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ABSTRACT
Talmy (1991, 2000b) proposed a typology in which languages fall into two categories on the basis of whether they characteristically express the Path component of a Motion event in the verb root (verb-framed languages) or in the satellite and/or preposition (satellite-framed languages).
Subsequently, Slobin (2004) held that the languages of certain published descriptions did not fall neatly into either category of this typology, either because the lexical category of the Path constituent was unclear, or because the Path constituent and the coevent constituent were both verbs or both satellites. He classed such languages together as a group exhibiting a third category of the typology, "equipollent framing". The present article disputes most of these claims of equipollent framing, demonstrating how, on closer inspection, the languages in question are actually either verb-framed or satellite-framed. This demonstration rests mainly on identifying the factors that assign main verb status to a constituent.
Keywords: Main verb, verb-framed languages, satellite-framed languages, Talmy, equipollent framing
1. INTRODUCTION
This paper1 argues against too free a use of "equipollent framing" as proposed by Dan Slobin (2004). Instead, it proposes an expanded set of criteria for main verb status, and finds them applying to languages that Slobin had considered to be equipollently framed.
1.1. Background
In its earliest stage, the background is that Talmy (1972, 1985, 2000b chapter 1) observed that languages differ in how they represent an event of Motion within a sentence. The minimal Motion event consisted of four semantic components. These were the "Figure", the entity whose motion or location is at issue; "Motion" (with a capital "M"), the presence per se of motion or stationariness; the "Path" (with a capital "P"), the path of motion or the stationary location of the Figure; and the "Ground", the entity with respect to which the Figure's Path is characterized. Further, a separate "coevent" could be related to this minimal Motion event to form a full Motion event. The coevent mainly represented the Manner or the Cause of the Figure's Motion, but a number of additional relations were observed.
1.1.1. The Original Typology
A typology was introduced based on how languages differ in their characteristic representation of a full Motion event. This typology rested on holding constant a particular syntactic constituent, the main...