Cover not available
Part of
Embodiment in Latin Semantics
Edited by William Michael Short
[Studies in Language Companion Series 174] 2016
► pp. 15–56

A matter of perspective

Aspect, deixis, and textual exploitation in the prototype semantics of eo and venio

| University of Pisa

Eo and venio, Latin’s primary motion verbs, are traditionally interpreted referring to an aspectual differentiation (telic venio vs. non-telic eo). The analysis of preclassical texts, however, show traces of an embryonic change towards a deictic-oriented use. Venio, in particular, displays prototypical instances centered around telicity vs. less typical occurrences governed by a deictic principle. Cognitive and pragmatic phenomena such as the interaction between spatial and temporal deixis or an ego-perspective appear to be relevant within this process, where aspectual or deictic orientations turn out to be functional in terms of textual exploitation. The comprehension of these features can account for the emergence, in Classical Latin, of a new eo – venio polarization where deixis progressively plays a pivot role.

Keywords: aspect, cognitive phenomena, deixis, Latin motion verbs, prototype semantics, textual exploitation
Published online: 11 May 2016
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.174.02nut
References
Baldi, Philip
2006 Towards a history of the manner of motion parameter in Greek and Indo-European. In Fonologia e tipologia lessicale nella storia della lingua greca: Atti del VI Incontro Internazionale di Linguistica Greca (Bergamo, settembre 2005), Pierluigi Cuzzolin & Maria Napoli (eds), 13–31. Milan: FrancoAngeli.Google Scholar
Bally, Charles
1926 L’expression des idées de sphère personnelle et de solidarieté dans les langues indo-européennes. In Festschrift Louis Gauchat, Franz Fankhauser & Jakob Jud (eds), 68–78. Aarau: Sauerländer.Google Scholar
Bennet, Charles
1910 Syntax of Early Latin. Boston MA: Allyn and Bacon.Google Scholar
Botne, Robert
2005 Cognitive schemas and motion verbs: COMING and GOING in Chindali (Eastern Bantu). Cognitive Linguistics 16(1): 43–80. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bourdin, Philippe
1997 On goal-bias across languages: Modal, configurational and orientational parameters. In Typology, Prototypes, Items Orderings and Universals, Bohumil Palek (ed.), 185–218. Prague: Charles University Press.Google Scholar
2014  When come and go go necessive . In ‘Come’ and ‘Go’ off the Beaten Grammaticalization Path, Maud Devos & Jenneke van der Wal (eds), 103–164. Berlin: De Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Brachet, Jean Paul
2000 Recherches sur les préverbes dē- et ex- du latin. Brussels: Latomus.Google Scholar
Brown, Penelope
2006 A sketch of the grammar of space in Tzeltal. In Grammars of Space, Stephen Levinson & David Wilkins (eds), 230–72. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chevalier, Jean-Claude
1976 Sur l’idée d’aller et de venir et sa traduction linguistique en espagnol et en français. Bulletin Hispanique 78: 254–312. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Corominas, Joan & Pascual, Josè Antonio
1980–1983 Diccionario critico etimológico castellano e hispánico. Madrid: Gredos.Google Scholar
Cuzzolin, Pierluigi
2010 How to move towards somebody in Plautus’ comedies. Some remarks on the adverb obviam . In Studies in Classical Linguistics in Honor of Philip Baldi, Richard Page & Aaron Rubin (eds), 7–20. Leiden: Brill. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Devos, Maud & van der Wal, Jenneke
2014 Introduction. In ‘Come’ and ‘Go’ off the beaten grammaticalization path, Maud Devos & Jenneke van der Wal (eds), 1–18. Berlin: De Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(eds) 2014 ‘Come’ and ‘Go’ off the beaten grammaticalization path. Berlin: De Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Di Meola, Claudio
1994 Kommen und gehen. Eine kognitiv-liguistische Untersuchung der Polysemie deiktischer Bewegungsverben. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer.Google Scholar
Duchan, Judith, Bruder, Gail & Hewitt, Lynne
(eds) 1995 Deixis in Narrative: A Cognitive Science Perspective. Mahwah NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Ernout, Alfred
1954 Aspects du vocabulaire latin. Paris: Klincksieck.Google Scholar
Fillmore, Charles
1966 Deictic categories in the semantics of come. Foundations of Language 2: 219–27.Google Scholar
1971 Towards a theory of deixis. University of Hawaii Working papers on Linguistics 3(4): 219–42.Google Scholar
1975 Santa Cruz Lectures on Deixis 1971. Bloomington IN: Indiana University Linguistics Club.Google Scholar
Gathercole, Virginia
1977 A study of the comings and goings of the speakers of four languages: Spanish, Japanese, English, and Turkish. Kansas Working Papers in Linguistics 2: 61–94.Google Scholar
Goddard, Cliff
1997.The semantics of coming and going. Pragmatics 7(2): 147–162. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Haverling, Gerd
2010 Actionality, tense, and viewpoint. In New Perspectives on Historical Latin Syntax, Vol. 2: Constituent Syntax: Adverbial Phrases, Adverbs, Mood, Tense, Pierluigi Cuzzolin & Philip Baldi (eds), 277–523. Berlin: De Gruyter.Google Scholar
Hewson, John & Bubenik, Vit
(eds) 1997 Tense and Aspect in Indo-European Languages. Theory, Typology, Diachrony [Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 145]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hewson, John
1997a The Latin verbal system. In Hewson & Bubenik (eds), 189–208. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1997b  From Latin to Modern Romance . In Hewson & Bubenik (eds), 314–30. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hofmann, Johan Baptist
1926 Beiträge zur Kenntnis des Vulgärlateins. Indogermanische Forschungen 43: 80–122. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hofmann, Johan-Baptist & Szantyr, Anton
1965 Lateinische Syntax und Stilistik. Munich: Beck.Google Scholar
Hopper, Paul
1979 Aspect and foregrounding in discourse. In Syntax and Semantics, Vol. 12: Discourse and Syntax, Talmy Givon (ed.), 213–41. New York NY: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Hopper, Paul & Traugott, Elisabeth
2003 Grammaticalization. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Imai, Shingo
2009, Spatial Deixis: How Finely Do Languages Divide Space? Saarbrücken: Müller.Google Scholar
Jakobson, Roman
1971 Shifters, verbal categories, and the Russian verb. In Selected Writings, Vol. 2, 130–147. The Hague: Mouton.Google Scholar
Létoublon, Françoise
1985 Il allait, pareil à la nuit. Les verbes de mouvement en grec: Supplétisme et aspect verbale. Paris: Klincksieck.Google Scholar
Levinson, Stephen C
1983 Pragmatics. Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar
Levinson, Stephen
2004 Deixis. In The Handbook of Pragmatics, Laurence Horn & Gregor Ward (eds), 97–121. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
2006 The language of space in Yélî Dnye. In Levinson & Wilkins (eds), 157–205. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Levinson, Stephen & Wilkins, David
(eds) 2006, Grammars of Space. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2006 Patterns in the data: Towards a semantic typology of spatial description. In Levinson & Wilkins (eds), 512–52. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lewandowski, Wojciech
2007 Toward a Comparative Analysis of Coming and Going Verbs in Spanish, German and Polish. MA thesis, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.
Löfstedt, Einar
1933 Syntactica. Studien und Beiträge zur historischen Syntax des Lateins, II: Syntaktisch-Stilistische Gesichtspunkte und Probleme. Lund: Gleerup.Google Scholar
Lyons, John
1977 Semantics. Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar
Miller, George A. & Johnson-Laird, Philip N
1976 Language and Perception. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nuti, Andrea
In press. Between aspect and deixis: vado in Classical Latin and the evolution of motion verbs. Proceedings of the 18th International Colloquium on Latin Linguistics, Toulouse, 8-13 June 2015.
Oldsjö, Fredrik
2001 Tense and Aspect in Caesar's Narrative. Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis.Google Scholar
Orlandini, Anna & Poccetti, Paolo
2011 La référence spatio-temporelle et métalinguistique des verbes de mouvement en latin et leurs évolutions romanes. In Espace et temps en latin, Claude Moussy (ed.), 25–45. Paris: Presses de l’université Paris-Sorbonne.Google Scholar
Pederson, Eric
2006 Spatial language in Tamil. In Levinson & Wilkins (eds), 400–436. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pinkster, Harm
1990 Latin Syntax and Semantics. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Ricca, Davide
1989 Gli avverbi deittici di luogo in Platone e Aristofane. Lingua e stile 24(1): 57–88.Google Scholar
1993 I verbi deittici di movimento in Europa: Una ricerca interlinguistica. Florence: La Nuova Italia.Google Scholar
Rosén, Hannah
2000 Preclassical and Classical Latin precursors of Romance verb-stem suppletion. Indogermanische Forschungen 105: 271‒83.Google Scholar
Schlyter, Suzanne
1979 Le verbe allemand kommen et ses correspondances en français. Moderna Språka 73: 215–67.Google Scholar
Stolova, Natalya
2015a From satellite-framed Latin to verb-framed Romance: Late Latin as an intermediate stage. In Latin vulgaire, latin tardif, Roger Wright (ed.), 253–62. Hildesheim: Olms.Google Scholar
2015b Cognitive Linguistics and Lexical Change. Motion Verbs from Latin to Romance. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Talmy, Leonard
1985 Lexicalization patterns: Semantic structure in lexical forms. In Language Typology and Syntactic Description, Vol. III: Grammatical Categories and the Lexicon, Timoty Shopen (ed.), 57–149. Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar
Traugott, Elisabeth
2010 (Inter)subjectivity and (inter)subjectification: A reassessment. In Subjectification, Intersubjectification and Grammaticalization, Kristin Davidse, Lieven Vandelanotte & Hubert Cuyckens (eds), 29–71. Berlin: De Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Vetter, Emil
1957  Ire und fuisse . In MNHMEΣ XAPIN. Gedenkschrift P. Kretschmer, Vol. 2, Heinz Kronasser (ed.), 194–8. Wiesbaden-Wien: Harrassowitz Hollinek.Google Scholar
Wilkins, David & Hill, Deborah
1995 When “go” means “come”: Questioning the basicness of basic motion verbs. Cognitive Linguistics 6(2-3): 209–259. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 1 other publications

Hutchinson, G. O.
2020. Motion in Classical Literature, DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 21 april 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.