Time, motion, and cyclicity

Abstract This chapter explores two Russian nouns, vremja and pora , both of which mean ‘time’. Evidence from a large web corpus and a smaller corpus with syntactic annotation suggests several differences. In a semantic vector space, there is little overlap between the neighborhoods of the nouns, and they display different collocation patterns and constructional profiles. While the cognitive model time is a resource is characteristic of vremja , but not of pora , moving time is relevant for both nouns. The latter metaphorical model manifests itself as deictic movement towards and away from the ego, as well as non-deictic movement. Evidence is adduced that connects vremja to “linear time,” while the data are inconclusive with regard to a putative relation between pora and “cyclic time.”