An experimental investigation into English and Spanish human locomotion verbs, 2009 (original) (raw)

PAULA CIFUENTES FÉREZ expresar en sus verbos de movimiento distintos modos de andar, que de correr o de saltar. Además, el segundo estudio sugiere que (a) la mayoría de los verbos de movimiento humano se refi eren a una única manera de andar, de correr o de saltar; (b) que unos pocos verbos no parecen pertenecer a ningún patrón motor específi co (p.ej., verbos que denotan movimiento obstruido como el verbo inglés trip 'tropezar' y tropezar); y, por último, (c) que hay varios verbos que parecen ser buenos ejemplos de más de un patrón motor (p.ej., corretear es un buen ejemplo de andar y correr, rush 'ir deprisa', scoot 'largarse' y skitter 'moverse deprisa y con ligereza' son buenos ejemplos de andar y correr). Palabras clave: movimiento, desplazamiento humano, manera de movimiento, patrón motor, inglés, castellano Abstract In this paper, I present my experimental research on the subdomain of human locomotion. This subdomain may be structured, at least, around three motor patterns: walk, run and jump. This research addresses the question of whether both languages organise their human locomotion verb lexicons in the same way, specifi cally, whether they have more walking verbs over running and jumping verbs as it has been noted in a contrastive semantic analysis of English and Spanish motion verbs carried out by the author of this paper. To test this, two experiments were performed. In the fi rst experiment (the Free Verb Listing task), English and Spanish native speakers were asked to list verbs of walking, of running and of jumping within one minute time limit. In the second one (the Rating task), I gave English and Spanish native speakers a list of verbs (108 for English and 54 for Spanish) to rate in terms of the three basic motor patterns. I conclude that despite the fact that English possesses a greater number of manner verbs which pertain to human locomotion, both languages seem to follow the same pattern in the organisation of their lexicons; English and Spanish have more verbs depicting ways of walking than ways of running and jumping. Moreover, my data from the second study suggests that (a) most of verbs given to be rated are good ways/kinds of one of the motor patterns, (b) a few of them are not good ways/kinds of any (e.g., 95 AN EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION INTO ENGLISH AND SPANISH... verbs denoting obstructed motion such as trip and Spanish tropezar 'to trip'; verbs encoding playful motion such as frolic and gambol), and (c) some verbs seem to be good ways/kinds of two superordinate categories (e.g., rush, scoot, skitter are good examples of walking and running; prance is a good example of walking and jumping; corretear 'to run about in a playful way' is a good example of walking and running).