Chapter 1. Light Verb Constructions as a testing ground for the Gravitational Pull Hypothesis

Abstract

This study aims to test out the Gravitational Pull Hypothesis (GPH) on Light Verb Constructions (LVCs) conveying emotional states and dynamic events in a number of language combinations, with English and French as source and Catalan and Spanish as target languages. It draws on the corresponding sub-corpora of the COVALT translation corpus. The GPH posits three cognitive causes of translational effects: source or target language salience and connectivity. Different configurations of these causes are expected to result in over- or under-representation of target language features. This study attempts to push the theory forward by formulating hypotheses at the more abstract level of LVC types rather than individual LVCs. The effects predicted (under-representation of LVCs conveying emotional states and no significant differences for those conveying dynamic events) are confirmed in five out of the eight situations at the intersections of LVC types and language pairs.