Carola Eschenbach & Christopher Habel - German nouns of path configurations

Nouns like Kreuzung (‘crossing’, ‘intersection’) and verbs like verzweigen (‘branch’) or abbiegen (‘bend’) can be used to characterize configurations or segments of streets or trails. The components contributing to the complex configuration can in the nominal case be specified using possessives and/or prepositional phrases (die Kreuzung der X-Straße und/mit der Y-Allee, die Abzweigung der X-Straße von der Y-Chaussee, die Einmündung der X-Straße in die Y-Chaussee). When the components are explicitly specified, the referent is uniquely determined as reflected by the preferred use of the definite article.
   The underlying configuration of paths exhibits certain geometric characteristics (involving, e.g., points where more than two sub-paths meet). However, the linguistic expressions do not relate to the geometric aspects alone but add certain conceptual and perspective features. The referents of these configuration nouns exhibit a complex structure involving geometric aspects as well as characteristic assignments of roles that relate their function in navigation tasks to the components. For example, the nouns Kreuzung und Querung can both relate to configurations of similar layouts of crossing path (both are translated to English as ‘crossing’). However, Querung assigns different roles to the components: One being an obstacle that can be passed with help of the other one. Kreuzung, in contrast, does not involve such a role distinction. The difference regarding the roles assigned to the components by the nouns corresponds to differences in the linguistic expressions: und/mit for Kreuzung, über or unter for Querung.
   In a similar manner, some configuration nouns assign the role of source or goal to a component of the configuration (Abzweigung ‘branching’ vs. Einmündung ‘junction’) while others are neutral regarding this respect (Querstraße ‘cross-road’). The distinction between source and goal in this case is not determined by the spatial configuration. Usually, the same configurations can be described both as Abzweigung and as Einmündung.
   In the talk, we will present an analysis of German nouns referring to configurations and segments of paths. Regarding the frame-based model, the question whether the configurations are features of path or the paths are features of path-configurations will be addressed. Furthermore, the question of how the different levels of specification (spatial/geometric; role in navigation; source/goal orientation) can be mapped to the frame approach will be discussed.