The Framing Event

As mentioned above, the main-event is also termed ‘framing event’ because it provides or determines certain overarching patterns in its relation to the macro-event: it performs a framing function (Talmy 2000-II: 219). It constitutes a particular event schema, one that can be applied to several different conceptual domains. Talmy 2000 cites five such domains¹⁸, based on cross-linguistic semantic and syntactic treatment (Talmy 2000-II2: 17-18). The five domains are Motion, Temporal contouring, State change, Action correlation and Realisation; these will be treated more closely later as part of the analysis of Nizaa chains in Part III. At this point, we shall present in more detail the concepts of framing event and co-event.

We shall look first at the relationship between the framing event and the macro-event, and then at the internal structure of the framing-event.

4.1.2.1 Framing event in relation to the macro-event

The framing event is said to provide a reference frame for the whole macro-event: the other activities included are conceived of as taking place within this frame. It thus determines the overall temporal framework and thereby also the aspect of the sentence that expresses the macro-event. Where a physical setting is involved, it determines the overall spatial framework, or some analogous reference frame if another conceptual domain is involved. Furthermore, it determines all or most of the argument structure and semantic character of the arguments within the macro-event, as well as all or most of the syntactic complement structure in the sentence that expresses the macro-event.

17 ‘Unitary complex’ sounds like a contradiction in words, but as Talmy uses it, it seems to mean a complex event expressed in a very close-knit way, i.e. conflation of two events in one clause as in ex. (1) b.

18 Without excluding the possibility of other domains.

It also constitutes the central import or main point (Talmy terms this ‘the upshot’) relative to the whole macro-event: the framing event is thus what is asserted in a positive declarative sentence, what is denied under negation, what is demanded in an imperative, and what is asked about in an interrogative (Talmy 2000-II: 219). We shall exemplify this with two examples with the framing event of motion.

(2) “I kicked the keg into the storeroom.”

(3) “The bone pulled loose from its socket.”

Both of these sentences contain an element of motion: the keg is moved into the storeroom, and the bone is dislodged from its socket. These motion events are the ‘upshot’, the main point of each sentence. But the motion element is not particularly tied to the verb: it is perfectly possible to kick or pull at something without moving it. In the verb we thus find another element, the co-event, which we will consider in 4.1.3. But before going on to that, something must be said about the structure of the framing event.

4.1.2.2 Internal structure of the framing event

The framing event has an internal structure, consisting of four components. We shall look at them first as they are used in the context of the framing event of Motion. Talmy sees Motion as the prototypical base for other conceptual domains: the four other conceptual domains cited above are said to be metaphorical extensions of Motion, rather than completely independent semantic structures.

In Talmy’s approach to events in general, and his approach to Motion events in particular,

‘Figure’ and ‘Ground’ are recurrent themes. The Figure is seen as the moving or moved entity with respect to a Ground. Since the Figure is the moving or moved entity, it may coincide with both the Patient and the Agent in different sentences. Where the Patient is a moved entity, with or without an overt subject/Agent, it will act as the Figure. Where there is no Patient, only an Agent moving, this agent will act as the Figure.

What activates the Figure-Ground relationship is Motion, and the Path followed by the Figure relative to the Ground associates them (Talmy 2000-II: 26).¹⁹ The following example may illustrate these concepts (taken from Talmy 2000-II: 49-50):

(4) ‘The bottle floated into the cave.’

(4) is an event of Motion in space, and both the Figure and the Ground are physical objects.

The Figure is the bottle, the Ground is the cave and possibly the presumed water flooding it, and the

19 This definition of Figure and motion makes the number of sentences with motion rather larger than the traditional use of ‘motion verbs’ as defining characteristic of motion.

framing event is Motion. (This framing event has a co-event of manner, but we leave co-events to be considered later on).

The Path followed by the bottle associates Figure and Ground, i.e. the Figure is moving INTO the Ground. What brings the relationship between Figure and Ground into being is the overarching, dynamic event of Motion: the bottle is perspectivised as located with respect to the cave. In the description of Motion as a process that activates a relationship between two entities, it is important to note that it is a parameter with two values. Both denote location of the Figure, but one value sees the Figure as moving while the other sees it as stationary, with respect to the Ground. MOVE and _BELOC are the corresponding mnemonic labels used for these two values of Motion.

The same main components are somewhat schematised, but recognizable, within the other conceptual domains said to be framing events, Temporal Contouring, State change, Action correlation and Realization. The main components are thus in the larger contexts of all the framing events called figural entity and ground entity instead of Figure and Ground, association function instead of Path, and activating process instead of Motion (MOVE or _BELOC). We shall consider these terms in the next paragraph.

When looking at the internal structure of framing events as a general phenomenon, the concrete terms from the domain of Motion are given a more abstract content. The figural entity is said to be the component on which attention or concern is currently most centred. The ground entity is conceptualised as a reference entity, with respect to which the condition of the figural entity is characterised. The activating process has two values: transition and fixity, paralleling MOVE and

BELOC, and refers to whether the figural entity makes a transition or stays fixed with respect to the ground entity. The association function sets the figural entity into a particular relationship with the ground entity, in a way parallel to Path.

Now the four components are not of equal distinctiveness in the referential context: either the association function (Path) alone or the association function together with the ground entity (Path + Ground) can be considered the schematic core of the framing event (the core schema). This arises from the observation that the other two components are less clearly seen within the referential context.

The figural entity is often set by context, and the activating process has only two values, transition or fixity. It is thus the association function and the ground entity that are most determinative of the particular character of the framing event and that distinguish it from other framing events.

The core schema has important bearings on the syntactical mapping of meaning to form (Talmy 2000-II: 218), this will be examined more closely in 4.2, on satellite-framed and verb-framed languages.

We include here Talmy’s layout of the framing event:

Figure 4-1 Conceptual structure of the framing event

[Figural entity Activation process Association Function Ground entity]framing event

Transition

Fixity Core schema