ISSN: 2306-5737E-ISSN: 2658-4069
Acta Linguistica Petropolitana
Transactions of the Institute for Linguistic Studies
ISSN: 2306-5737E-ISSN: 2658-4069
Acta Linguistica Petropolitana
Transactions of the Institute for Linguistic Studies 

The verbs of falling in Spanish

DOI:10.30842/alp2306573716107
PDF, 514.26 kb
Goryacheva I. N., Chuykova O. Yu. Glagoly padeniya v ispanskom yazyke. Acta Linguistica Petropolitana. 2020. XVI(1): 248–273.

The paper deals with the verbal lexemes used to express the semantics of falling in Spanish. Falling is understood as uncontrolled downward movement without contact with any surface during the movement. The study also deals with different parameters of falling, such as the initial point, the final point, distance, speed, etc. which influence the lexification of falling events. The paper analyzes only direct uses of verbal lexemes used to express the semantics of falling in Spanish. The frame-based approach is applied to the analysis of lexical values and lexical units capable of describing a number of prototypical situations for falling following the principles and methods of the Moscow Lexical Typology Group. Main sources of language material for the study include the “Falling” questionnaire, the dictionary of Spanish Royal Academy, Spanish-Russian dictionaries, as well as Spanish language corpora. The analysis shows that Spanish language is a dominant system with the verb caer(se) as the basic verb of falling. The study found out that several lexemes compete with the dominant verb in certain contexts. An attempt is made not only to denote the intersection points of the dominant verb of falling and other verbal lexemes serving a given semantic sphere, but also to define their functional distribution. At the same time, the cases of the combined use of the dominant verb caer(se) and the competing lexemes are considered, when the dominant verb states directly the fact of the fall of the object onto the surface, and the competing lexemes describe the fall itself: falling out of the container, slipping etc. Moreover, in some situations of falling (such as the falling of homogeneous objects or the turnover of an upright container) specialized verbal lexemes tend to be used instead of the dominant verb. A number of peripheral incidence situations are characterized by lexemes whose direct meaning does not contain a semantic component of falling.

Keywords
Spanish language, verbs of falling, frame-based approach, lexical typology, semantics
References
Kadyrova 2018
O. A. Kadyrova. K leksicheskoy tipologii glagolov padeniya: dannye turetskogo yazyka [Towadds a lexical typology of falling verbs: Evidence from Turkish]. Trudy Instituta vostokovedeniya RAN. 2018. Iss. 19. P. 368–371.
Kashkin 2017
Ye. V. Kashkin. Komi yazyk i leksicheskaya tipologiya: glagoly padeniya [Komi language and lexical typology: falling verbs]. R. P. Popova (ed.). Permistika-16: Dialekty i istoriya permskikh yazykov vo vzaimodeystvii s drugimi yazykami [Permistics-16: Dialects and the history of the Permian languages in interaction with other languages] Syktyvkar: Pitirim Sorokin Syktyvkar State University Publishing House, 2017. P. 86–94.
Kashkin et al. 2015
Ye. V. Kashkin, D. O. Zhornik, A. N. Zakirova, A. D. Kozhemyakina, P. S. Pleshak. K leksicheskoy tipologii glagolov padeniya: dannye uralskikh yazykov [Towards a lexical typology of falling verbs: Evidence from Uralic]. D. F. Mishchenko (ed.). Dvenadtsataya Konferentsiya po tipologii i grammatike dlya molodykh issledovateley. Tezisy dokladov (Sankt-Peterburg, 19–21 noyabrya 2015 g.). [XII Conference on typology and grammar for young scholars: abstracts (Saint-Petersburg, November 19–21, 2015)] Saint Petersburg: Nestor-Istoriya, 2015. P. 41–44.
Kuzmenko, Mustakimova 2015
Ye. A. Kuzmenko, E. G. Mustakimova. Glagoly padeniya v leksiko-tipologicheskoy perspective [Verbs of Falling in a Lexical Typological perspective]. E. A. Lyutikova, A. V. Zimmerling, M. B. Konoshenko (eds.). Tipologiya morfosintaksicheskikh parametrov. Materialy mezhdunarodnoy konferentsii [Typology of Morphosyntactic Parameters. Proceedings of the international conference]. Iss. 2. Moscow: Moscow State Pedagogical University Press, 2015. P. 149–160.
Panina 2018
A. S. Panina. Glagoly padeniya v yaponskom yazyke [The Verbs of falling in Japanese]. Vestnik Moskovskogo universiteta. Seriya 13: Vostokovedenie. 2018. No. 2. P. 3–13.
Rakhilina, Reznikova
Ye. V. Rakhilina, T. I. Reznikova. Freymovyy podkhod k leksicheskoy tipologii [The frame approach to lexical typology]. Voprosy yazykoznaniya. 2013. No. 2. P. 3–31.
Reznikova, Vyrenkova 2015
T. Reznikova, A. Vyrenkova. Semantics of falling: a cross-linguistic approach. // National Research University Higher School of Economics. Working papers by the Basic Research Program: “Linguistics”. 2015. Available at: https://www.hse.ru/data/2015/12/29/1136293661/40LNG2015.pdf.
Talmy 1975
L. Talmy. Semantics and syntax of motion. Syntax and Semantics. Vol. 4. New York: Academic Press, 1975. P. 181–238.
Talmy 1985
L. Talmy. Lexicalization patterns: semantic structure in lexical forms. T. Shopen (ed.). Language typology and semantic description. Vol. 3: Gramatical categories and the lexicon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985. P. 57–149.
Talmy 2000
L. Talmy. Toward a cognitive semantics: Vol. II: Typology and process in concept structuring. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2000.
Keywords
Spanish language, verbs of falling, frame-based approach, lexical typology, semantics
ScopusSCImago Journal & Country RankE-Library.ruCrossRefCyberLeninkaVAKERIH Plus