Endocentric and exocentric verb typology: Talmy revisited – on good grounds

Abstract

abstractThis paper presents the so-calledEndo-andExocentric Verb Typologyadvanced by the Danish research group TYPOlex. The typology is partly based on Talmy’s lexicalization patterns for motion verbs with some elaboration and refinement of themanner–pathdistinction, and it is generalized to comprise Germanic and Romance verbs (and nouns) as a whole. The Danish findings point to a relatively high lexical precision and concreteness in Germanic verbs (and Romance nouns) and a relatively high lexical abstractness and genericity in Romance verbs (and Germanic nouns). Furthermore, the paper investigates Talmy’s two semantic componentsgroundandfigureand argues that they are far more generalized in Romance (secondary) lexicalization patterns–parasynthetic derivation–than normally assumed.