​​​​​Research Title :The semantic structure of motion verbs in Jordanian Arabic: Talmy’s typology revisited

Authors : Doaa K. Riziq, Jihad M. Hamdan​

Abstract :This study is meant to contribute to the current body of research on motion conceptualization by reexamining Talmy’s (1985) typological classification of motion event constructions using data from Jordanian Arabic (JA). It presents a contrastive account of the lexicalization patterns of JA motion verbs and their counterparts in English. 50 native speakers of JA contribute to the task of compiling a large list of motion verbs in JA. They are given examples of motion verbs to guide and encourage them to get more motion verbs in this variety. Each verb is used in a short informative sentence to help in identifying its conceptual components in the domain of motion. The data are validated through an Acceptability Judgment Task, which is completed by 20 native speakers of JA. The outcome is also compared with motion verbs in English. The study reveals that both JA and English frequently utilize the satellite-, verb-framed patterns and other patterns to encode Path and other components of motion. Further, many motion verbs do not yield noteworthy differences in both languages. In light of this, the results of the study do not lend support to Talmy’s (1985) typology of motion as the semantic and syntactic behavior of the motion verbs in the two languages seem almost similar despite the claim that each language belongs to a different language type as proposed by Talmy (1985).

Keywords :conceptualization, lexicalization, motion verbs, satellite-framed pattern, Talmy’s typology, verb-framed pattern

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