Manner of motion in Estonian

Abstract

Recent decades have witnessed an increasing interest in motion events resulting in thorough knowledge about expressions of manner. However, the individual dimensions of manner of motion have been investigated less extensively. In this study, we focus on one particular dimension of manner: speed. By analysing the Estonian language and applying corpus methods, we show that speed is one of the core dimensions of manner. In Estonian, speed can be expressed with motion verbs and various types of manner modifiers. Speed modifiers can have a function of compensation (providing information that is not present in the verb), specification (providing additional details), and/or intensification (strengthening the meaning conveyed by the verb). Moreover, compared to slow motion, the expression of fast motion in modifiers is more frequent and more diverse in terms of semantic distinctions and morphosyntactic realisations. Drawing on these results, we frame a hypothesis of the fast-over-slow bias.