.
b. The market had started out as an adjunct to
their shotgun house that stood high on brick
pillars.
The house stands high
The house sits high
Multiple factors with STAND
• and that big white house stood high in them
dark rivers for the next half century.
BIG HOUSE + STAND
• and that big white house stood high in them
dark rivers for the next half century.
STAND + HIGH
• and that big white house stood high in them
dark rivers for the next half century.
STAND + LOCATIVE
• and that big white house stood high in them
dark rivers for the next half century.
STAND + TEMPORAL
(especially persistence despite adversity)
• and that big white house stood high in them
dark rivers for the next half century.
Zero vs. single vs. multiple
SIT
STAND
0
9
Single complement
167
107
Multiple complements
29
186
Total
196
292
Zero complement
Zero vs. single vs. multiple
SIT
STAND
0
9
Single complement
167
107
Multiple complements
29
186
Total
196
292
Zero complement
Multiple factors
• With STAND (more than SIT), multiple factors
within the clause are relevant to its use
• It’s not enough to look at head noun of the
subject and prepositions to understand why the
verb STAND is used in a clause
(cf. Schönefeld 2006)
Simple vs. Other Tenses
• Simple tenses:
– Simple Present sit, sits, stand, stands
– Simple Past sat, stood
• Other tenses:
– Progressive is sitting, is standing, etc.
– Perfect has stood, have stood etc.
– Participial –ing forms without any accompanying
auxiliary verb) sitting, standing
Tenses x Modifier x Verb
L = Locative
M = Manner
T = Time
•
•
•
•
•
Preliminaries - experiential realities
SIT, STAND, LIE as cardinal posture verbs
Action vs. state meanings
Inanimate subjects, including locative use
Final remarks – experiential realities
Experiential grounding (1)
• An intuition that sitting, standing, and lying are
“basic” experiential categories
– helps us to appreciate why SIT, STAND, and LIE are the
most frequent posture verbs in usage-based data (from
corpora)
– leads us to search for other data supporting the
distinctiveness of these verbs in languages
Experiential grounding (2)
• Reflecting on the whole experience (“frame”)
associated with postures leads to
– Understanding that ‘action’ and ‘state’ of postures are
closely interrelated, even in languages which formally
distinguish such verbs
– In English, usage data reveal a persistent vagueness about
‘action’ and ‘state’ meanings of the posture verbs
Experiential grounding (3)
• Reflecting on the spatio-temporal aspects and
force dynamics of sitting vs. standing leads us
to
– Understand why SIT/STAND are associated with particular
subject phrases and other collocating phrases
Thank you!
[email protected]