Sunday 26 February 2017

Motion Or Duration?


the physicist
walked
from Tumbi Umbi to Kangy Angy
Actor
Process
Location: motion

the physicist
walked
from dawn to dusk
Actor
Process
Location: motion*


See Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 565-6).  However, viewed 'from above', there is ambiguity:
Location: where did he walk? vs Extent: how far did he walk?
Location: when did he walk? vs  Extent: how long did he walk?

* The temporal construal as Location: motion — rather than as Extent: duration — is the linguistic source of the notion in physics of "travelling" through time, in the same sense as travelling through space.


Related:

doing and being as 'complementary perspectives on a quantum of change' (Halliday & Matthiessen 1999: 132):
doing from A to B (cf Location: motion; cf locomotion)
being from A to B (cf Extent

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