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THE XIITH CONFERENCE ON TYPOLOGY AND GRAMMAR
YOUNG SCHOLARS, ST-PETERSBURG, 20.11.2015
FOR
TOWARDS A LEXICAL TYPOLOGY OF
FALLING VERBS: EVIDENCE FROM URALIC
Egor Kashkin (IRL RAS) [email protected]
Daria Zhornik (MSU) [email protected]
Aigul Zakirova (MSU) [email protected]
Anastasia Kozhemyakina (MSU) [email protected]
Polina Pleshak (MSU) [email protected]
I. Introduction
LEXICAL TYPOLOGY
Universal patterns of how semantic domains are
organized. Universal constraints on the structure of
semantic domains.
 Colour terms [Berlin, Kay 1969], motion in water [Maisak,
Rakhilina (eds.) 2007], pain [Bricyn et al. (eds.) 2009],
temperature [Koptjevskaja-Tamm (ed.) 2015], etc.

MOTION VERBS
A prominent topic in lexical semantics, cf. [Kuznecova
1963 / 2010], [Talmy 1975, 2000], [Fillmore 1983],
[Fillmore, Atkins 2000], [Maisak 2005], [Maisak, Rakhilina
(eds.) 2007], [Kruglyakova 2010], [Shapiro 2013], etc.
 Verbs of falling
RUSSIAN: упасть, выпасть, свалиться, опрокинуться,
рухнуть,
вылиться,
осыпаться,
шлепнуться,
брякнуться…
ENGLISH: to fall, to drop, to collapse, to plummet, to tumble,
to pour, to plop…
 Moving downwards.
 Not touching a surface.
 Uncontrollably.
 An important subclass, but still on the periphery of the
research.

FALLING VERBS
Team project (E. V. Rakhilina, T. I. Reznikova et al.).
 Some first findings: [Mustakimova 2014], [Rakhilina 2015],
[Kashkin, Pleshak 2015], [Kuz’menko, Mustakimova 2015].
 Collocational
approach to data collection [Rakhilina,
Reznikova 2013].
 Language sample (work in progress; to be enlarged):
Russian, Ukrainian, Belorussian;
English, German, French, Norwegian, Yiddish;
Finnish, Estonian, Komi, Moksha, Mari, Beserman Udmurt,
Nenets;
Tatar, Chuvash, Kirghiz;
Aghul; Adyghe;
Indonesian.

OUR TALK
Four Uralic languages studied in detail:
 Komi-Zyrjan (Izhma dialect, Yamalo-Nenets district).
 Meadow Mari (primarily the town of Volzhsk).
 Moksha Mordvin (Central dialect).
 Tundra Nenets (the village of Samburg, Yamalo-Nenets
district).
 Fieldwork + dictionaries, texts.
 Contribution of our data to the typology of falling verbs.
 Linguistically, verbs of falling are related to some other
domains besides motion (sound, destruction etc.) =>
Uralic data on this matter.

FALLING VERBS: OUTLINE OF THE SYSTEM
WHAT falls WHERE FROM WHERE
• Natural
object
• Artifact
• Human
• Liquid
• Rain, snow
…
• Hard surface
• Soft surface
• Water
• Layer (snow, mud)
…
• From one surface to
another
• From a container
• From vertical position
to horizontal position
• Separation
of
an
object & falling of its
parts
…
II. Verbs of falling in Uralic: basic semantic distinctions
FROM ABOVE VS. FROM VERTICAL POSITION
A regular distinction in the prototypes for each verb.
MOKSHA prams (above) vs. vel’ams (vertical).
KOMI us’ny (above) vs. pərny (vertical).
 In fact: some degree of overlap in each language.
MARI kamvozaš (all) vs. jörlaš (vertical).
 Distinctions based on animacy and on some topological
properties.

FROM VERTICAL POSITION: ANIMACY EFFECTS
Different verbs for animate and inanimate subjects
NENETS moqnas’ (animate) vs. xəwəs’ (inanimate), cf.
məntas’ ‘to fall from above’ (both animate and inanimate).
 Animate: falling forwards or backwards.
NENETS t’indas’ (forwards) vs. lasas’ (backwards).
 Animate: agentivity shift.
MOKSHA vel’ams ‘to fall (from a vertical position, inanimate)’
& ‘to lie down (e. g. in order to have a rest, human)’

FROM VERTICAL POSITION: OBSERVER
pərny
 Falling from vertical position (bottle, fence, boat, sledge)
me gyrd’d’anam vərz’edi sul’ijase, i sul’ijays pəris ‘I touched
the bottle with my elbow, and it fell’ (remained on the table;
*fell from the table on the floor)
 Variability: pərny vs. us’ny (basic verb of falling), when the
top of an object is perceived as falling on the observer.
topyd təəs’ys n’ijays pəris / us’is ‘The tree fell due to the
strong wind’
KOMI
SUBJECT: LIQUIDS AND DRY SUBSTANCES
The same lexeme for liquids and dry substances.
 Liquids: flow vs. drops.
KOMI kis’s’yny ‘to pour’ (water & sand), vijoony ‘to drop’
(water).
 Liquids & dry substances → multiple subject
MOKSHA pɛjɛr’əms: water & sand → apples, leaves, teeth,
hair, people from a ship.
 Open question: possible heterogeneity within the types of
multiple subjects?

INITIAL POINT: CONTAINER
Falling out of a container (small bird from a nest) or a
dense material (nail out of a wall).
 Often encoded with the dominant lexeme, cf. KOMI us’ny.
 MARI: a special expression possible: lektən vozaš – lit. ‘to
fall going out’.

III. Contiguous domains
RESEARCH QUESTION
Interrelations between domains in the lexicon
 Example: form of a line vs. surface texture.
 RUSSIAN rovno otr’ezat’ ≈ ‘to cut sth. following a straight
line (lit.: to cut evenly)’.
 MOKSHA vid’ə ki ‘1. a straight road (without turns); 2. a
level road (without bumps)’ [Kashkin 2013].
 Falling: RUSSIAN šm’aknut’s’a ‘to plop down’, groxnut’s’a
‘to crash down’ – differential marking of goal: na + NPacc
(like ‘to fall’) vs. o + NPacc (like ‘to strike’) [Kashkin,
Pleshak 2015].
 Challenges for typology: What frames of falling are
contiguous to other domains? To what domains? What
are the linguistic outcomes of this contiguity?

DESCENT
Some cases of polysemy, animacy shifts.
MOKSHA vel’ams ‘to fall (from a vertical position, inanimate)’
& ‘to lie down (e. g. in order to have a rest, human)’
NENETS xaqməs’ ‘to descend’ (human) & ‘to fall’ (leaves,
snow, teeth).

DROWNING
A peripheral frame: falling through a layer or under a
surface (e.g. falling into snow or under ice).
 Often described by the verbs of drowning, cf. Komi vəjny,
Moksha vajams.
 A separate frame sometimes related to the idea of
drowning: falling into a hole.
MOKSHA vajams
KOMI *vəjny

SOUND
Some verbs describe sounds associated with different
frames of falling (see also [Kashkin et al. 2012] on sound
verbs).
 Typologically: falling into water, falling of sth. heavy, size
and material of subject and goal.
 E. g. KOMI:
buzgys’ny:
 Noisy falling into water (cf. Russ. bultyxnut’s’a).
 Noisy falling of water or of dry substance. (NB!)
gr’imgys’ny: noisy falling of sth. heavy.
br’ingys’ny: falling of metallic objects
…

DESTRUCTION
Special frame: falling & destruction (house, bridge,
shore), see MOKSHA sradəms, MARI sümərlaš
 Possible distinction: natural object vs. artifact.
KOMI buždyny: crash of a shore, mass of snow, ground;
??house, ??bridge (described with dominant verbs of falling
or destruction).

DESTRUCTION
Constructional variation.
MOKSHA sradəms ‘to crash down’: constructions with both Goal and
Result.
s’ec’
srac’
l’ɛj-t’i.
bridge.DEF.SG crash.PST.3SG river-DEF.DAT
‘The bridge crashed down into the river’
s’ec’
srac’
jomla kusokə-n’ɛ-n’.
bridge.DEF.SG crash.PST.3SG small piece-DIM-GEN
‘The bridge crashed into small pieces’
s’ec’
srac’
l’ɛj-t’i
jomla kusokə-n’ɛ-n’.
bridge.DEF.SG crash.PST.3SG river-DEF.DAT small piece-DIM-GEN
Lit.: ‘The bridge crashed to the river into small pieces’
 The same thing for MARI sümərlaš.

PHYSICAL IMPACT: STRIKE
Some Moksha verbs: both falling and strike + possibly labile
(preliminary data)
MOKSHA bɛc’ɛd’əms
modamar’-ən’ mešok-s’
bɛc’ɛc’.

potato-GEN
sack-DEF.SG
fall.PST.3SG
‘The sack of potatoes fell down’
vas’ɛ bɛc’ɛd’-in’ə
mešok-t’
Vasja tumble-PST.3.O:1SG.S
sack-DEF.SG.GEN ground-DEF.SG.DAT
‘Vasja tumbled the sack on the ground’
Vas’ɛ sɛv-s’
mandə i bɛc’ɛd’-əz’ə
Vasja
take-PST.3SG stick
pin’ə-t’.
and strike-PST.3SG.S:3SG.O dog-DEF.SG.GEN
‘Vasja took a stick and struck the dog’
Vas’ɛ b’ɛc’ɛc’
kas’ak-t’i.
Vasja strike.PST.3SG
moda-t’i.
doorpost-DEF.SG.DAT
‘Vasja struck against the doorpost’
ROTATION
Cognate pairs, see Mordvin vel’ams:
MOKSHA ‘to fall (from a vertical position)’
ERZYA ‘to spin, to whirl’ (leaves, dancers).
 Metonymies:
NENETS wabtomč ‘to turn over’ → ‘to fall, to pour out of sth.
which has turned over’
 Metaphors:
KOMI pərny ‘to fall (from a vertical position)’ → ‘to turn into
sth.’, e.g. vays pəris jie ‘Water turned into ice’.
Cf. bergedčyny ‘to turn’ → fast transformation, in fairy tales.
mojdas d’et’inays bergedčis t’el’ae ‘The boy turned into a
young reindeer in a fairy tale’
 Typology: a possible metaphoric pattern for rotation verbs
[Kruglyakova 2010].

METAPHORS
Entry into a state, transformation
KOMI pərny
MOKSHA prams onc ‘to fall asleep (lit.: to fall into a dream)’,
prams r’izfs ‘to become sad (lit.: to fall into sadness)’
 Start of some activity
NENETS moqnas’ ‘to fall from a vertical position (animate)’ →
‘to start doing sth. with enthusiasm’, ‘to appeal to sb.’
 Death + disappearance
NENETS xəwəs’ ‘to fall from a vertical position (inanimate)’ →
‘to be disassembled (a tent of reindeer herders)’
 Emergence (“physical” + experiential).
KOMI te kytys’ us’in? ‘Where did you spring (lit.: fall) from?’
MOKSHA kul’əs’ pras’ pil’əs ‘The rumour reached everyone (lit.:
The rumour fell into an ear)’

CONCLUSIONS




Core verbs and oppositions vs. many contiguous domains.
 Falling from above vs. from a vertical position.
 Animacy, topological properties.
 Liquids, dry substances + multiple subject.
 Initial point: container.
Contiguous classes:
 Other types of motion (drowning, rotation).
 Sound.
 Destruction.
 Physical impact: strike.
Linguistic outcomes of contiguity:
 Polysemy.
 Metaphors.
 Constructions.
Metaphors: sketch of some possible patterns.
Thank you for your attention!