Banner image placeholder
Banner image
Site avatar
Carol Genetti
Professor of Linguistics


Arts and Humanities

NYU Abu Dhabi

PO Box 129188
Saadiyat Island
Abu Dhabi
United Arab Emirates



Direction and Associated Motion in Tibeto-Burman


Journal article


Carol Genetti, Kristine Hildebrandt, Nathaniel A. Sims, Alexia Z. Fawcett
Linguistic Typology, vol. 25(2), 2021, pp. 345-388


View PDF
Cite

Cite

APA   Click to copy
Genetti, C., Hildebrandt, K., Sims, N. A., & Fawcett, A. Z. (2021). Direction and Associated Motion in Tibeto-Burman. Linguistic Typology, 25(2), 345–388. https://doi.org/10.1515/lingty-2020-2064


Chicago/Turabian   Click to copy
Genetti, Carol, Kristine Hildebrandt, Nathaniel A. Sims, and Alexia Z. Fawcett. “Direction and Associated Motion in Tibeto-Burman.” Linguistic Typology 25, no. 2 (2021): 345–388.


MLA   Click to copy
Genetti, Carol, et al. “Direction and Associated Motion in Tibeto-Burman.” Linguistic Typology, vol. 25, no. 2, 2021, pp. 345–88, doi:10.1515/lingty-2020-2064.


BibTeX   Click to copy

@article{genetti2021a,
  title = {Direction and Associated Motion in Tibeto-Burman},
  year = {2021},
  issue = {2},
  journal = {Linguistic Typology},
  pages = {345-388},
  volume = {25},
  doi = {10.1515/lingty-2020-2064},
  author = {Genetti, Carol and Hildebrandt, Kristine and Sims, Nathaniel A. and Fawcett, Alexia Z.}
}

ABSTRACT

 This study analyzes systems of direction and associated motion in 23 languages of the Tibeto-Burman family. Both direction and associated motion can be encoded by a range of grammatical strategies, including affixes, clitics, particles, serial-verb constructions, and auxiliary verbs. While some languages have only associated motion or direction, others have both, either via distinct subsystems, syntactic ambiguity, or context-dependent interpretation. While directional encodings can be interpreted as associated motion in some contexts, the reverse can also be true. Verbal semantics is key to the pragmatic interpretation of examples in context; some types of motion verbs are more compatible with directional interpretations and others with associated motion. In addition, certain types of motion verbs were found to be compatible with different temporal relationships that hold between the activity of the primary verb and the motional component. Finally, the grammatical role of the figure in such constructions depends on both the temporal relationship and the semantics of the verb. 


Translate to