Clasificación

Simple collocational evidence tells us that ‘seel’ has a thematic element in its meaning: Jane saw into the room, Peter saw through the keyhole, Jane saw Peter undressing through the keyhole are all evidence that there is a theme of seeing. In this section, I am concerned with identifying the semantic nature of the thematic content o f ‘s e e l’. Gruber (1967) shows that both ‘se el’ and the sense o f LOOK/A have a theme, and he shows that SEE and LOOK/A collocate with different prepositions. The different prepositions that these two verbs collocate with can tell us something about the character of the theme of each of the verbs. My concern here is to identify the characteristics of the theme o f ‘see l’. Prefiguring the discussion in Chapter 4,1 assume that there is a theme of the sense of LOOK/A and that the theme of the sense o f LOOK/A is not the same as the theme of ‘seel’.

The first point is that the theme of ‘seel’ has to reach the endpoint of its path; the second is that the theme o f ‘seel ’ has to be distributed along, and be co-extensive with, its path; the theme o f ‘see l’ is similar to the theme o f ‘reach’ (the sense of REACH). Neither of these facts is a consequence of a stipulation on the theme of ‘s e e l’. It is the first fact that leads Langacker (1991: 304) to wonder whether the sense o f ‘seel’ is grounded in the metaphor “seeing is touching”. It is the second

point that makes the theme o f ‘seel’ like the theme of the sense of GO when GO means ‘extend’/^ The examples in (19) compare GO/travel and GO/extend with ‘seel’.

(19) a. Peter went from London to Manchester

b. the old Roman road went from London to Manchester c. Jane saw to the end o f the fence

The er of the sense o f went in (19a) is a theme which traverses all of the points o f the path from London to Manchester sequentially and the er of the sense of went in (19b) traverses all of the points o f the path simultaneously. It is clear that SEE is more like GO/extend than it is like GO/travel: the theme of the sense o f SEE traverses all of the points of the path simultaneously.

Distributed themes, like the theme of the sense of went in (19b) are usually associated with stative verbs. If the sense of the verb isa state and the er of the verb isa theme, the theme o f the verb is distributed along the path as in (19b). However, this does not work for ‘seel ’. The sense of the verb may or may not be an instance of a state: the aktionsart o f ‘s e e l’ is a notorious problem, which we return to in section 3.5.

Although the theme o f ‘seel’ has certain elements in common with the er of GO/extend, there are differences. The theme of the sense of GO can go towards something without reaching it. The theme of ‘seel’ has to make contact with its reference object.

(20) a. the road went towards Ely b. ! Jane saw towards Ely

c. !the road reached towards Ely

For notational convenience, when a verb is polysemous I use a front-slash and the name of the sense of the verb to distinguish the senses. Therefore, GO with the sense of ‘extend’ is GO/extend and GO with the sense of ‘travel’ is GO/travel.

(20b) is unacceptable because towards merely encodes the orientation of the theme in terms o f the reference object. The reference object is not on or at the end of the path, instead it is at a point that would be on the path if the path were extended so far. ‘se e l’ involves contact whereas ‘go/extend’ does not.

Themes may be bounded or unbounded, and can traverse either bounded or unbounded paths. The difference between the theme of the sense of GO/travel and the theme o f the sense o f GO/extend is one o f boundedness. The theme o f GO/travel is bounded, that of GO/extend is not. In both cases, the paths may have endpoints or not. The examples in (19) show simply that ‘seel ’ has an unbounded theme, not that the theme o f see is obliged to contact the percept. (Any sense that the theme is bounded is therefore due to the path being bounded.) Whether or not a theme makes contact is not due to the characteristics o f the theme; it is due to whether the verb stipulates contact or not. Verbs of contact that have themes, like LICK or SMEAR cannot collocate with TOWARDS irrespective of whether their theme is bounded, as is the case with LICK, or unbounded, as is the case with SMEAR.

(21) a. Jane licked from the top to the bottom of the ice-cream b. ! Jane licked towards the bottom of the ice-cream

c. Peter smeared mud from the top to the bottom of the wall d. ! Peter smeared mud towards the top of the wall

In (21) the theme of the sense of licked is bounded and the theme of the sense of smeared is unbounded. However, both verbs are equally unacceptable with

TOWARDS because they are both verbs of contact. We can be certain, therefore, that the data in (20) are due to the fact that SEE is a verb of contact.

Returning to (19), it is possible to see that there is a correspondence between unbounded themes as the referents of subjects and stativity. There is a sense in which unbounded themes cannot be the er o f a dynamic situation unless they are the agonist o f that situation. It is possible for bounded themes to be the er of a dynamic situation even if they are not the agonist of the situation.

(22) a. the Thames flows through London b. the Thames was flowing over its banks c. the ball moved

In (22a) there is the usual stative sense of FLOW. The Thames is an unbounded theme and it is not force-dynamically responsible for the situation. In (22b), the Thames is the unbounded theme of the sense offlows but it is now construed as being the agonist of the situation, with the banks of the river as the antagonist. In (22c), the ball is the bounded theme of the sense of the verb, but it is not the agonist or the antagonist. There is some force-dynamically responsible participant “offstage”. We shall see, therefore, that the way in which the thematic nature of ‘se e l’ is

characterised, as well as the force-dynamic nature of ‘s e e l’ will go some way to analysing the aktionsart of ‘se e l’. I shall return to the force-dynamics of ‘seel’ in section 3.3.3.

The thematic structure of ‘seel’ is complicated by another factor. There is a second thematic element in ‘se e l’, which I call the perceptual trace.

The perceptual trace of ‘se e l’ is the impression o f the object of an instance of SEE that travels to the mind of the subject of the instance of SEE. There are examples that show that ‘se e l’ has a perceptual trace as well as a theme in (23).

(23) a. Jane saw Peter looking blurred through mummy’s glasses b. Jane saw Peter looking fat through the distorting lens

In these examples, it is not the referent of Peter that is blurred, or that is fat. It is the image of Peter that has arrived in Jane's awareness. The claim that the er of the sense of through is the perceptual trace of the object can be made more solid if we look at

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the example in (24). Goldsmith (1979) and Jackendoff (1 9 8 ^ point out that when FROM occurs with SEE, it marks the initial point of the gaze. It is true that FROM marks the beginning point of a path, however, it is not necessarily the case that FROM marks the point at which the ‘gazing’ theme o f ‘seel ’ begins.

(24) Jane saw Peter through the crowd all the way from the far side o f the room

It is possible to interpret (24) so that Peter is on the far side of the room and it is the perceptual trace of Peter that is from the side o f the room, not the starting point of the ‘gazing’ theme. There is a further example in (25).

(25) Peter saw the lightship through the fog from 3° N of its usual position

The issue is: what is through the fog? I take it that the lightship is 3° N o f its usual position and that it is the impression o f the lightship’s flashes that come from the lightship through the fog to Peter. In this case, therefore, through behaves entirely as it does with other verbs. In Peter pulled the string through the keyhole, it is the string that is through the keyhole, not Peter. When there is a direct object present,

THROUGH is predicated o f the direct object.

We cannot be sure whether the perceptual trace is bounded or unbounded, unlike the theme, because the prepositions with which it occurs in (25) can state the paths o f either bounded or unbounded themes. TO and FROM mark the endpoint and starting-point o f a path, respectively, but the theme o f the verb of which they are xcomps can be bounded or unbounded. THROUGH, as (26) shows, can also occur with either a bounded or an unbounded theme.

(26) a. Jane walked through the door b. fog drifted through the door

In (26a), the referent of Jane is a bounded theme. In (26b), the referent of fo g is an unbounded theme.

Examples (23) -(26) show that there are two themes of ‘seel’, as well as the ‘gazing’ theme there is a perceptual trace theme. The ‘gazing’ theme is unbounded; the boundedness of the perceptual trace theme is unestablished.

However, there is no part of the analysis of ‘seel’ that rests on the question of whether the perceptual trace is bounded or not as there are no wider linguistic

consequences. We could simply state that it is underspecified for boundedness. From the point of view of the analyses in Figures 3.1 and 3.2, the significant issue is that there is a perceptual trace o f ‘se el’. I assume that ‘seel’ entails that the perceptual trace makes contact with the perceiver just as it entails that the theme makes contact with the percept.