Cognitive Semantics : Meaning and Cognition

94 ÅKE VIBERG
Intentional level. In its prototypical use, slå is a goal-directed action represented
by the predicate ACT, which generally appears in most verbal semantic
fields. In less prototypical uses, the intentional meaning is missing, as in Per
slog huvudet i taket ‘Per hit his head against the ceiling’.
Similar to many basic motion verbs, slå also involves a characteristic Body
movement with a characteristic ‘shape’. In certain uses, this part of the meaning
is focused as in Per slog ut med armarna ‘Per spread his arms’. Characteristic
motion patterns of the limbs constitute important organizing principles for
motion verbs. Subject-centered motion verbs like walk, run, jump, in particular,
refer to motions of the legs and feet, while many of the most basic objectcentered
motion verbs such as put, throw, pull and push refer to characteristic
motion patterns of the arm and hand. (See the analysis of Swedish dra ‘pull’,
‘draw’ in Viberg, 1996b). The characteristic motion pattern of the arm is
indicated loosely as STRETCH(ARM) in Table 3, which needs further specification.
The planning and control of every-day motion patterns such as lifting
a cup to one’s mouth are extremely complex (Hollerbach 1990a,b). The most
important aspect of the body motion from the point of view of slå as a physical
contact verb, the concomitant motion of the hand, is indicated as TRAVEL(x).
Motion is so central to the verbs of physical contact that most of them
could be regarded as specialized types of motion verbs. Actually, the most
general motion verb in Swedish, röra ‘move’, might be regarded as superordinate
to many of the verbs of physical contact. This applies in particular to the
subfield called Light contact in Table 2. Verbs of motion can be divided into
subject-centered verbs of motion such as walk and run, which describe the
displacement of the subject, and object-centered verbs of motion, such as
throw and put, which describe the displacement of the object. Basically röra is
an object-centered motion verb (often with a directional spatial particle such
as ut ‘out’):
Han rörde ut pannkakspulvret med He stirred some water into the
kakao i vatten. pancake mix and cocoa.
But in the reflexive form it is a subject-centered motion verb corresponding to
intransitive ‘move’:
Klockan hade en visare som rörde The clock had a hand which moved
sig mycket långsamt, very slowly,
In its uses as a verb of Physical contact, it usually refers to light contact (often
in combination with the preposition vid ‘at, near’):