Motion Events

"Spatial deixis has long been the locus of concentrated research due to its propensity to assume multiple functions in spatial-temporal domains. This study investigates the interconnections among spatial deixis, Motion predicates, and aspect markers in Kavalan, an engendered Austronesian language. Specifically, the proximal near-hearer demonstrative (yau ‘that’) may function as a Motion predicate, indicating the referent of the subject either located within or coming
into speaker’s proximal sphere. The same demonstrative also conveys progressive aspect when followed by a verb. On the other hand, the distal demonstrative (wi’u ‘that yonder’) is morphologically related with the Motion verb wi(ya), which predicates the referent of its subject as either located outside or going out of speaker’s proximal sphere. In addition, this verb is associated with inchoative or continuous aspect when followed by another verb, depending on the semantics of the second verb. Therefore, the distal demonstrative shares a parallelism with the proximal near-hearer demonstrative, both linking spatial reference, Motion predication, and temporal contouring functions, which can be ultimately attributed to the conceptual analogy between space and time."

Is motion cognition influenced by the large-scale typological patterns proposed in Talmy’s (2000) two-way distinction between verb-framed (V) and satellite-framed (S) languages? Previous studies investigating this question have been limited to comparing two or three languages at a time and have come to conflicting results. We present the largest cross-linguistic study on this question to date, drawing on data from nineteen genealogically diverse languages, all investigated in the same behavioral paradigm and using the same stimuli. After controlling for the different dependencies in the data by means of multilevel regression models, we find no evidence that S- vs. V-framing affects nonverbal categorization of motion events. At the same time, statistical simulations suggest that our study and previous work within the same behavioral paradigm suffer from insufficient statistical power. We discuss these findings in the light of the great variability between participants, which suggests flexibility in motion representation. Furthermore, we discuss the importance of accounting for language variability, something which can only be achieved with large cross-linguistic samples.

Keywords:
motion events; cross-linguistic comparison; semantic typology; multilevel models; power analysis; statistical simulations; linguistic relativity; event categorization

En este trabajo se trata un problema metodológico al que se enfrentan los estudios sobre la expresión del movimiento y el espacio: cómo clasificar los verbos de movimiento. Partimos de la tipología de Talmy (1991), que distingue entre lenguas de marco verbal (si codifican el Camino -la dirección, deixis…-en el verbo principal; p. ej., el español: La botella salió flotando) y lenguas de marco satélite (si codifican el Camino fuera del verbo principal, en un satélite; p. ej., el inglés: The bottle floated out (la botella flotó afuera)). Esta tipología tiene implicaciones psicolingüísticas y discursivas tal y como las ha descrito Slobin (1991, 1996, 2004) en su hipótesis del Pensar para Hablar. Según esta hipótesis, los mecanismos lingüísticos de la lengua del hablante influyen en la perspectiva que éste toma a la hora de describir el mundo que le rodea. Los autores que trabajan desde esta perspectiva clasifican los verbos de movimiento en función del tipo de información semántica (Manera, Camino (trayectoria)…) y del número de piezas de información (una o varias) que codifican.

In this work we put forward a new approach to root insertion based on two tenets: 1) root insertion is strictly late, syntax manipulating exclusively functional material; 2) roots can be inserted directly into syntactic terminals nodes, by the very same mechanism as other Vocabulary Items. We explore how root insertion takes place, either at the first nodes merged in the derivation, the categorial heads (v, n, a), or higher up. The former case allows us to enter into a general discussion on the nature of categorisers in natural language; the latter case is linked to an explanation of a well-known case of cross-linguistic variation at the lexicalisation level .

because path is an obligatory component of motion-event expressions, we can't compare languages in terms of the accessibility of path as a category: without a path verb or satellite or other path element, there is no motion event. However, languages differ with regard to the canonical segmentation of paths as well as the relative ease of building complex-path constructions. they also present an array of path elements going beyond the division into verb versus satellite. these differences are only partially determined by the talmian typology.

This chapter analyses the role of intratypological and dialectal variation in the lexicalisation of motion events (Talmy 1991 and its application to second language acquisition. The first part discusses intratypological variation with respect to the semantic component of Path and proposes a cline of Path salience on the basis of twenty-one languages. Then, it describes dialectal variation in Spanish and Aragonese. Results show that dialects within these two Romance languages differ in the type of linguistic resources they use as well as in their quality and quantity. The second part briefly reviews some L2 problematic areas that can benefit from these approaches such as conceptual transfer, deixis, and idiomaticity. Examples are drawn from L2 Spanish and L2 Basque.

Talmy’s lexicalization patterns and Slobin’s “Thinking for Speaking” hypothesis have attracted a lot of attention in fields such as linguistics, psychology, and anthropology, among others. While researchers might not agree on how, or to what extent, lexicalization patterns influence speakers’ online/offline verbalization of motion, it is an undeniable fact that these theories have been, and still are, a “trending topic” in these research areas, evidenced by the contributions to this book. All papers brought together here use Talmy’s and Slobin’s ideas as a point of departure to explore how second language learners acquire these motion patterns, to explain what translators render in their target languages, and to refine some basic notions such as Path, Deixis, or fictive motion, and use them as a springboard to find new applications and understand other linguistic phenomena. All in all, this book provides insights into new ways of applying motion and widening theoretical perspectives, allowing these models to maintain their relevance and importance.

The study reported in this chapter is intended to contribute to the understanding of how L1 conceptualization of motion may exert influence on L2 use and acquisition of path expressions. It compares the behavior of 80 English-speaking L2 learners of Chinese to that of two baseline groups of 40 native speakers (NSs) of Chinese and 40 of English.  The results of this study show that development of path expressions in L2 Chinese is influenced by a number of factors, among them L2 proficiency level, L1-L2 differences and similarities in spatial concepts, L2 exposure, and, last but not least, L1 thinking for speaking (TFS). These factors go beyond a simple dichotomy of L1 or L2 thinking, and together they suggest that the influence of L1 TFS, like other kinds of L1 transfer phenomena, are sensitive to probabilistic tendencies. Although the existing literature on L2 acquisition of motion expressions generally points to the potential influence of L1 TFS patterns on L2, the extent to which L1 TFS plays a role in L2 performance seems to vary considerably across different studies. Research findings can be influenced by factors such as the subjects’ proficiency levels, modality of research operations, aspects of motion language studied, and the degree of typological differences and similarities between the target L1 and L2. It is important that variables besides L1 or L2 TFS be comprehensively taken into consideration when interpreting results.

Typological studies on the linguistic expression of motion are certainly of interest to translation
scholars. The study of how motion is expressed across languages has indeed revealed some
striking typological differences (e.g. Talmy 1985, 1991, 2000a, 2000b; Berman and Slobin 1994;
Stromqvist and Verhoeven 2004), which can account for some of the strategies translators resort
to when dealing with motion expressions (Slobin 1996; Ibarretxe-Antuñano 2003; Cifuentes-
Férez 2006, in press a; Ibarretxe-Antuñano and Filipović 2013). However, the question still
remains as to whether translators’ decisions are exclusively guided by such typological
differences or whether there are other experience- or task-related factors that may explain their
behaviour. This paper provides empirical evidence on the type of factors that guide translators’
decisions when translating manner-of-motion verbs, exploring the impact of different types of
texts and the translator’s level of expertise. For this purpose, a pilot think-aloud protocol is
implemented in order to examine the translation process of ten Spanish translators (five
professionals and five graduate students without professional experience) when transferring
manner-of-motion verbs from English into Spanish. Our results reveal that the way translators
deal with manner information is mainly influenced by typological differences between the two
languages. But differences in the translators’ level of professional expertise and in task-related
constraints (e.g. the degree in which different type of texts focus on motion verbs) also have an
effect on the strategy that translators choose to convey manner information.

The present study adopted a cognitive linguistic framework—Talmy’s (1985, 1991, 2000) typological classification of motion events—to investigate how L2 Chinese learners come to express motion events in a target-like manner. Fifty-five US university students and 20 native speakers of Chinese participated in the study. A controlled composition task and a picture-cued written task were administered to elicit learners’ knowledge and degree of mastery of Chinese spatial morphemes, also known as directional complements (DCs). Analysis of learners’ interlanguage data shows that the difficulties came from the syntactic complexity of the target DC patterns and from the typological features of Chinese as a serial-verb language. The dual functions of DCs as path satellites and as independent verbs posed considerable difficulty for the learners whose L1, English, encodes path by means of satellites only. Based on the results, a developmental order of mastery of L2 Chinese DCs is proposed. The study illuminates areas of difficulty in adjusting to the L2 thinking-for-speaking patterns (Cadierno, 2004, 2008; Slobin, 1996a) that arise when differences in spatial categorization and in conventionalized ways of path encoding exist between the L1 and L2.

The different languages of the world have been divided into satellite-framed ( S-framed) and verb-framed (V-framed), as proposed by Talmy (1985, 1991, 2000). The semantic components of motion events can be expressed in various ways depending on the lexicalisation patterns that different languages exhibit. Motion and a co-event, which typically is Manner or Cause of motion, are expressed in the verb in S-framed languages and Path is expressed in a satellite. In contrast, in V-framed languages Motion and Path are expressed in the verb while the co-event is expressed in a separate constituent, which generally takes the form of an adverbial or gerund. Spanish belongs to the group of S-languages while English is a V-framed language. This well-known division lies at the basis of a large number of studies on motion in both first (Berman and Slobin, 1994, Bowerman, 1996a and b, Choi and Bowerman, 1991, Slobin, 1996,1997, 2000) and second language acquisition (Cadierno, 2004, Cadierno and Lund, 2004, Cadierno, 2010).
The "thinking-for-speaking" hypothesis (Slobin, 1996) has become an effective framework to analyse motion events. On the other hand, the different lexicalization patterns regarding Manner of motion can also be observed in what Aske (1989), Slobin and Hoiting (1994) and Slobin (1996b) call "the boundary-crossing constraint", which indicates whether a Path involves the crossing of a boundary or not. In the present paper, we focus on whether Spanish learners of L2 English and English native speakers differ in the way they interpret boundary-crossing events, more specifically on whether Spanish learners of English allow conflation of Motion and Manner in the interpretation of boundary-crossing events which indicate motion INTO a bounded space. This will give us clues as to whether Spanish learners of English follow the L1 Spanish pattern or whether they follow the L2 English pattern. Besides it will also show whether English native speakers accept more than one pattern in the identification of boundary-crossing events.
The paper is structured as follows, firstly we will focus on thinking for speaking in the first language , secondly, we will deal with thinking for speaking in the second language  and we will then examine the boundary-crossing constraint. Finally, the empirical study on boundary-crossing events in SLA, conducted with thirty Spanish learners of English and sixteen English native speakers will be presented.

We trace the diachronic development of the preposition se in inner Asia Minor Greek from its use to mark a range of spatial functions to its ultimate loss and replacement by zero. We propose that, before spreading to all syntactic and semantic contexts, zero-marking was contextually-dependent on the pre-sence/absence of a prenominal genitive modifying the head noun of Ground-encoding NPs and on the presence/absence of Region-encoding postpositions. We attribute these developments to an informational load relief strategy aimed at producing more economical utterances, as well as to language contact with Turkish, which favored structural convergence on the adpositional level between the two languages.

Drawing upon recent insights into the role of Goal preference as reflector of cross-linguistic differences, this paper investigates the factors affecting the realization of Goals in motion event descriptions. In particular, it examines the interplay between the lexicalization pattern of a language, on the one hand, and grammatical viewpoint aspect, on the other – factors which have commonly been treated in isolation. In so doing, three typologically distinct languages were examined: English, German and Greek. The empirical basis of this paper includes: (a) a corpus study, in which we examined the distribution of Goals in a small set of verbs, and (b) an experimental verbalization study, from which we elicited descriptions of different motion event types. While the former does not give a clear picture concerning the cross-linguistic differences in Goal prominence, the latter indicates that lexicalization pattern assumes a more prominent role than grammatical viewpoint aspect in affecting Goal realization.

Spatial reference, spatial concepts, and most importantly spatial conceptualizations have attracted a flurry of research over the past two decades. Spatial language, in particular, provides researchers with an access to the inner world of spatial concepts, which are difficult to investigate by mere observation of other human behaviors. This thesis thus investigates the spatial conceptualizations in Kavalan, and the aim here is twofold. On the one hand, we conduct a detailed investigation of all linguistic means available in Kavalan recruited for spatial reference. It is found that in Kavalan each of the morphosyntatic categories that express spatial meanings has its own interaction patterns with spatial semantic categories such as Path, Region, and Direction. Moreover, what Kavalan speakers need to interpret the local role and localization in a Motion event is normally their spatial knowledge about the canonical interaction between a given pair of Figure and Ground, which helps to “simplify” the coding of linguistic forms.

On the other hand, we study the structure of Motion events in narratives by looking into spontaneous speech produced by native speakers. This second perspective further divides into two dimensions. One is concerned with route knowledge as reflected in route instructions, with extra attention paid to the application of Frames of Reference (FoR). Our study shows that Kavalan speakers guide wayfinders en route by appealing largely to the Geocentric FoR (both cardinal directions and the up-down axis), though Viewpoint-centered and Object-centered FoR are also in use. This strategy is due to the nature of the geographical layout of Hsinshê Village, where the west-east axis corresponds to the land-sea and up-down axes while the north-south axis to the up-down axis. Consequently, these overlapping axes in the local environment enhance the prominent status of the Geocentric FoR in route directions.

The other dimension focuses on a semantic analysis of the Frog narratives. According to our data, Kavalan must be recognized as a fairly typical verb-framed language on a par with Tagalog and Cebuano, to which Kavalan bears the strongest resemblance in the semantic typology of Motion events in the six Western Austronesian languages investigated in Huang and Tanangkingsing (2005). In addition, the most significant construction type in Kavalan is the “wiya#V” serialization, which not only describes a Figure moving progressively away from the conceptualizer, but can also depict an emerging state of affairs or a continuous activity. Interestingly, the Motion verb wi(ya) ‘leave, disappear’ shares a parallel development of grammaticalization with the Motion verb yau ‘exist, appear’ by uniting place deixis, Motion, and aspect functions, which can be ultimately attributed to the conceptual analogy between space and time.

This contribution presents the emergence of some Lhasa Tibetan evidentials from Middle Tibetan deictic motion verbs. More specifically, it traces the origin of the ‘receptive egophoric’ and ‘sensorial’ past tense markers byung and song from the Middle Tibetan verbs byung ‘to come forth, to occur’ and song ‘to go’. Hongladarom (1995) also mentions the origin of these evidentials, but without providing philological details of the these verbs as they are used throughout Tibet’s literary history. I fill this gap by presenting three verbal systems that display discrete stages in this evolution: Middle Tibetan (a 15th century biography), Modern Literary Tibetan (2 genres, newspapers and tales), and Lhasa Tibetan. Although Modern Literary Tibetan is not diachronically intermediate between Middle Tibetan and Standard Colloquial Tibetan, its generic conservatism allows it to be used as such.

When we want to talk about an entity moving along a path in a particular way, the language we speak nudges us into certain encoding choices. Speakers of Dutch or English often rely on a particle to express information related to the path of motion. Speakers of French or Spanish typically express this information in the verb root itself. Wide attention has been given to Leonard Talmy’s (1972, 1985, 1991, 2000) work on such differences in ‘lexicalisation patterns’ between languages. While Talmy is credited with the familiar typological distinction between ‘satellite-framed’ and ‘verb-framed’ languages across the world, we should not ignore Strohmeyer (1910), Sapir and Swadesh (1932), Bergh (1940, 1948), Malblanc (1944), Vinay and Darbelnet (1958) and Tesnière (1959) as precursors to systematic comparisons of motion expressions in some Germanic and Romance languages. It is especially surprising that Sapir's work is hardly ever mentioned.

In this talk, I will first argue that English and French are not as perfectly satellite-framed and verb-framed, respectively, as these languages are often assumed to be. In line with the view that French prefixed verbs (e.g. re·venir) may represent a satellite-framed encoding strategy (cf., inter alia, Pourcel and Kopecka 2006), such verbs in a French source text trigger a particle verb as translation more readily than do non-prefixed French source verbs, as reported in Cappelle and Loock (2017). Nonetheless, one cannot deny that French and English, given their general typological nature, differ in the basic structures they put at speakers’ disposal to express change of location or change of state. As the same study reveals, a clear trace of this difference is found in the much lower number of particle verbs in English texts translated from French compared to English texts translated from German. 

English texts translated from a Romance language also contain fewer manner-of-motion verbs than English texts translated from another Germanic language (Cappelle 2012). This finding weakens Levin and Rappaport Hovav’s (in press: 1) generalization that “[a]cross languages, clauses containing descriptions of similar events are likely to include the same conceptual components (...)” . These authors acknowledge, though, that manner information is often omitted in motion event descriptions where path is lexicalized in the verb. I will demonstrate that translations into a single source language can show the impact of different source languages’ typological natures – and, in the words of Slobin (1996), of their concomitant different ‘rhetorical styles’.

Finally, I will suggest some steps towards using corpora to explore the expression of visual motion events, which involve ‘fictive’ or actual movement of the gaze from the eyes to a perceived object or from one object to another. In a forthcoming paper (Cappelle to appear 2019), I show that when expressing such events, speakers of Dutch, English and French largely hold on to the encoding habits they exhibit for expressing the movement of concrete entities, despite French lacking verbs that conflate the act of looking with path of looking (Matsumoto 2001, Slobin 2009).

The study addresses the diachronic relationship between locative marking and the marking of goals and sources of motion. In ancient Indo-European languages, and in some modern ones, static spatial relations can be described by means of inherently dynamic expressions, which are normally used for encoding goals and sources (as in to the left of the door). I suggest that this strategy presents an alternative to the use of rich systems of spatial prepositions specialized for encoding particular configurations. Its use pre-dates the development of basic spatial prepositions, which came to replace, in Indo-European languages, directional adverbs (sometimes also described as particles). The directional adverbs played a prominent role in the encoding of spatial notions in ancient languages. After they were reanalyzed as spatial prepositions and verbal prefixes, the directional strategy continued to be used for the expression of peripheral spatial meanings, for which no prepositional expression had developed. I illustrate this phenomenon with data from Ancient Greek and modern Russian, and discuss how it can explain the data commonly described by the somewhat mysterious term “ablative-locative transfer”.

There have been opposing views on the possibility of a relationship between motion event encoding and the size of the path verb lexicon. Özçalışkan (2004) has proposed that verb-framed and satellite-framed languages should approximately have the same number of path verbs, whereas a review of some of the literature suggests that verb-framed languages typically have a bigger path verb lexicon than satellite-framed languages. In this article I demonstrate that evidence for this correlation can be found through phylogenetic comparative analysis of parallel corpus data from twenty Indo-European languages.

The last four decades have seen huge progress in the description and analysis of cross-linguistic diversity in the encoding of motion (Talmy 1985, 1991, Slobin 1996, 2004). Comparisons between satellite-framed and verb-framed languages suggest that satellite-framed languages typically have a larger manner of motion verb lexicon (swim, dash), while verb-framed languages typically have a larger path of motion verb lexicon (enter, cross) (Slobin 2004, Verkerk 2013, 2014b). This paper investigates how differences between the motion verb lexicons of satellite-framed and verb-framed languages emerge. Phylogenetic comparative methods adopted from biology and an etymological study are used to investigate manner verb lexicons and path verb lexicons in an Indo-European dataset. I show that manner verbs and path verbs typically have different types of etymological origins and that manner verbs emerge faster in satellite-framed subgroups, while path verbs emerge faster in verb-framed subgroups.

This study investigates visual motion expressions in Dutch, English, and French. As a translation corpus, I use Roald Dahl’s children’s book The Witches, which abounds in staring and peeping events, and its Dutch and French translations. Based on the hypothesis that languages’ constructional repertoires for physical motion are exploited for visual motion, one can predict, correctly, that Dutch uses its syntactically wide variety of path complement types in the domain of visual motion. It is tempting to assume that French, lacking looking verbs expressing path, would lose its generally verb-framed nature in visual motion descriptions. However, French appears to preserve some of its typological identity, by using causative path verbs such as lever ‘raise’ combined with an object meaning ‘one’s eyes/gaze’. In keeping with its verb-framed nature, French uses fewer visual path complements than Dutch and English, but it does have, and frequently uses, manner-of-vision expressions.

The present paper examines the acquisition of English physical motion constructions by Spanish translators in training. Drawing from Talmy’s (1985, 1991, 2000) typological framework for motion event descriptions and Slobin’s (1996, 2003) thinking-for-speaking hypothesis, the main aim of this research is to study whether the acquisition of English lexicalization patterns by Spanish translators in training could be facilitated by instructing them to think-for-translating into English. To this end, first, participants in the experimental and control group were told to translate some narrative fragments from Spanish into English. Then, once they completed the task, participants in the experimental group were instructed on the typological differences between English and Spanish with regard to the domain of physical motion and on how to render typical Spanish motion descriptions into English motion constructions. Finally, after a one week delay they were told to translate new fragments from Spanish into English. We observed that participants in the experimental group produced a higher number of manner verbs plus path expressions than the control group which, in turn, favoured the use of non-manner verbs plus path expressions. The results show that, overall, instruction contributes to better performance in the production of satellite-framed constructions but translators in training still have problems with the use of satellites and prepositional phrases.
Keywords: motion; constructions; translation; translators in training; Spanish; English.

Motion events are almost absent in the course syllabus of L2 German as an explicitly addressed structure in the classroom. Learners have a mostly receptive contact with this type of structures in reading texts or in aural activities. This hinders, therefore, the correct acquisition of their semantic and morphosyntactic features, when they are not explicitly addressed. The occurrence of motion events with the so-called “double particles” is even less frequent. These are composed of the deictic particles hin- and her-, denoting the speaker’s perspective and the Path particles (-aus, -ein, -auf, etc.), denoting Path information. Thus, the main goal of the present study is to test a group of Portuguese L2 learners of German, regarding their knowledge of double particles, and execute a pedagogical intervention that aims at generating and/or solidifying said knowledge. For this purpose, I resorted to VanPatten’s Processing Instruction (PI) model (2000, 2004), which rests on an input-based explicit approach for teaching grammar. The theoretical framework is based on Talmy’s typology of motion events (2000). The empirical component of this study was divided into three parts: first, I tested the participants by means of a pre-test (including a vocabulary test, a production test and a grammaticality judgment task); then, I conducted a pedagogical intervention based on VanPatten’s PI model; finally, a post-test determined the successful effects of PI in the participants’ knowledge of the target forms, both in interpretative and productive contexts.

This paper re-examines from an evolutionary perspective the typological status of Chinese, with regard to the issue of how the information of motion events is encoded . We investigate, with emphasis on the roles of both language structure and language use, the four periods of Chinese (Old, Middle, Pre-Modern and Modern) in terms of parameters such as path, manner and ground, and compare with typologically different languages, namely, verb-framed languages like Spanish and satellite-framed languages like English. Our statistical study shows that (i) Chinese has been undergoing a typological shift from a verb-framed language to a satellite-framed language, and Pre-Modern Chinese is a stepped-up period with respect to the speed of evolution; (ii) Modern Chinese adopts diverse patterns to encode motion events, which are different from both typical verb-framed languages and typical satellite-framed languages. We thus conclude that (i) contrary to claim, the typological shift in Chinese has not been achieved yet; (ii) there is little justification for classifying Chinese as an equipollently-framed language as in Slobin and , and accordingly, there is no need to posit an equipollent-type for Chinese; and (iii) Modern Chinese is in a transitional state from V-type toward S-type in light of the evolution of its motion expressions, and favours the side of S-type, considered from both morphosyntactic properties and language use.

This study is based on the theoretical framework of conceptual transfer established by Jarvis (1998, 2007) and on the typology of satellite-framed and verb-framed languages developed by Talmy (1985, 2000). The relationship between conceptual transfer and the thinking for speaking hypothesis (Slobin, 1996b) is also considered. We show that conceptual transfer applies in the translation of lexicalisation patterns in Motion events from Spanish into English. Our informants are twenty Spanish speaking translation students who specialize in translation from Spanish/English, English/Spanish. They were faced with a series of ten sentences containing 7 examples including motion verbs and 3 distractors. The results seem to show that the translations from Spanish to English indicate a preference to follow the L1 lexicalisation pattern, coding Path in the main verb and Manner in a separate constituent, as opposed to the English lexicalisation pattern where Manner of Motion is conflated in a single lexical item and Path is indicated in a satellite. This misuse of the English pattern can be interpreted as an example of conceptual transfer. When conceptual transfer is at work non-target-like translations are produced. More attention needs to be paid to the different conceptual structures of motion events in both languages

We examine universals and crosslinguistic variation in constraints on event segmentation. Previous typological studies have focused on segmentation into syntactic or intonational units (Givón 1991). We argue that the correlation between such units and semantic/conceptual event representations is language-specific. As an alternative, we introduce the 'macro-event property' (MEP): a construction has the MEP if it packages event representations such that temporal operators necessarily have scope over all subevents. A case study on the segmentation of motion events into macro-event expressions in eighteen genetically and typologically diverse languages has produced evidence of two types of design principles that impact motion-event segmentation: language-specific lexicalization patterns and universal constraints on form-to-meaning mapping.*

Languages differ strikingly in how they encode spatial information. This variability is realized with spatial semantic elements mapped across languages in very different ways onto lexical/syntactic structures. For example, satellite-framed languages (e.g., English) express MANNER: in the verb and PATH: in satellites, while verb-framed languages (e.g., French) lexicalize PATH: in the verb, leaving MANNER: implicit or peripheral. Some languages are harder to classify into these categories, rather presenting equipollently framed systems, such as Chinese (serial-verb constructions) or Greek (parallel verb- and satellite-framed structures in equally frequent contexts). Such properties seem to have implications not only on the formulation/articulation levels, but also on the conceptualization level, thereby reviving questions concerning the language-thought interface. The present study investigates the relative impact of language-independent and language-specific factors on spatial representations across three typologically different languages (English-French-Greek) combining a variety of complementary tasks (production, non-verbal, and verbal categorization). The findings show that typological properties of languages can have an impact on both linguistic and non-linguistic organization of spatial information, open new perspectives for the investigation of conceptualization, and contribute more generally to the debate concerning the universal and language-specific dimensions of cognition.

È vietata la riproduzione, anche parziale, non autorizzata, con qualsiasi mezzo effettuata, compresa la fotocopia, anche a uso interno e didattico. L'illecito sarà penalmente perseguibile a norma dell'art. 171 della Legge n. 633 del 22.04.1941

<ABSTRACT> It has been noted that Chinese shows both satellite-and verb-framed properties (Slobin, 2004; Beavers, Levin, & Tham, 2010), a fact that offers the opportunity to explore the typological influence of the learner's dominant language, as learners can choose either option to describe the same motion events and be grammatically correct. This study comprehensively examined the impact of factors including the dominant language's thinking for speaking (TFS) (Slobin, 1987, 1996, 2003) as well as proficiency and degree of socialization with the target language. It examined oral narratives produced by 80 learners of Chinese representing two proficiency levels (low vs. high) and two linguistic backgrounds (heritage language vs. foreign language), as compared to two baseline groups of 40 Chinese native speakers (NSs) and 40 English NSs. Analysis of the motion verbs and motion constructions showed a limited role of the dominant TFS. While the more proficient learners were more capable of producing task-relevant motion expressions regardless of their language background, only advanced heritage learners

This thesis investigates how individuals understand so-called placement events through their native (L1) or second (L2) language. Placement events are events where an agent moves an object to a certain location, as in: He puts the book on the shelf. The key motivation to study this topic is as follows. Actions of “putting” and “taking” are an ubiquitous part of everyday human experience and “putting” and “taking” verbs are among the most frequent and earliest learned verbs in a language. However, speakers of different languages employ different kind of verbs to describe placement events (Kopecka & Narasimhan, 2012). Drawing on the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (Whorf, 1956), this leads one to wonder whether such cross linguistic differences affect how L1 speakers of different languages understand placement events. In extension, an interesting question is whether changes in an individual ́s language system - by learning an L2 – can affect how s/he understands placement events.

Approximately 360 participants participated in the studies in this thesis: 60 L1 speakers of German, 60 L1 speakers of Spanish, 120 German learners of L2 Spanish and 120 Spanish learners of L2 German. The L2 learners were learning their L2 in a foreign language context (e.g. German learners of L2 Spanish in Germany). These adult L2 learners acquired the L2 after the age of 12 or post-puberty.

The aim of this thesis was to advance theories on language and perception. Therefore, we studied cross linguistic differences in the expression of placement events from three major theoretical perspectives on language and perception. Results are reported in three separate research papers. First, we studied placement events in light of the Sapir-Whorf (Whorf, 1956) and the Thinking-for-Speaking (Slobin, 1996) hypotheses. In particular, we investigated whether cross linguistic differences affect how individuals categorize (Paper 1) and memorize (Paper 2) aspects within placement events. We presented them with pictures depicting placement events (Paper 1) or sentences describing placement events followed by depicted placement events (Paper 2) and investigated whether language affected their perception of object orientation and gender of agents. In Paper 1, we investigated L1 German and L1 Spanish speakers. In Paper 2, we compared Spanish learners of L2 German and German learners of L2 Spanish with L1 German and Spanish control speakers.

The results of these studies show the following. In Paper 1, we found that in a context with no overt language use, cross linguistic differences did not affect how speakers categorize object orientation or gender of agents. Moreover, this study showed that although cross linguistic differences between languages exist, speakers may employ alternative linguistic strategies that result in similar descriptions of object orientation and gender of agents across languages. In Paper 2, we found that language affected perception of object orientation. We found that L1 German speakers had better recognition memory for object orientation than L1 Spanish speakers. When Spaniards learned L2 German and performed the task in German, their recognition memory for object orientation improved and was as good as that of L1 German speakers. When Germans learned L2 Spanish and performed the task in Spanish, their recognition memory of object orientation was similar to L1 Spanish speakers ́ memory. We found no effects for gender of agents.

Second, we examined placement events from a grounded cognition perspective (Paper 3). In particular, we investigated whether L1 and L2 speakers make “mental simulations” during language comprehension (Barsalou, 1999). We presented them with sentences describing placement events, which contained language-specific forms (verbs, suffixes) and investigated whether this led them to simulate object orientation and size as shown by so-called “match effects”. In Paper 3, we compared Spanish learners of L2 German and German learners of L2 Spanish with L1 German and Spanish control speakers.

The results of this study show the following. We found no support that L2 readers simulate object orientation through German placement verbs. However, we did find support that L2 readers of Spanish augmentative suffixes make simulations of object size. In addition, we found that L2 readers process meaning slower than L1 readers.

Third, we investigated whether L2 learner differences affected (our measures of) their behavior in the studies reported in Paper 2 and 3. In particular, we investigated the role of L2 proficiency and the related factors L2 exposure and motivation. In Paper 2 we found that differences in general L2 proficiency did not cause differences in L2 learners ́ memory. In Paper 3, we found that differences in specific L2 proficiency affected how fast L2 learners processed meaning. In addition, we found that the amount of L2 exposure affected how fast L2 German learners processed meaning.

In its entirety, this thesis contributes to theoretical advance in the following ways. We have expanded on three theoretical perspectives on language and perception, investigating a single domain of investigation, which is placement. First of all, our research provided evidence against the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, but in favor of TFS effects on L1 and L2 speakers ́ memory. Moreover, we found that L2 learners ́ memory may differ from that of L1 speakers, irrespective of L2 proficiency. Thus, TFS effects in L1 and L2 speakers’ memory seems an interesting topic for further investigation. Second, we found partial evidence in favor of theory on mental simulation in L1 speakers and L2 learners. On the one hand, this questions whether humans routinely make mental simulations for all types of object properties. On the other hand, there are several accounts that explain why simulation effects may be found or not. Thus, further research is needed to determine if and when simulation occurs. Third, we found that general L2 proficiency did not affect memory performance in Paper 2. Specific measures of L2 proficiency did reveal RT differences in L2 learner ́ behavior in Paper 3. Amount of L2 exposure only reliably affected L2 German learners’ speed of reaction in Paper 3, but not L2 Spanish learners’ speed of reaction. There are two ways to interpret these results. First, it may be that in relatively simple language tasks, such as reading sentences, general language background differences do not affect L2 learners’ behavior, thus no effects exist. Second, it may be that (our) measures of general L2 proficiency, L2 exposure and motivation are not fine-grained enough to convincingly reveal differences in L2 sentence comprehension.

All in all, we have shown that despite the universality of actions of placement, cross linguistic differences may indeed affect how L1 speakers understand placement events if critical language is present. Moreover, how L2 speakers understand placement events may change following their L2. General L2 learner differences do not convincingly seem to affect speed of meaning processing or memory accuracy. Only specific measures of L2 proficiency revealed differences in meaning processing. Therefore, the following lines of research seem more promising in making theoretical advance. First, more research comparing L1 and L2 speakers’ TFS and its effect on memory is needed. Second, mental simulation theory needs to be further evaluated. In this quest, different conceptual domains (gender and size) and novel experimental tasks (such as the memory task employed in Paper 2) should be considered to determine whether and how effects of language on perception structurally occur.

Research has indicated that during sentence processing, French native speakers predominantly rely upon lexico-semantic cues (i.e., animacy) while native speakers of English rely upon syntactic cues (i.e., word order). The present study examined sentence production in L1 French/L2 English and L1 English/L2 French sequential bilinguals. Participants used animate and inanimate entities as sentence subjects while describing motion events represented by static pictures. To test a gradual change in animacy cue weighting in second-language sequential bilinguals with different proficiency levels were included. Sentence production of sequential bilinguals was compared against that of simultaneous bilinguals.
The results indicated an overall preference for the use of animate subjects for both languages at all proficiency levels. The effect of animacy was stronger for English L2 than French L2 while it did not differ between languages in simultaneous bilinguals. Evidence for potential change in the animacy-cue weighting was only observed for English L2.

Abstract
Drawing from Talmy’s work on lexicalization patterns, and Slobin’s thinking-for-speaking hypothesis, the translation of motion has been an active arena for research. Recently, a new line of research on the reception of translations of motion has arisen, suggesting that typological differences have an impact on the target audience’s assessments about a translated text. This paper aims to explore the influence that typological differences between English and Spanish may have on readers’ judgments about the degree of dynamicity of the motion events narrated in original English texts and in Spanish translations.  20 excerpts were taken from 5 bestsellers written in English and their corresponding translations into Spanish. Participants were asked to rate in a 1 to 4 point scale the degree of dynamicity of the events described. Results suggest (a) Spanish translations did not differ in terms of dynamicity when path and manner information has been either lost or totally kept, and (b) that lexical verb choice in some English fragments together with the intrinsic nature of the events seemed to have an effect on the English audience’s judgments.

Keywords: motion events; dynamicity; English; Spanish; translation; reception.

More refined typology and design in linguistic relativity: The case of motion event encoding Linguistic relativity is the influence of language on other realms of cognition. For instance, the way movement is expressed in a person's native language may influence how they perceive movement. Motion event encoding (MEE) is usually framed as a typological dichotomy. Path-in-verb languages tend to encode path information within the verb (e.g., 'leave'), whereas manner-in-verb languages encode manner (e.g., 'jump'). The results of MEE-based linguistic relativity experiments range from no effect to effects on verbal and nonverbal cognition. Seeking a more definitive conclusion, we propose linguistic and experimental enhancements. First, we examine state-of-the-art typology, suggesting how a recent MEE classification across twenty languages (Verkerk, 2014) may enable more powerful analyses. Second, we review procedural challenges such as the influence of verbal thought and second-guessing in experiments. To tackle these challenges, we propose distinguishing verbal and nonverbal subgroups, and having enough filler items. Finally we exemplify this in an experimental design.

Crosslinguistic studies of expressions of motion events have found that Talmy’s binary typology of verb-framed and satellite-framed languages is reflected in language use. In particular, Manner of motion is relatively more elaborated in satellite-framed languages (e.g., in narrative, picture description, conversation, translation). The present research builds on previous controlled studies of the domain of human motion by eliciting descriptions of a wide range of manners of walking and running filmed in natural circumstances. Descriptions were elicited from speakers of two satellite-framed languages (English, Polish) and three verb-framed languages (French, Spanish, Basque). The sampling of events in this study resulted in four major semantic clusters for these five languages: walking, running, non-canonical gaits (divided into bounce-and-recoil and syncopated movements), and quadrupedal movement (crawling). Counts of verb types found a broad tendency for satellite-framed languages to show greater lexical diversity, along with substantial within group variation. Going beyond most earlier studies, we also examined extended descriptions of manner of movement, isolating types of manner. The following categories of manner were identified and compared: attitude of actor, rate, effort, posture, and motor patterns of legs and feet. Satellite-framed speakers tended to elaborate expressive manner verbs, whereas verb-framed speakers used modification to add manner to neutral motion verbs.

We analyze the expression of motion in translations of Tolkien's The Hobbit into Polish and German within the framework of Talmy's (1991, 2000) typology of macro-events and Slobin's (1991, 1996) " Thinking for speaking " hypothesis. We show that although both languages pertain to the satellite-framed typologi-cal group, Polish provides less diversified Manner and Path descriptions than German, which exploits the satellite-framed lexicalization pattern by far more productively. We relate these contrasts in the rhetorical style to the particular morpho-syntactic and semantic characteristics of the languages under discussion.

This paper examines the degree to which learners' L1 typology may affect the comprehension and production of L2 constructions. It has been suggested that English makes more use of constructional meaning than other languages (Goldberg, 2006: 120).

Do language-specific patterns of motion event encoding along the lines of Talmy's (2000) typology of verb-framed (V) vs. satellite-framed (S) languages influence nonlinguistic cognition? Finkbeiner et al. (2002), Gennari et al. (2002), and Papafragou et al. (2002) found language-specific effects in similarity-judgment tasks only under prior verbal encoding or commitment of targets to memory. However, these studies raise methodological concerns: Gennari et al.'s participants found same-path variants more similar to targets than same-manner variants independently of language, while Finkbeiner et al.'s study produced the inverse pattern and Papafragou et al.'s results showed no

This research asked whether speakers are influenced by systematic semantic patterns in their language in forming new word meanings. We used the novel word mapping technique to test whether English and Spanish speakers would show effects of their differing semantic systems in inferring the meanings of novel motion verbs. We also tested for any language-specific effects in inferring novel nouns. Participants were given short passages containing either a novel noun or a novel motion verb, and were asked to infer the meaning of the novel word. The passages provided information about both the path and the manner of a novel motion event. Consistent with the semantic patterns in the respective languages, English speakers were more likely to infer a manner interpretation than a path interpretation and Spanish speakers showed the reverse pattern. Language-specific effects were not found for the meanings inferred for novel nouns.

L2 (second language) learners tend not to be aware of the differences in Motion events across languages. TFSH (thinking for speaking hypothesis) deals with the effects of language on the kind of thinking that takes place in the process of using a language. Languages vary in the way Motion events are verbalized. The boundary-crossing constraint refers to whether a Path does or does not involve the crossing of a spatial boundary.

Do language-specific patterns of motion event encoding along the lines of Talmy’s (2000) typology of verb-framed (V) vs. satellite-framed (S) languages influence nonlinguistic cognition? Finkbeiner et al. (2002), Gennari et al. (2002), and Papafragou et al. (2002) found language-specific effects in similarity-judgment tasks only under prior verbal encoding or commitment of targets to memory. However, these studies raise methodological concerns: Gennari et al.’s participants found same-path variants more similar to targets than same-manner variants independently of language, while Finkbeiner et al.’s study produced the inverse pattern and Papafragou et al.’s results showed no significant preference either way. We conducted a similarity-judgment task which systematically varies types of manners and paths in 17 genetically and typologically diverse languages. We found an effect of language, which, however, is not directly based
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on the V/S-distinction. V–languages fall into a group whose speakers strongly prefer same-manner choices and one whose speakers show a weak preference for same-path choices. Speakers of S–languages do not differ significantly, as a whole, from either group. Moreover, there are significant effects of finer-grained contrasts in path and manner that further call into question the generalizations offered in the previous studies.

Resumen: Este artículo presenta dos estudios sobre el espacio y el movimiento desde la perspectiva de la Lingüística Cognitiva y su aplicación a ELE. El primero se centra en la polisemia de las preposiciones, especialmente por y para. Se muestra cómo la organización motivada de los usos preposicionales puede favorecer su adquisición. El segundo explica el concepto de estilo retórico en relación a los eventos de movimiento en italiano y español. Se enseña cómo, a pesar de ser lenguas románicas, sus recursos lingüísticos son diferentes, lo que repercute en sus estilos retóricos y en su adquisición.
Abstract: Prepositions, motion particles and rhetorical style in SSL: a view from Cognitive Linguistics This paper presents two studies on space and motion from the viewpoint of Cognitive Linguistics and its application to SSL. The first discusses the polysemy of prepositions (por and para). It is argued that a motivated structure for prepositional usages could facilitate the learners' task. The second develops the concept of rhetorical style in relation to motion events in Italian and Spanish. Despite being Romance languages, their linguistic resources are different, what can arguably explain differences in their rhetorical styles and acquisition.

The current study examines how gestural representations of motion events arise from linguistic expressions in Farsi, as this language offers many unique characteristics; exhibiting characteristics of both Talmy's satellite-and verb-framed languages. We examined native Farsi speakers' speech and gestures in describing 20 motion events. We focused on two motion event components: path (trajectory of motion like up) and manner (how the action is performed like jumping). Analyses of syntactic packaging and clause-level correspondence between speech and gesture, as well as parallel ordering of speech and gesture sequences were, for the most part, in support of models that posit a close correspondence between speech-gesture production. However, while Farsi speakers described both path and manner in their speech, gesture was markedly impoverished for manner, suggesting constraints on the one-to-one mapping between linguistic and gestural expressions.

We examine universals and crosslinguistic variation in constraints on event segmentation. Previous typological studies have focused on segmentation into syntactic or intonational units (Givón 1991). We argue that the correlation between such units and semantic/conceptual event representations is language-specific. As an alternative, we introduce the 'macro-event property' (MEP): a construction has the MEP if it packages event representations such that temporal operators necessarily have scope over all subevents. A case study on the segmentation of motion events into macro-event expressions in eighteen genetically and typologically diverse languages has produced evidence of two types of design principles that impact motion-event segmentation: language-specific lexicalization patterns and universal constraints on form-to-meaning mapping.*

of the graduate student body in the Department of Linguistics at the University of New Mexico. The mission statement for HDLS, and more specifically for its biennial conference, was to provide a forum in which those interested in linguistics could meet to exchange ideas, share research, and provide feedback in the spirit of collegiality and support. HDLS has significantly increased in size and scope since that first conference and was proud to continue this tradition with its eighth meeting, held November 6-8, 2008 on the University of New Mexico campus. As a conference organized entirely by graduate students, there are many who have contributed to the overall success of the conference and deserve recognition for their efforts.