“The Ridge Went North”: Did the Observer Go as Well? Corpus-driven Investigation of Fictive Motion

Abstract

Fictive motion (“The ridge went north”) can refer to both dynamic (observer is moving) and static (observer is visually scanning) scenes. Using a corpus of alpine narratives, we extract fictive motion constructions and compare those representing static and dynamic scenes. According to our findings, some of the verbs appear exclusively in static (or dynamic) scenes, while others can be found in both and thus require broader context for the correct annotation. The results can be seen as a step towards the automatic identification of the role of geographic objects in text.