Abstract

This paper investigates two ways goals of motion events can be expressed in so-called ‘verb-framed’ languages (Talmy 2000), focusing on the Japanese postpositions -made and -ni. It is typically assumed that these postpositions are both goal-markers, but differ in exact goal semantics they encode, giving rise to non-overlapping distributions. Based on a range of distributional differences, I argue instead that they are more radically distinct that this:-made marks endpoints of event participants (including but not limited to paths of motion), while-ni is a dative case that marks goal arguments of motion verbs. This suggests that it is possible for two functionally distinct participant markers to converge and give the appearance of being alternate ways of realizing the ‘same ’ participant. Furthermore, adpositions such as-made, an inherently non-motion encoding resource co-opted for use in motion constructions, represent an understudied strategy for marking goals across languages, something that has ramifications for how motion typologies are constructed.

Citations