Cognitive and Lexical Characteristics of Motion in Liquid Medium:AQUA-motionverbs in Typologically Different Languages

In the present paper we survey the verbs speakers use most frequently to encode the movement of a non-liquid Figure in or on a liquid Ground (AQUA-motion verbs). Our main data come from European Portuguese (EP) (cf. Batoréo, 2007, in press; Batoréo et al., 2007; Casadinho, 2007), and our results are mainly based on non-elicited data from electronically available language corpora of native EP speakers and contrasted with traditional Portuguese dictionary data (cf. Majsak, 2007). The EP results obtained are discussed within a lexical field AQUA-motion, as presented and characterized in Lander, Maisak, & Rakhilina (2005) and Majsak & Rahilina (2003, 2007) as well as discussed for some particular languages in Arad (2007) and Divjak & Lemmens (2007). They are approached also within a broader context of the typology of lexicalization patterns in the sense of Talmy 1985, 2000 (cf. Batoréo, 2000 for EP). The tri-partition proposed for the AQUA-motion field by distinguishing Sailing, Swimming and Floating verbs will be revisited. Approaching both physical and metaphorical meanings in EP, the contrasts discussed are between the Floating verbs ‘flutuar’ vs. ‘boiar’ and the swimming one ‘nadar’, as well as the rich SAILING area with its prototypical verb ‘navegar’. The basic parameters to be discussed are: (i) the nature of the moving figure, (ii) the nature of motion (passive vs. active, directed vs. non-directed, motion and containment), (iii) the nature of the metaphorical projection (e.g. AERO-motion and abstract domains), proving that languages may differ in predictable ways not only in grammar but also in lexicon.