Framing events in a typological perspective

We have several times touched upon the typological distinction of satellite-framed and verb-framed languages. This distinction is built upon the observation that languages behave differently as to how the framing element of macro-events is expressed. Hitherto we have not drawn attention to this question in the treatment of the different examples above. But the examples are all drawn from English, and as we noted in footnote 21, they are (almost) all framed by satellites. What then is a satellite?

4.2.1 Satellites

Talmy 2000 uses the term ‘satellite’ to refer to the grammatical category of ‘any constituent other than a nominal or prepositional-phrase complement that is in a sister relation to the verb root.’ (Talmy 2000-II: 222). This makes for a rather heterogeneous group as far as parts of speech is concerned, encompassing both bound affixes and free words. A listing of language-specific grammatical forms classed as satellites gives an idea of the phenomenon in question: English verb particles, German separable and inseparable verb prefixes, Latin or Russian verb prefixes, Chinese verb complements, Lahu nonhead “versatile verbs”, Caddo incorporated nouns, and Atsugewi polysynthetic affixes around the verb root.

All of these seemingly different constituents have a commonality, both syntactic and semantic, which justifies the analysis of them as belonging to one grammatical category. For one thing, the satellite is the characteristic site for the expression of the core schema of the framing event across one

typological category of languages. The following list is given by Talmy to illustrate macro-events with the core schemas of the five framing event types expressed by satellites (Talmy 2000-II: 214):

(7) The satellite in bold expresses:

a. The path in an event of motion The ball rolled in.

b. The aspect in an event of temporal contouring They talked on.

c. The changed property in an event of state change The candle blew out.

d. The correlation in an event of action correlating She sang along.

e. The fulfillment in an event of realisation The police hunted the fugitive down.

4.2.2 Satellite-framed and verb- framed languages

Talmy introduces from the behaviour of verbs and satellites two main typological groups of languages:

those that characteristically map the core schema into the verb, and those that characteristically map it onto the satellite, as exemplified in the sentences above (Talmy 2000-II: 221-224). The first group of languages is said to have a framing verb and to be verb-framed languages, the second group is said to have a framing satellite and be satellite-framed languages. The languages within each group may be quite different in other typological aspects, as the list of examples of the two groups shows. Verb-framed languages are such as Romance, Semitic, Japanese, Tamil, Polynesian, Bantu, some branches of Mayan, Nez Perce, and Caddo. Satellite-framed languages are e.g. Finno-Ugric, Chinese, Ojibwa, Warlpiri and most Indo-European languages minus Romance.

The core schema generally appears alone in the satellite (or associated constituent²²) in satellite-framed languages, but appears conflated together with the activating process in the verb of verb-framed languages. With the core schema of the framing event located either in the verb or in the satellite, the co-event can be seen to appear in different locations as well.

Satellite-framed languages regularly map the co-event into the main verb, which thus can be called a co-event verb. This is a typical pattern of English, as seen in the examples above.

22 Although the satellite alone largely expresses the core schema in satellite-framed languages, it is also often expressed by the combination of a satellite plus a preposition, or sometimes by a preposition alone. Such a

‘preposition’ can also have various forms, free adposition, adposition + nominal inflection, or a construction containing a locative noun. Talmy 2000-II: 222

Verb-framed languages, on the other hand, map the co-event either onto a satellite or into an adjunct, typically an adpositional phrase or a gerundive-type constituent. Such forms are accordingly called a co-event satellite, a co-event gerundive, and so on.

4.2.3 Illustration of the two types

To illustrate the two types, examples taken from English are contrasted with Spanish. The two languages are basically satellite-framed language and verb-framed respectively. In a nonagentive sentence with a motion-type framing event, the English sentence in (8) have the core schema, the Path, expressed in the satellite out, while the co-event of Manner is expressed in the main verb float. It is important to notice that float by itself contains only the concept of a buoyancy relation between an object and some medium; the very idea of motion is contained in the core schema satellite.

(8) The bottle floated out.

The Spanish counterpart on the other hand, has the core schema of motion expressed in the main verb salir ‘to exit’. Here the gerundive form flotando ‘floating’ expresses the co-event of Manner:

(9) La botella salió flotando.

’The bottle exited floating.’

The same pattern applies to an agentive state-change type of framing event, in (10) and (11) :

(10) I blew out the candle.

(11) Apagué la vela de un soplido soplándola.

’I extinguished the candle with a blow blowing-it.’

In English, the satellite out expresses the transition to the new state of being extinguished, while the main verb blow expresses the co-event with the relation of Cause to the framing event. In Spanish, the main verb expresses the change of state, while the co-event of Cause is expressed by an adjunct, either a prepositional phrase or a gerundive.

Now verb-framed languages exhibit a scale of syntactic integration of the co-event into the main clause. The least integrated end of this gradient, e.g. in Spanish, has sentence-final gerundives of co-events that can be syntactically interpreted as adverbial subordinate clauses. As such they do not function as satellites, which as we remember are supposed to be constituents in a sister relation to the verb (Talmy 2000-II: 222). Such sentences are complex sentences composed of two clauses and therefore do not represent a macro-event. An example of this is (12):

(12) La botella salió de la cueva flotando.

’The bottle exited from the cave, floating.’

But Spanish also have constructions in which a verb referring to the co-event is in direct construction with the main verb –that is, with the framing verb. With this syntactic pattern, the whole sentence can be interpreted as a single clause, and hence as representing a macro-event. An example of this is given in (13):

(13) La botella salió flotando de la cueva.

’The bottle exited floating from the cave.’

The gerundive of (13) is still considered to exhibit only a midway integration into the framing clause, though, since the gerundive grammatical form points to a separate-clause origin (Talmy 2000-II: 224).

Within the five conceptual domains that Talmy defines as giving rise to framing events, Motion is the most basic, the prototype. But all the proposed framing events are seen as basic semantic structures, and have an a priori status in the very idea of a typology based on verb-framing or satellite-framing languages.

Before leaving this section on satellite-framing and verb framing languages, we may include Talmy’s figures of the syntactic mapping of the two types, in

Figure 4-2 and

Figure 4-23 (Talmy 2000-II: 223):

Figure 4-2 Syntactic mapping of macro-event in satellite-framed languages

[Activating process Core schema] framing event Support relation

[

]

Sat and/or Prep

V

Figure 4-3 Syntactic mapping of macro-event in verb-framed languages

[Activating process Core schema] framing event Support relation [Event] _co-event

V Sat Adjunct