Abstract
This paper discusses how verbal directional markers are used to encode stative spatial relations in the Oceanic language Äiwoo. It argues that the apparent reversal of directional meaning in stative expressions, where ‘up’ is used in expressions meaning ‘underneath’, ‘down’ in expressions meaning ‘above’, and ‘out’ in expressions meaning ‘inside’, can be explained by a fictive motion analysis where the figure is construed as metaphorically moving towards the ground. It moreover argues that in expressions where motion leads to a resulting spatial configuration, where ‘up’ means ‘on top of’ rather than ‘underneath’, this reading is overridden by the so-called goal bias, whereby the resultant configuration is more cognitively salient than the motion producing it. It suggests that the linguistic construal of stative spatial relations may to some extent be correlated with the formal means of expression, where marking by adpositions favours a ‘search domain’ construal whereas encoding within the verb favours a ‘fictive path’ construal. It thus provides a new angle on the linguistic encoding of spatial relations, an area which has been subject to much research within cognitive linguistics, but which so far has paid little attention to the possibility of encoding stative spatial relations within the verb.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank the participants at the 9th Austronesian and Papuan Languages and Linguistics conference and three anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on earlier versions. Moreover, I gratefully acknowledge the support of the Endangered Languages Documentation Programme through a Small Grant (grant no. SG0308) which funded the collection and analysis of part of the data on which this work builds. Earlier fieldwork was funded by the Norwegian Research Council, project no. 148717.
Abbreviations
- A
actor voice
- ART
article
- ATTR
attributive
- AUG
augmented number
- BN
bound noun
- CENTRIP
centripetal
- COM.ART
common article
- COM.LOC
common locative proclitic
- CONJ
conjunction
- CS
change of state
- CV
circumstantial voice
- DEF
default aspect
- DEM
demonstrative
- DIR
directional
- DIST
distal
- EVIT
evitative mood
- FUT
future
- IPFV
imperfective
- IRR
irrealis
- LD
locative-directional
- LOC
locative
- MIN
minimal number
- NMLZ
nominaliser
- O
undergoer voice
- PFV
perfective
- POSS
possessive
- PREF
prefix (function unclear)
- PRES
presentative
- PRO:PP
pro-form for prepositional phrase
- PROH
prohibitive
- PROX
proximal
- UA
unit-augmented number
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