(Salle F08)
Rossini, Nicla
(Università di Pavia, Pavia)
Phrasal verbs or words ?
Towards the analysis of gesture and prosody
as indexes of lexicalisation
The classification of languages according to the strategy adopted for
the expression of Motion Events (Talmy, 1985) is to be considered as
most interesting for what concerns gesture studies.
According to this classifi cation, languages can be classifi ed into verbframed,
and satellite-framed. Verb-framed languages, in fact, express
both Motion and Path by means of lexical morphemes, while satellite-
framed languages express Motion by means of lexical morphemes
and Path by means of “satellites” such as prepositions, postpositions,
or adverbs.
This classifi cation was adopted by gesture scholars in a number of
studies which revealed that the iconics tend to synchronize with the
satellite in satellite-framed languages, and with the verb in verbframed
languages (McNeill, 1992). A further study showed also that
L2 learners, whose mother language is verb-framed, tend to synchronize
their gestures with the verb when speaking English, which is
satellite-framed (see Stam, 1999).
Nevertheless, a recent study on Dutch speakers learning English as
L2 (Kellerman & Hoof, 2003) provides evidence that even in the case
of a satellite-framed mother language, speakers tend to synchronize
their iconics with the verb when speaking a satellite-framed second
language.
Although no explanation of the phenomenon was attempted, this
fi nding seems to contrast with the hypothesis of gesture-speech synchronization.
A possible solution to this apparent discrepancy may perhaps be
found if one hypothesizes different levels of lexicalisation for phrasal
verbs in different satellite-framed languages.
If this is so, the analysis of synchronization patterns - together with
the analysis of prosodic phenomena - may be regarded to as an index
of lexicalisation.
In particular, I hypothesise 3 levels of lexicalisation :
first level : verb and satellite are clearly separated. The speaker perceives them as distinct words forming a phrasal
verb. In this case, some hesitations between verb and satellite
will be possible and the iconic will be synchronised with
the satellite ;
second level : the boundary between verb and satellite is less
clear cut. In this case, the incidence of hesitation pauses
between verb and satellite will diminish, while the gesture
will synchronise alternatively with verb and satellite ;
third phase : complete lexicalisation : The gesture will plausibly
synchronise with the lexical item. When the lexicalisation
process is consolidated, the absence of co-occurring
gesture may be observed.
This model has been applied to Italian, which, although a Romance
language, may adopt both a satellite-framed and a verb-framed
strategy for the expression of Motion events. In particular, satelliteframed
strategies are recorded in expressions of colloquial use. In
order to record this double strategy, an experiment was conducted
with 20 subjects of different age, provenience, and education, who
were asked to watch an episode of Canary Row and retell the story to
a listener. The results show the coexistence of the two strategies in
all the subjects who partook of the experiment.
