Fictive motion and cognitive models: Retrospect and prospects

Abstract

This chapter first provides an overview of traditional work on the Talmyannotion of fictive motion, including experimental research by Matlock and herassociates, which it then places within the purview of a broader theory of cognitiongrounded in recent developments of the Lakoffian notion of ‘cognitive model’. Thisbroader approach combines Talmy’s work on perception-based construal and recentresearch on knowledge-based re-construal through metonymy. In it, a fictive motionexpression, once elaborated in terms of focal attention, is treated as a metonymicsource domain with a motion-based hypothetical target domain constructed throughmental simulation. A similar analysis has been proposed for two so-called imageschematransformations: “path focus” to “end-point focus” and “trajectory”. Themeaning implications of both transformations point to an account of their cognitivegrounding and communicative impact in terms of fictive motion and metonymic reconstrual.The chapter ends with a reflection on the prospects for future linguisticanalysis of this extended account of fictive motion.