The Force-Dynamics System
The fourth schematic system proposed by Talmy is the ‘Force-Dynamics System’. This system relates to our experience of how physical entities inter act with respect to force, including the exertion and resistance of force, the blockage of force and the removal of such blockage. The ‘Force-Dynamics System’ encodes the ‘naive physics’ of our conceptual system (our intuitive rather than scientific understanding of force dynamics), and has implications not only for the expression of relationships between physical entities, but also for abstract concepts such as permission and obligation (modal categories).
The ‘Force-Dynamics System’ assumes two entities that exert force. The agonist is the entity that receives focal attention and the antagonist is the entity that opposes the agonist, either overcoming the force of the agonist or failing to overcome it. The force intrinsic to the agonist is either ‘towards action’ or ‘towards rest’, and the force intrinsic to the antagonist is the oppo site. We illustrate this system with a set of examples that encode physical entities. The subscripts AGO and ANT represent ‘agonist’ and ‘antagonist’, respectively:
In (24a), the force tendency of the agonist the glass is towards rest, but this is overcome by the greater force of the antagonist the breeze, which is towards motion and thus stands in a causal relationship with the agonist. In (24b), the force tendency of the agonist Lily is also towards rest, and in this case the agonist’s force is greater. In (24c), the force tendency of the agonist, the glass, is towards motion, and the agonist’s force is greater than the opposing force of the antagonist, the mud. Finally, in (24d), the force tendency of the agonist, the glass, is also towards motion, but this time the opposing force of the antagonist, the grass, is greater and prevents the motion. Observe that the force-dynamics of the interaction are expressed here by closed-class elements: the conjunctions because of or despite. While because of encodes the greater force of the antagonist, which overcomes the force of the agonist and thus entails causality, despite encodes the greater force of the agonist.
Talmy represents force dynamics with diagrams like Figure 15.8. The circle represents the agonist and the concave shape represents the antagonist. The symbol • represents the tendency towards rest, and the symbol > represents the tendency towards action. Finally, the symbol represents the stronger of the two forces. This diagram represents the force-dynamics pattern in example (24a), where the inherent tendency of the agonist is towards rest but the greater force of the antagonist causes motion.
According to Talmy, the ‘Force-Dynamics System’ also underlies the behaviour of another major closed-class category: the modal auxiliaries. For example, can (in the capacity sense) encodes a tendency towards action (for example, Lily can run a mile in four minutes). In contrast, must encodes a tendency towards rest that is overcome by the force of the antagonist (for example, You must pay your income tax). In this example, the deontic reading encodes legal or social obligation and this obligation represents the antagonist.
In conclusion, we have seen how the four schematic systems proposed by Talmy are reflected in the grammatical subsystem of language. While the first three schematic systems (‘Configurational Structure’, ‘Perspective’ and ‘Attention’) relate most prominently to visual perception, the ‘Force-Dynamics System’ relates most prominently to kinaesthetic (motor) perception. In this respect, Talmy’s theory reflects the embodied cognition thesis explored in earlier parts of in the book. The four schematic systems that comprise the ‘Conceptual Structuring System’, as presented here, are summarised in Figure 15.9.
