Abstract :
[en] In this talk, I will focus on the phenomenon known as ‘Source-Goal asymmetry’. ‘Source-Goal asymmetry’ refers to the idea that the starting point (the Source) and the ending point (the Goal) of motion do not constitute an equal pair of concepts and do not show the same degree of prevalence in the path schema (see, e.g., Ikegami, 1987). The phenomenon has also been termed ‘Goal bias’, which is a more accurate label in that it captures the clear directionality of this asymmetry, namely that the Goal prevails over the Source. It has long been observed and, in the past two decades, has been convincingly shown that this predominance of the Goal is multi-dimensional and manifests itself in a number of morpho-syntactic and semantic ways and is also present in memory (see, e.g., Papafragou, 2010 for an overview).
The common denominator in the majority of the studies is their synchronic orientation. However, quite recently, one attempt to integrate systematically the diachronic dimension in the debate saw light with the publication of Luraghi, Nikitina, and Zanchi’s (2017) collective volume “Space in diachrony”. In this volume, several studies underscore the relevance of empirical data coming from different periods of a language to study the phenomenon.
In this talk, I will present evidence of the asymmetrical behavior of Sources and Goals from both a synchronic and a diachronic point of view through the case of Ancient Greek (mainly the period 8th – 4th c. BC). The corpus for the current study comprises 26 works by five authors, covers four text types (Epic poetry, Tragedy, History, and Comedy) to maximize representativity, and contains approximately 725,000 words.
I will structure my talk around two dimensions: The first dimension will examine the frequency distribution of Source and Goal paths in a number of motion verbs denoting two types of locomotion, namely manner verbs (baínō ‘to walk, to go’, pléō ‘to navigate’) and verbs of inherent directionality (aphíkomai/ ap(h)iknéomai ‘reach’, hikánō ‘reach’, pheúgō ‘to flee, take flight, escape’, apérkhomai ‘go away, depart’. I will address the question as to what extent the frame that a verb belongs to affects the type of path chosen (cf. Stefanowitsch & Rohde, 2004).
The second dimension will deal with the differences in the inventories of the two path types. Using as a basis the motion verbs analyzed in the first part of the talk, it is my purpose to report on the specific markers employed to encode the Source and the Goal. This dimension of the study adds the diachronic parameter in the debate. In particular, it raises the questions of how Source and Goal markers interact with Place markers and of whether this relation is symmetrical or asymmetrical with respect to directionality of change.
Selected references
Ikegami, Y. (1987). ‘Source’ vs. ‘goal’: A case of linguistic dissymmetry. In R. Dirven & G. Radden (Eds.), Concepts of Case (pp. 122–146). Tübingen: Narr.
Luraghi, S, Nikitina, T., & Zanchi, C. (Eds.). (2017). Space in diachrony. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Papafragou, A. (2010). Source-Goal asymmetries in motion representation: Implications for language production and comprehension. Cognitive Science, 34, 1064–1092. DOI: 10.1111/j.1551-6709.2010.01107.x
