Comparison of Motion Verbs in Finnish and Czech Cover Image

Finská a česká slovesa pohybu ve vzájemném kontrastu
Comparison of Motion Verbs in Finnish and Czech

Author(s): Petra Hebedová
Subject(s): Theoretical Linguistics
Published by: Univerzita Karlova v Praze - Filozofická fakulta, Vydavatelství
Keywords: Finština; čeština; slovesa pohybu; typologie; kognitivní lingvistika

Summary/Abstract: In the article I compare expressions of translational motion in Finnish texts and their Czech translation. The semantic analysis of verbs of motion is based on Talmy (2001, 2003) and I establish which components of a motion event (path, direction, goal, figure, manner) are essential when expressing motion events in the two languages and by what means they can be expressed. I also compare the results of my analysis with Talmyan typology of satellite-framed and verb-framed languages. I conclude that in Finnish many frequent motion verbs express aspects of path together with adverbial expressions, whereas in Czech verbs express manner more often than in Finnish. Finnish and Czech also use differing anchorings of the direction of motion — in Czech the direction is anchored with respect to explicitly mentioned surroundings; in Finnish deictic motion verbs are in frequent use and also several means of anchoring may be used in one clause (for example by a deictic motion verb and an adverbial or by several adverbials).

  • Issue Year: 103/2021
  • Issue No: 1
  • Page Range: 88-105
  • Page Count: 18
  • Language: Czech