Structure conceptuelle et éléments de construction du sens de ‘tomber’ et de ‘(-)paść/(-)padać’

Abstract

The ability to express spatial relations is characteristic of several grammatical categories: some nouns and adjectives can be used to refer to spatial characteristics of physical objects (the height of a tower, depth of a well; a low table, high mountains); while prepositions carry information about spatial relations between objects. Verbs, however, express motion as a dynamic, spatio-temporal relation. The aim of this study is to analyze the conceptualization involved in tomber – a French verb denoting uncontrolled downward motion of an object, and to compare it with the conceptualization characteristic of Polish verbs representing the pattern of (-) paść/(-)padać, which denote the same type of motion (the symbol (-) marks any of the fourteen prefixes used to derive verbs from the root paść/padać). It also pays attention to structures used in the two languages to express relations between the localized object and its localizer or the reference space where the process denoted by the verb takes place. The analysis offered in this work is situated within cognitive semantics, and rests on the assumption that each verb can have a semantic invariant assigned to it, and that all its uses form a coherent and logical whole. This work consists of five chapters. The first one presents the current state of research into the description of spatial relations, verbs of motion, prepositions, prefixes, the role of co(n)text and the theory of meaning. A description of spatial relations expressed in language involves the presence of two elements: the localized object and the point of reference, which Francophone scholars refer to as corrélat de lieu/lieu (Boons 1987), cible/site (Vandeloise1986, Borillo 1988, Laur 1993), repéré/repère (Desclés , e.g. 1991,1999, 2003, 2004), and which in American linguistics correspond to trajector/landmark (Langacker 1987b) and figure/ground (Talmy 2000). It is also important to distinguish between verbs of motion (in French linguistics verbes de mouvement) and verbs of displacement (verbes de déplacement) which describe movement as a spatio-temporal event, as well as to identify the change of position of an object in a specific place (changement d’emplacement) and a change involving the motion of an object in relation to a reference point (changement de lieu), referred to as the change of elementary locative relation (changement d’une relation locative élémentaire). Scholars also identify virtual motion: a motion subjectively perceived by an observer, while it has not physically taken place; in fact it is the observer who looks from point A to B and conceptualizes it as an object motion (Langacker 1987a calls this type of motion subjective, while Talmy 2000 refers to it as fictive motion). Another type of motion is the abstract motion, which involves a change in a temporal or conceptual domain. Chapter one also provides a discussion of prepositions which are of particular importance to the description of verbs of motion; it examines their origins and typologies based on semantic criteria. Section 1.4. describes mutual relations between the meanings of the verb and the preposition and the phenomenon of (non)congruence between them (Laur 1993), the principle of anticipation (Vandeloise 1986) and shared focalization (Fortis 2004). Section 1.5. focuses on prefixes: terms used to refer to prefixes in French (préfixe or préverbe), their origins and relations between prefixes and prepositions. When it comes to meaning, most researchers are of the opinion that there exists a semantic relation between a prefix and a verbal root, and that prefixes modify the meaning of the formation. However, some authors, in particular those working within Théorie des Opérations Énonciatives (Culioli 1973, 1990, 1999) are in favour of the autonomy view for verbal prefixes. Section 1.6. presents views on the role of context, which was already under analysis of Frege (1977) and Wittgenstein (2000). The author pays attention to dissimilarities in the understanding of the term among language scholars, and emphasizes the need to distinguish between linguistic context and cotext. Another issue discussed in chapter one is the theory of meaning: it looks at objectivist and constructivist approaches, Guillaume’s view, developed by Honeste (2005) and polysemantic approaches. The chapter closes with a description of methodology adopted by the author and explains the choice of verbs used in the analysis. Chapters two and three focus on the uses of the verb tomber; its locative uses are discussed in Chapter two, non-locative ones in chapter three. French forms are systematically contrasted with their suggested Polish equivalents, which demonstrates the importance of a contrastive perspective in the identification of some of the meanings of tomber. Chapters four and five concentrate on the Polish verb paść/padać and its derivatives, which are presented on the basis of the conceptualization they express. Such organization of the work stresses the role of prefixes in shaping the meanings of Polish verbs. The meanings of the analysed verbs are first distinguished on the basis of their primary semantic property ((virtual) downward motion/of a negative polarity and contact), and subsequently on the basis of their secondary property (control, lack of control, abruptness, impetuosity, quickness, slowness, weakness, inertia, accident, support/contact).The process denoted by the verb is also related to the ontological properties of the elements of cotext (an object with an interior/without an interior, small/big size) as well as the type of relation between the localized object and the localizer before the motion occurs (long-lasting/short-lasting contact). All uses of the analyzed verbs are illustrated with sentences excerpted from dictionaries and corpora which are listed in the bibliography. The analysis of tomber and (-)paść/(-)padać enabled an identification of a semantic invariant of both verbs. It involves two concepts: ‘downward movement/of negative polarity’ and ‘contact’. They motivate, each separately or both at the same time, the meanings of tomber and formations derived from paść/padać, though the compared conceptual structures are not identical. Downward motion comprises both actually occurring movement of an object and its virtual motion, while the motion of a negative polarity – disintegration, deterioration of a state, situation or quality of a localized object, decrease in its intensity or value and a hierarchical relation of superiority/inferiority. The concept of contact refers to the contact of the localized object with the reference space or the loss of contact between them. In the case of abstract meanings, entering into contact with the space of reference is equivalent to the appearance of the localized object, while the loss of contact – with its disappearance. The contrastive perspective adopted in this study enabled the identification of similarities and differences between the ways motion is conceptualized in the two languages. Even though the verbs tomber and (-)paść/(-)padać typically denote uncontrolled downward motion, some of their meanings are connected with the semantic property of ‘controlled motion’, which occurs together with such properties as ‘impetuosity’ and/or ‘abruptness’ The systematic search for Polish equivalents of tomber undertaken in this study has shed more light on those meanings of the French verb which appear to be semantically homogeneous without a contrastive analysis. Some semantico-syntactic structures characteristic of tomber have been distinguished thanks to secondary semantic properties which have been identified as a result of the comparison with two different equivalents of the verb in Polish (e.g. tomber chez (à): ‘survenir, atterrir’, used with N0[+human], is translated as wpaść/wpadać do if the property of contact combines with the secondary property ‘abruptness’, or as trafić/trafiać do when it combines with the property ‘accident’). The contrastive analysis revealed a difference in morphological coding of elements expressing the relation between the localized element and the localizer. Even though Talmy (2000) considers French to be a verb-framed language, tomber, which, unlike sortir or entrer, has no internal polarity structures characteristic of satellite-framed languages with the coding preposition path adding polarity to the relation expressed by the construction V+Prep (initial, final, medial). The uses of (-) paść/(-)padać demonstrate a similar type of lexicalization, but Polish has two satellite elements: the preposition and the prefix, each of them coding a specific semantic element of the expressed relation: the preposition denoting a place, the prefix – a part of the location where the motion takes place. The prefixes often represent the same type (adlative/ablative), though it is not always morphologically identical with the preposition. In many constructions, the prefix expresses a different polarity than the preposition. Such cases illustrate the phenomenon of secondary predication. The present work argues for the importance of contrastive studies. It also provides some insight into the coherence of the conceptual structure of tomber and (-)paść/(-)padać, whose meanings form a logical whole. The structures of the two verbs are based on the same concepts; they differ in the extensions of their basic properties. In the author’s view, a description of meanings which incorporates semantico-syntactic patterns, the marking of polarity and secondary semantic properties provides an effective instrument of disambiguation, which is particularly useful in machine translation. The observations concerning the prefixes included in the present work may prove helpful in analyses aiming at a synthetic description of regularity in their use, in contrast to studies which put emphasis on the diversity of their meanings mixing together the meanings of the prefixes with the meanings of their verbal roots. [Translated by Agata Rozumko]