«Слова слетели с губ»: Глаголы движения в семантическом поле речи в русском языке

ABSTRACT This study focuses on the ability of motion verbs to function in the semantic domain of speech as a result of a semantic shift. In this case, motion verbs refer to an act of communication. The analysis shows that verbs of motion in the air, whose prototypical meaning refers to the source of motion, dominate in the semantic domain of speech, while the use of aquamotion verbs and verbs signifying a kind of motion on the ground can be treated in the recipient domain under discussion as a particular case of a more widespread metaphor. This situation is rather typical for the semantic domain examined, as the metaphor of caused motion has to deal with the same semantic restrictions. As a result of this semantic shift, words are often endued with some kind of activity constructing the metaphor WORD is BIRD. Apart from this widespread metaphor, the Russian language has another one, which is typical for the semantic domain of speech: WORD is STONE, but its functioning in the language is restricted by some negative connotations. It is important to mention that the semantic shift is, to a certain degree, subject to some aspectual restrictions.