Motion Verbs of Manner in FrameNet: A Comparison between Persian and English

Abstract

This study aims to comparatively investigate the semantic frames of motion verbs in Persian and English within the framework of the frame semantics theory (Fillmore 1977; 1982; 1985). As far as motion verbs are concerned, it is obvious that Manner is considered as one of the motion components expressed by either the verb or any element other than the verb. In English — a satellite-framed language (Talmy 2000b) — Manner is shown by motion verbs, whereas in Persian it is typically indicated by non-verbal elements, although there are also some verbs via which Manner is encoded. Within this study, thirty English verbs of manner were selected from among the ones Levin (1993) has introduced and then the verbs were translated into Persian and looked up through the Persian Corpus of Bijankhan to achieve their contexts of use. Next, FrameNet was asked for the semantic frame each verb evoked. Thereafter, comparing the semantic frames in the two languages, it was revealed that not every verb of manner does exist as a Lexical Unit in FrameNet. Likewise, not for every verb was a specified semantic frame either. Moreover, the frames for some other verbs have been defined in such a way that they cannot semantically distinguish those verbs from each other, whereas such distinctions are prominent in both manner verbs and the frames they evoke especially in Persian.