What’s Dog Got to Do With It? Motivation Behind Denominal (Animal) Verbs

Alisa Egorova; Hans-Georg Wolf

doi:10.18778/1731-7533.21.2.02

Authors

Alisa Egorova University of Potsdam
Hans-Georg Wolf University of Potsdam

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18778/1731-7533.21.2.02

Keywords:

animal verb, denominal conversion, zero derivation, frame, metaphor, metonymy, zoosemy

Abstract

This paper investigates the motivation behind denominal conversion of animal nouns to verbs as well as their resultant senses. Upon critical consideration of previous accounts of animal verb senses and their possible sources, the argument is put forward that animal verbs are not uniform in their semantics and cannot therefore be considered a separate conceptual category or analysed as such. Previous findings are then reinterpreted from the point of view of frame-based accounts of denominal conversion. Animal verbs are shown to be generated by the same grammatical generalisations as other denominal verbs of English, with their metaphoricity appearing to be a concomitant rather than a driving factor in the grammatical act of their conversion.

References

Baeskow, Heike. 2006. Reflections on Noun-to-Verb Conversion in English. Zeitschrift Für Sprachwissenschaft, 25(2), 205–237. https://doi.org/10.1515/ZFS.2006.008
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/ZFS.2006.008

Clark, Eve V., and Clark, Herbert H. 1979. When Nouns Surface as Verbs. Language, 55(4), 767–811. https://doi.org/10.2307/412745
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/412745

Deignan, Alice. 2005. Metaphor and Corpus linguistics. John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/celcr.6
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/celcr.6

Dirven, René. 1999. Conversion as a Conceptual Metonymy of Event Schemata. In K.-U. Panther and G. Radden (eds.), Metonymy in Language and Thought, 275–287. John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/hcp.4.16dir
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/hcp.4.16dir

Egorova, Alisa. 2022. Hunting Down Animal Verbs: An Investigation into The Mechanisms of Meaning Transfer Underlying English Verbal Zoosemy [MA thesis]. University of Potsdam. https://publishup.uni-potsdam.de/55770
Google Scholar

Kiełtyka, Robert. 2016. Various Faces of Animal Metaphor in English and Polish. Peter Lang. https://doi.org/10.3726/978-3-653-05784-3
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.3726/978-3-653-05784-3

Kiparsky, Paul. 1997. Remarks on Denominal Verbs. Complex Predicates, 64, 473–499.
Google Scholar

Kleparski, Grzegorz. 2017. The Semantics of Dog Revisited: In Search of Phraseologically Embedded Spectral Zoometaphors. In R. Kiełtyka and A. Uberman (eds.), Evolving Nature of the English Language, 81–92. Peter Lang.
Google Scholar

Kleparski, Grzegorz. 2013. Historical Semantics: A Sketch on New Categories and Types of Semantic Change. In J. Fisiak and M. Bator (eds.), Historical English Word-Formation and Semantics, 59–88. Peter Lang.
Google Scholar

Kövecses, Zoltán. 2015. Where Metaphors Come From: Reconsidering Context in Metaphor. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190224868.001.0001
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190224868.001.0001

Kövecses, Zoltán., and Radden, Günter. 1998. Metonymy: Developing a Cognitive Linguistic view. Cognitive Linguistics, 9(1), 37–78. https://doi.org/10.1515/cogl.1998.9.1.37
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/cogl.1998.9.1.37

Martsa, Sándor. 2013. Conversion in English: A cognitive Semantic Approach. Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Google Scholar

Michaelis, Laura A., and Hsiao, Allen M. 2021. Verbing and Linguistic Innovation. Frontiers in Communication, 6, 604–763. https://doi.org/10.3389/fcomm.2021.604763
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.3389/fcomm.2021.604763

Oxford English Dictionary Online [OED]. https://www.oed.com/
Google Scholar

Panther, Klaus-Uwe, and Thornburg, Linda L. (2012). Conceptualizing Humans as Animals in English Verb Particle Constructions. Language Value, 4, 63–83. https://doi.org/10.6035/LanguageV.2012.4.4
Google Scholar DOI: https://doi.org/10.6035/LanguageV.2012.4.4