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view, at least in the epistemic sense, it is no longer the subject who undergoes a
force and is driven along a deductive path; reality itself evolves in a structured
world: ‘‘there is an essential force-dynamic element to our conception of its struc-
ture, which we can see as constraining and influencing elements that unfold within
it’’ (Langacker 1991: 276). Langacker nevertheless holds that his account is not
necessarily incompatible with Sweetser’s, since the speaker is the person respon-
sible for assessing the structure of reality and the future course of events (274).
Achard’s (1996, 1998) analysis of the French modals pouvoir ‘can’ and devoir
‘must’ combineselements from both Sweetser’s and Langacker’s analyses. Following
Sweetser, Achard (1998: 145–59) uses the terms ‘‘force’’ and ‘‘barrier’’ to define the
root senses of these French modals: in (39), pouvoir meaning ‘possibility’ expresses
the removal or the absence of a (potential) external barrier or obstacle, which stands
between the subject and the accomplishment of the infinitival process.
15
(39) Il peut venir vous voir demain.
‘He can come and see you tomorrow.’
As such, the root meaning of pouvoir differs from its uses as a main verb as in (40),
where it expresses ability:
(40) Marie est forte, elle peut soulever cent kilos.
‘Marie is strong, she is able to lift one hundred kilos.’
Indeed, whereas in (40) the subject can be identified with the locus of potency, in
(39), the locus of potency can be identified with external factors removing the
barrier. Thus, as was already pointed out by Langacker, the locus of potency gets
more diffused; at the same time, however, the speaker gets more and more in-
volved, since he or she is aware of these external circumstances, whereas the subject
is not.
Figure 12 . 4. Langacker’s (1991: 277) dynamic evolutionary model
310 walter de mulder
The same holds with respect to devoir’s root meaning of obligation, where the
locus of potency (Talmy’s Antagonist) is also associated, not with the subject, but
with the speaker (41) or with a more diffused source of obligation (42):


(41) Vous devez rentrer

aa six heures.
‘You must come back at six o’clock.’
(42) Les e
´
tudiants doivent respecter leurs professeurs.
‘The students must respect their teachers.’
As far as the epistemic senses are concerned, Achard (1996: 10) again follows
Langacker, stating that pouvoir places the process in potential reality, whereas devoir
places it in projected reality:
(43) Je ne vois pas de lumi

eere, il peut ne rentrer que demain.
‘I do not see any light, he may only come back tomorrow.’
(44) Il a laisse
´
la porte ouverte, il doit revenir bient
^
oot.
‘He left the door open, he must be coming back soon.’ (Achard 1998: 160)
Here, the locus of potency is equated with the world and its evolution, but, ac-
cording to Achard (1998: 166), it is then necessarily ‘‘speaker-internal, because
considerations about the world and its evolution are only accessible to the speaker
by the mental operations of observation and analysis.’’
At the same time, Achard stresses that the speaker’s control over the com-
plement increases, as is suggested by the fact that infinitives following savoir and
pouvoir in their epistemic sense can take perfect or passive markers (45), whereas
this is not possible when these verbs express ability or capacity (46).
(45)a.Il doit e

ˆ
tre enferme
´
, je l’entends crier.
‘He must be locked up; I can hear him scream.’
b. Il peut ne pas avoir compris, il faudrait re
´
pe
´
ter.
‘He might not have understood, we should repeat.’
(46)a.*Il sait avoir nage
´
.
*‘He knows how to have swum.’
b. ? Il peut e
ˆ
tre enferme
´
dans le placard.
‘He can be locked up in the closet.’ (Achard 1996 : 3–4)
That the speaker exerts conceptual control over the complement should not come
as a surprise, since the epistemic uses of savoir and devoir express the evaluation by
the speaker, and not the subject, of the force of the evolutionary momentum.
5. Force-Dynamics in Syntax

Langacker’s (1990; 1991: 282) analysis of grammatical relations confirms the rele-
vance of force-dynamic notions to syntax. Langacker defines clause structure with
respect to two folk models, the ‘‘billiard-ball model’’ and the ‘‘stage model,’’ whose
force dynamics 311

combination yields the ‘‘canonical event model’’ (Langacker 1991: 286). In keeping
with the stage model, events are conceived as observed from an external vantage
point by a viewer; in accordance with the billiard-ball model, events are conceived
as consisting of discrete objects moving about and interacting energetically. This
model is reflected in the prototypical transitive clause, which ‘‘profiles an action
chain involving the transmission of energy from the subject to the object, with the
former being agentive and the latter undergoing a change of state’’ (Langacker
1990: 220).
16
These ideas are illustrated in examples (47)–(50):
(47) Floyd hit/broke the glass with the hammer.
(48) The hammer hit/broke the glass.
(49) The glass easily broke.
(50) Floyd hit the hammer against the glass.
The examples also show that different portions of the event expressed may receive
attention: (47) focuses on the even t as a whole, (48) on the interaction between
the instrument and the patient, (49) on the patient’s state of change, and (50)onthe
agent’s manipulation of the instrument. Although for a full analysis of clause struc-
ture, other elements, such as the distinction between dependent and autonomous
parts (Langacker 1991: 286–91), must be taken into account, the force-dynamic
analysis of clause structure permits an initial characterization of central grammatical
notions such as ‘subject’ and ‘direct object’. The subject is the head of the profiled
portion of the action chain or the participant that is farthest upstream with respect
to the energy flow, whereas the object is the tail of the profiled portion of the action
chain (Langacker 1990; 1991: 310). At first sight, these definitions are not schematic
enough, since they do not seem to apply to examples with symmetric predicates such
as (51) (Langacker 1991: 311):
(51) a. Joshua resembles Jonathan.
b. Jonathan resembles Joshua.
However, there is still some asymmetry in these sentences: in (51a), Jonathan serves

as the standard of comparison for the evaluation of Joshua, whereas in (51b), this
relation is reversed. Thus, in (51a), Joshua is the Figure and Jonathan is the Ground,
whereas in (51b), Joshua is the Ground and Jonathan is the Figure. Consequently,
Langacker (1990: 222; 1991: 313) defines the subject as the Figure of the relationship
profiled by the verb and the object as the ‘‘secondary clausal Figure’’ (Langacker
1991: 324). At the same time, these definitions can still be held to reflect the action-
chain structure, since the starting point and the end point attract more attention
than the other elements (322).
Since the force-dynamic canonical event model provides a coherent basis for
the prototypical notion of transitivity (Langacker 1991: 302 refers to Rice 1987 for this
idea; see also Kemmer and Verhagen 1994: 126), clauses whose structure is similar to
the prototypical transitive one, will, as Kemmer and Verhagen (1994: 127) argue, be
based onthe same force-dynamic model. Instances of such clauses are what Kemmer
312 walter de mulder
and Verhagen (1994) call the intransitive causative construction (52) and the
transitive causative construction (53):
(52) I made Mary cry.
(53) I made her eat some cake.
In their view, the intransitive causative schema preserves the force-dynamic struc-
ture of transitivity and consequently shows subject and direct object marking just as
in a simple transitive clause; the transitive causative schema, on the other hand, is
modeled either on the structure of the ditransitive clause or on the model of clauses
containing an instrumental phrase, such as I hit it with a hammer: in the first case,
the clause contains subject, object, and indirect object marking on the three par-
ticipants; in the second, it contains an instrumental participant. Causative con-
structions are thus again presented as ultimately based on a fundamental force-
dynamic pattern.
6. Conclusion

Force dynamics, as proposed by Talmy, is a fundamental notion which underlies

grammatical categories, such as modal verbs in English, and which structures the
meanings of many lexical items. The notion has proved useful for analyzing various
linguistic expressions (prepositions, conjunctions, logic-gators, etc.), as well as sen-
tence structure and grammatical notions such as ‘subject’ and ‘object’. Despite the
fruitfulness of the notion, a lot of questions remain to be answered, especially
concerning the relation of force dynamics to other linguistic and nonlinguistic
systems, its use in structuring nonphysical domains (by metaphorical transfer or
not?), and its exact nature (preconceptual, image-schematic or not?). Moreover,
Talmy (2000, 462–67) has suggested that further research is needed on some pa-
rameters of the force-dynamic system (e.g., Is the force-exerting entity localized or
distributed? Is the force exerted uniformly or does it change?). In the end, then,
force dynamics is not only an essential grammatical category, but also a rich area of
research.
NOTES

1. All examples in section 2 are taken from Talmy (2000: 409–70).
2. This connection between ‘causing’ and ‘letting’ is confirmed by the analysis of Dutch
laten and doen as expressing indirect and direct causation, respectively (Verhagen and Kemmer
1997).
force dynamics 313
3. Earlier analyses treated causation as an atomic notion—often represented as cause
(McCawley 1968); and even those treatments that mentioned a more detailed set of factors
(Shibatani 1973; Jackendoff 1976; and Talmy 1976, 1985) ‘‘were still founded upon an unanalyzed
notion of primitive causation’’ (Talmy 2000 : 428).
4. The idea of ‘‘negative causation’’ as a further type of causation is presented by Soares
da Silva (1999, 2003) as the meaning unifying the different senses of the verb deixar.
5. Four syntactic and morphological properties define the core modal verbs (can, may,
must, shall, will, need, dare, had better, and ought): ‘‘lack of to for the infinitive form of the
following verb, lack of -s for the third-person singular, postposed not, and inversion with the
subject as in questions’’ (Talmy 2000: 440–41). Verbs such as have to, be supposed to, be to, and

get to are considered to be ‘‘honorary modals,’’ because, although syntactically regular, their
meanings and uses are comparable to those of the core modals.
6. Jackendoff (1990: 125) rejects the definition of theme as ‘‘the thing affected,’’ an analysis
which derives, in his view, ‘‘from the notion of Theme as a default case-marker, like Fillmore’s
(1968) Objective case.’’
7. It would be preferable to identify Antagonist with Actor.
8. Likewise, Boye (2001: 31–32) points out that the Danish ‘‘force modals’’ burde ‘ought to’,
ma
˚
tte(-n) ‘must’, skulle ‘shall’, and ville ‘will’—that is, those that are defined using the notion
of force and that express necessity and probability—take directional complements:
Det bør/ma
˚
(-n)/skal/vil frem.
it ought/must/shall/will out-dir
‘It ought/must/shall/will be brought to light.’
9.
The number of meanings to be distinguished in English modals varies from author to
author; Sweetser (1990), for instance, also distinguishes speech act modality, whereas other
authors think this is ‘‘pragmatically reducible’’ to one of the other kinds of modality (Boye 2001:
36); see Mortelmans (this volume, chapter 33) for more details.
10. ‘‘Root’’ meaning, as defined by Sweetser (1990) is broader than ‘‘deontic’’ modality,
which is first and foremost associated ‘‘with the more narrow notion of social and moral
obligation alone’’ (Johnson 1987: 50). Johnson himself shares Sweetser’s (broader) character-
ization of root modality, which is also found in Langacker (1991: 246, note 4) and Achard (1998:
126), although the latter seems to regard ‘‘deontic’’ as a synonym to ‘‘root’’; see Mortelmans,
this volume, chapter 33, note 5).
11. The question is further complicated by the fact that Johnson (1987: 46), Sweetser (1990:
60), and Pelyva
´

s(1996: 138) also describe our reasoning processes as invoking the idea of a
journey through space.
12. Boye (2001: 36) calls the domain of ability the ‘‘dynamic’’ domain and holds it to be
basic for the analysis of the Danish modals.
13. Some authors even cast doubt on the polysemy view as such; see Mortelmans, this
volume, chapter 33.
14. See also Lampert and Lampert (2000: 238–39) on the different views of Talmy and
Johnson concerning the shared nature of (pre)conceptual patterns.
15. The distinction between ‘‘force’’ and ‘‘barrier’’ modals is also made by Boye (2001) for
Danish modal verbs.
16. For largely compatible ideas, loosely inspired by Talmy’s (1972, 1976) analyses of
causatives, see Croft (1991: 165–82).
314 walter de mulder
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force dynamics 317
chapter 13

SPATIAL SEMANTICS

jordan zlatev
1. Introduction

This chapter presents an overview of cognitive linguistic research in spatial se-
mantics, in other words, investigations into the meaning of spatial language that
regard language as an integrated part of human cognition. This rather broad def-
inition is meant to cover not only the type of research that can be said to con-
stitute ‘‘the prototype’’ within Cognitive Linguistics (e.g., by Lakoff, Langacker,
and Talmy), but also research that ‘‘deviates’’ from this prototype (e.g., by Jack-

endoff, Levinson, and Sinha).
Within the cognitive linguistic literature so far, there have been three sub-
stantial edited volumes (Bloom et al. 1996;Pu
¨
tz and Dirven 1996; Hampe 2005),
two special issues of the journal Cognitive Linguistics (1995, issues 1 and 2/3), a large
number of monographs (Brugman 1981; Lindner 1981; Casad 1982; Cuyckens 1991;
Vandeloise 1991; Durst-Andersen 1992; Svorou 1994; Regier 1996; Zlatev 1997;
Takahashi 2001; Levinson 2003; Tyler and Evans 2003; Pourcel 2005), and numer-
ous articles (e.g., Talmy 1983; Landau and Jackendoff 1993; Sinha and Kuteva 1995;
Kreitzer 1997; Cienki 1998; Pederson et al. 1998; Engberg-Pedersen 1999; Sinha and
Jensen de Lo
´
pez 2000; Tyler and Evans 2001; Goddard 2002)—all of these dedi-
cated largely to spatial semantics. A natural question is: why has spatial meaning
received such extensive attention?
One reason is universality. Space pertains to a central and universal aspect of
human experience, and thus constitutes a good searching ground for linguistic
universals, as exemplified in the work of, for instance, Talmy (1975, 1983, 1985, 1988,
2000). Conversely, the demonstration of language-specific patterns of semantic
and possibly conceptual categorization in this type of domain would provide a
strong case for ‘‘linguistic relativity’’ (Whorf 1956; Pourcel 2005) or at least ‘‘lin-
guistic mediation’’ (Vygotsky 1978; Bowerman 1996; Pederson et al. 1998; Levinson
2003).
The second major reason for the focus of Cognitive Linguistics on spatial se-
mantics has to do with the supposed basic nature of space. It has long been known
that there are strong parallels between space and other semantic domains, reflected
in the fact that the same expressions often take spatial, temporal, and other more
abstracts meanings, as seen in expressions such as from here to there, from now to
tomorrow, and from me to you (Gruber 1965; Anderson 1971; Clark 1973). The stan-

dard cognitive linguistic explanation of this parallelism is conceptual metaphor, that
is, a systematic asymmetric mapping between two experiential domains where the
more abstract domain is understood in terms of the more concrete one (Lakoff and
Johnson 1980; Lakoff 1987; Grady, this volume, chapter 8). Since space appears to
be more concrete than the domains it maps onto, its structure is expected to be
mapped onto these domains: ‘‘space is at the heart of all conceptualization’’ (Putz
and Dirven 1996: xi); ‘‘abstract domains are consistently conceptualized in terms of
spatial image schemata’’ (Kreitzer 1997: 317). If that is indeed the case, an under-
standing of spatial categorization would provide the key to human conceptual cat-
egorization in general.
However, the metaphorical interpretation of the space/nonspace analogy is not
uncontroversial, other possible explanations being historical processes of gram-
maticalization (Heine, Claudi, and Hu
¨
nnemeyer 1991) or fundamental properties
of mental representation rendering space and other domains partially isomorphic
(Langacker 1987; Jackendoff 1990). In both cases, it would be possible to argue that
space is not experientially more basic than, for example, time (Engberg-Pedersen
1999; Evans 2003). At the same time, this controversy has itself sparked research
into the supposed primacy of space (see section 5.4).
The overall structure of this chapter is as follows. Section 2 sets the stage by
addressing two important preliminary questions, each of which allows for several
answers: What is to be regarded as ‘‘spatial language’’? and How can spatial se-
mantics be studied from the nonmodular, interdisciplinary perspective of Cog-
nitive Linguistics? Despite substantial differences between the various approaches
to spatial semantics, one can discern a basic set of spatial semantic concepts within
the literature, which is presented and discussed in section 3. Section 4 provides a
brief review of the empirical basis for such generalizations, showing an initial focus
on European languages, but a gradual movement toward non-Indo-European
languages and eventually more general typological frameworks. Section 5 takes up

four controversies, often discussed in connection with spatial semantics, but of
more general significance for linguistic theory; reviewing these gives an idea of the
‘‘problem space’’ that an explanatorily adequate theory of spatial meaning would
need to negotiate. The chapter concludes with a summary and some anticipations
for further research in spatial semantics.
spatial semantics 319

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