Why a folder lies in the basket although it is not lying: the semantics and use of German positional verbs with inanimate Figures

Kutscher, Silvia; Schultze-Berndt, Eva

doi:10.1515/ling.2007.030

Cited by 14 publications

(11 citation statements)

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“…Research in the domain of German posture verbs has focused on the general verbs stehen or liegen (Fagan 1991or Serra-Borneto 1996 or on a wide range of more specific position verbs (Kutscher and Schultze-Berndt 2007) leaving aside the posture verb sitzen. The present paper aimed at drawing attention to this neglected area by presenting a detailed description of the semantic uses of this verb and the pedagogical challenges linked to it.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…German has similar patterns, it uses stehen 'to stand', liegen 'to lie' or alternatively sitzen 'to sit' in different contexts for the expression of posture or location. The different contexts of use have been described in great detail for stehen and liegen by Serra-Borneto (1996) and for numerous other posture verbs by Kutscher and Schultze-Berndt (2007). As already explained in Section 1 the German verb sitzen has been neglected in many linguistic descriptions -except for the study on posture and motion verbs by Fagan (1991).…”

Section: Semantic Uses Of the Posture Verb Sitzenmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…German as a Germanic language has several posture verbs which have been examined in more detail in the works by Berthele (2004) and (2006), Fagan (1991), Kutscher and Schultze-Berndt (2007), or Serra-Borneto (1996) to name just a few. The more common posture verbs are stehen 'to stand', liegen 'to lie', and sitzen 'to sit' which express basic positions characteristic of human beings and animals:…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Berthele (2004and 2006), Fagan (1991, Kutscher-Schultze-Berndt (2007) and Serra-Borneto (1996). It is surprising that most studies disregard the posture verb sitzen 'to sit'.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Conceptual tools for the description and acquisition of the German posture verb sitzen

Knop

2015

Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory

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The study of German posture verbs has attracted the interest of many linguists, e.g. Berthele (2004and 2006), Fagan (1991, Kutscher-Schultze-Berndt (2007) and Serra-Borneto (1996). It is surprising that most studies disregard the posture verb sitzen 'to sit'. The present paper aims at looking at this neglected area of description. A corpus study of sitzen allows us to get a differentiated picture of the different uses of that verb and to show that sitzen is not restricted to the concrete sitting position but is also used to express more abstract senses, e.g. Er sitzt in der Falle, lit. 'He sits in the trap' (= 'He has problems'), or Das Kleid sitzt nicht, lit.'The skirt does not sit' (= 'The skirt does not fit'). Foreign language learners have difficulties with the more abstract or metaphorical uses of verbs (compare Littlemore 2011), this also pertains to the abstract uses of sitzen. Interestingly enough, most teaching manuals for German do not describe the semantic uses of sitzen either.The study aims at making up for these deficits. With examples from the German corpora from the Digitales Wörterbuch der Deutschen Sprache (DWDS), it first describes the different uses of the verb sitzen. It then offers a brief critical overview of teaching manuals for German. Based on essays from learner corpora, e.g. Falko, and cloze tests by French students it further presents the difficulties encountered by foreign learners of German with the more abstract or metaphorical uses of sitzen.In the framework of Cognitive Linguistics the study also proposes some 'conceptual tools' to facilitate the learning of the more abstract uses of the verb sitzen. These tools are semantic networks, visuals, and conceptual metaphors. Spatial distinctions such as those between container and contact are extended to more abstract areas of experience, especially in the context of situations describing abstract states. Here one of the main issues for the learner is to find out whether the abstract goal is conceptualized as a container, a contact or still another basic spatial relation. The efficiency of these conceptual tools is tested with a cloze test conducted with French-speaking students.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Semantic Uses Of the Posture Verb Sitzenmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Berthele (2004and 2006), Fagan (1991, Kutscher-Schultze-Berndt (2007) and Serra-Borneto (1996). It is surprising that most studies disregard the posture verb sitzen 'to sit'.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Conceptual tools for the description and acquisition of the German posture verb sitzen

Knop

2015

Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory

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“…The meaning and uses of PoVs are well described for German (Berthele 2004;Kaufmann 1995;Kutscher and Schultze-Berndt 2007;Serra Borneto 1996;among others). In these former studies, various factors have been singled out that determine the use of PoVs and other verbs of location.…”

Section: Posture Verbsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Analyzing stative dimensional verbs in frames

Gamerschlag

Petersen

2013

Yearbook of the German Cognitive Linguistics Association

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In this paper we discuss the class of stative dimensional verbs. Stative verbs of this type such as German wiegen 'weigh' and heißen 'be called' encode a dimension such as weight and name and additionally allow for the specification of a value along this dimension. We present frame analyses of posture verbs such as liegen 'lie' and stimulus subject perception verbs such as klingen 'sound', which constitute two prominent subclasses of German SDVs. We argue that a proper account of both types of SDVs requires explicit reference to the encoded dimension. It will be shown that frame representations are especially apt for that purpose since SDVs can easily be translated into attribute-value pairs, which are the building units of frames.

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Experiential motivation and the linguistics of sitting, standing, and lying

Newman

2022

WIRES Cognitive Science

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The three human at‐rest postures of sitting, standing, and lying are basic, recurring features of human behavior and may reasonably be called primary postures. The three postures share the property of being stable through time, but they are also differentiated in terms of their overall shape, their physiological properties, and typical associated behaviors such as the association of sitting with social interaction, and lying with sleeping. The experiential realities of the three postures underlie and motivate a range of cross‐linguistic phenomena involving morphemes with meanings of “sit”, “stand,” and “lie”. The relevant linguistic phenomena include higher frequencies of occurrence compared with other kinds of posture verbs and differential behavior with respect to some morphosyntactic patterns involving notions such as agentivity. The posture morphemes can also be the source for a variety of semantic extensions reflecting experiential realities of the postures, such as the extension of “lie” to mean “sleep” in some languages. Extensions also include grammaticalizations of the posture morphemes to locative and aspectual markers which reflect the temporal stability and spatial fixedness of the postures themselves. This article is categorized under: Linguistics > Cognitive Linguistics Linguistics > Language in Mind and Brain

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Why a folder lies in the basket although it is not lying: the semantics and use of German positional verbs with inanimate Figures

Cited by 14 publications

References 4 publications

Conceptual tools for the description and acquisition of the German posture verb sitzen

Conceptual tools for the description and acquisition of the German posture verb sitzen

Analyzing stative dimensional verbs in frames

Experiential motivation and the linguistics of sitting, standing, and lying

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