MOM, WHERE DO THE SWEETS STAND? ON THE USE OF POSTURE VERBS IN CROATIAN

The paper examines figurative uses of the cardinal posture verbs stajati, sjediti, and le & zcaron;ati in Croatian. Analyses of posture verbs in numerous languages, both genetically and aerially unrelated (Newman 2002), have shown that these verbs are highly polysemous and that they have developed a wide network of related meanings, in some languages even grammatical ones (e.g., copulas or markers of progressive aspect). The first part of the paper provides theoretical preliminaries necessary for the analysis of posture verbs. We start from the central tenets of cognitive linguistics that the relationship between meaning and form is not arbitrary, but highly motivated, encyclopedic, and embodied (Lakoff 1987, Johnson 1987). The second part of the paper provides the analysis of figurative meanings of posture verbs in Croatian. The results of the analysis show that figurative meanings of posture verbs in Croatian are motivated by bodily experience and grounded in image schemas such as VERTicAliTy, HoRizoNTAliTy, REsisTANcE, scAlE, suppoRT, coNTAiNER, and coNTAcT. The analysis has also shown that Croatian has developed some uses, which so far have not been noted for other languages, for example the use of the verb stajati (stand) to denote the usual habitual location of an object or to denote the price of a product.