Motion verbs with mover going towards an

container in the usual sense; it is the boundary of the LM entity that is important, and not the idea that that entity can contain or enclose something.

3.2.1 Action verbs involving a motion over a surface, i.e., a 2D LM

In 24 the trajector is the whole action of ‘I wipe you’ and is shown in the data inside the box. The ri+LM prepositional phrase, shown in data with simple underline, both localizes and qualifies this action. The boundary of the LM is what is invoked, it is the addressee’s face and is a two dimensional surface. There is actual contact between trajector and LM. The action takes place all over the face of the addressee, so the idea of completeness is also invoked. 24 mɛ̄ tindala wɔ ri mpɔmbi mɛ̄ tindala wɔ ri 0- mpɔmbi 1sg PRES wipe 2sg OBJ ABOUT NC9 FACE ‘I wipe your face.’ Nkyambe 1.21 more literally: I wipe you, ON the face 3.2.2. Action verbs involving a motion along a line In 25 the participant is a young man who has no legs, and so he needs to borrow some. The trajector is the action of ‘coming to borrow legs’ and is shown inside the box in the data. The LM here is nkye ‘path’, i.e., a line. The ri + LM prepositional phrase localizes the action of coming to borrow legs. He expects to borrow legs from somebody somewhere on his journey along the path from his own village to Gyelo’s village. 25 À nkye wing mɛko ri nkye nɛ à nkye da angwangyɔ à nkye wing mɛ- ko ri nkye nɛ à nkye da a- ngwangyɔ 3sg PST come borrow NC6 foot ABOUT path thattowith 3sg PST come thus NC5 engagement ‘ He came to borrow legs ON the way in order to come thus to get engaged at Gyelo’s village.’ Kpagara 2.7

3.3 Action verbs involving an action localised close to a boundary

Here we deal with actions that are localised in the sense that the action itself occurs in the close vicinity of the LM boundary. There is a similarity here with the situations of §3.2 which involved motions in contact with the boundary, because, as noted above, contact is the logical limit of close vicinity. However, Gyɛlɔ Gyɛlɔ Gyelo mi mi of da da village trajector trajector unlike the actions of §3.2 which all involved some sort of motion, here we are not dealing with motion verbs at all. Example 26 uses the verb bugi ‘break’ in a clause with a ri+LM PP. The action of breaking occurs in the close vicinity of an LM boundary. Note that no mover moves, neither towards the LM, nor away from it. Nor does anything move localised on the LM boundary. The speaker is describing a night-time journey in the woods that he took once. It was dark and they couldn’t see everything clearly, but at one point in the journey, they did hear a tree breaking behind them. The clause which follows that of 26 explicitly tells us that they did not know where exactly it was that the tree fell. It was dark and they couldn’t see. But later still 27, the speaker reports that next morning, in the daylight, they actually saw the fallen tree itself. It was then that they realised with certainty that the tree had indeed fallen right at the place where they had just passed through the night before. So indeed the idea that the preposition ri means closeness to a boundary is important here. Note that subsequently in the conclusion of the whole story the narrator reports the incident as being a narrow escape. 26 Le I bugi ri kɔng yong 0- le i bugi ri kɔng yong NC 7-tree it break AT back 1pl .POSS ‘We go a little way, we hadn’t yet been a long time, we hear a tree it broke AT our back.’ Geoffroy 1.14 27 ‘That tree, it broke AT the place where we had been.’ Geoffroy 1.17 Let us now summarise what we have learned about the function of the preposition ri. We have given evidence that when the preposition ri is used, we are thinking of some relationship with respect to the boundary of the LM entity. In §3.1 we dealt with motion verbs describing actions with a mover that had a translatory path with respect to the LM boundary; i.e., the mover moved either towards or away from that boundary. In §3.2 we dealt with actions that were localised on the LM boundary itself. And in §3.3 we dealt with actions which were localised as being close to the LM boundary. . gɔ gɔ SUB bɛ bɛ be hɛ hɛ 1pl bandi 0- bandi NC7 place ri ri AT bugi bugi break i i it ningɔ ningɔ that le 0- le NC7 tree gwogɔ gwogɔ hear hɛ hɛ 1pl , bɔɛ bɔɛ stay:long:time le le- Minus ya y- a It- NEG , mɔmɔna mɔmɔna little kɛ kɛ go Hɛ hɛ 1pl trajector