Motion Events

In the domain of motion event encoding, many of the world’s languages fall into one of two types: verb-framed (the path is encoded in the verb) or satellite-framed (the path is encoded outside the verb in a prefix, particle or adverbial while the verb contains information about the manner of movement). A number of studies have investigated the language usage of bilingual speakers or language learners to find evidence of a transfer of the typological pattern of the dominant/native language to the non-dominant/foreign language. These studies have largely failed to show evidence of a straightforward transfer, although more subtle effects on usage have occasionally been observed. In this paper, we report the results of a corpus study comparing two groups of speakers of the urban German ethnolect “Kiezdeutsch”: one with a monolingual German background and one with a bilingual Turkish-German background. We find no significant differences in their preference for path or manner verbs, which...

<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

La lengua alemana y la lengua española pertenecen a tipologías distintas y en sus usuarios encontramos divergencias con respecto a la importancia que éstos conceden al componente semántico Manera. Siguiendo los principios de los Estudios descriptivos de traducción y tomando como base algunos conceptos clave de la Lingüística cognitiva, esta obra estudia la traducción alemán-español de los eventos de movimiento con manera. Asimismo, presenta una propuesta de técnicas adaptada a dicho problema de traducción e incluye dos estudios en torno a la hipótesis de la universalidad. La metodología usada se corresponde con el análisis de una serie de corpus ad hoc de literatura infantil y juvenil. Los resultados confirman la importancia e influencia que tiene la tipología lingüística en la traducción.

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.

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.

"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."

The study discusses the results of a research, in progress, regarding the strategies of lexicalization of motion events in italian based on the theory by Talmy (2000): the typological distinction between Satellite-framed and Verb-framed languages, Italian being part of the second mentioned.
The analysis underlines that the Italian language, in contrast to the assertions made by Talmy, expresses the Trajectory using not only synthetic constructions but also relies on German based patterns (Verb + Particle: fuggire via).
As a consequence, using the theory by Talmy as a platform from which extending the idiosyncrasies of the Italian,  the research aims at illustrating that the picture of the Italian language offers a much bigger variety than supported by the Talmian dictonomy

As a result of grammaticalization two Japanese constructions containing a ventive (kuru) or an andative (iku) auxiliary verb have developed a wide range of usage types. The goal is to test a hypothesis that the more grammaticalized usage types appeared in the language earlier than the less grammaticalized ones. The results of a questionnaire survey and diachronic corpus analysis show that as far as each verb is considered separately the most grammaticalized usage types are the newest ones; however, if the two verbs are put into the same category the diachronic hypothesis does not hold. This indicates that the two verbs must have developed independently despite the fact that in certain usage types they can be viewed as members of a paradigmatic opposition in contemporary Japanese.

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.

This is a corpus-based contrastive-typological study based on data from the Multilingual Parallel Corpus (MPC), which comprises extracts from 22 Swedish novels and their translations into English, German, French and Finnish (around 650 000 words in the Swedish originals). Following Talmy and Slobin, the verbs of motion and the motion situation have been one of the most studied semantic fields (or domains, frames) within lexical (or semantic) typology. It is now generally agreed, that the division into verb-framed and satellite-framed languages forms a continuum (when it can be applied). As will be demonstrated, Swedish from this perspective belongs rather far at the satellite-framed end. However, the bulk of the paper will be concerned with a more fine-grained analysis of the signalling of the endpoint of motion by particles and prepositions in Swedish and its interaction with the semantic composition of the verbs and their patterns of polysemy. Swedish – similar to English – can indicate the endpoint of motion with a directional preposition till ’to’ as in Maria flög till Warszawa ‘Maria flew to Warsaw’. However, frequently locative prepositions i ‘in’ and på ‘on’ are used to indicate the endpoint, but in that case a spatial particle such as ut ‘out’ must be used to indicate change-of-place in distinction to motion within an area: Reine gick ut i köket. Reine went out into the kitchen. In German and Finnish, case plays an important role but in different ways, whereas French is a verb-framed language. Particles are not obligatory when direction is indicated in the verb as in the relatively frequent verbs of falling. In addition, many object-centred verbs such as the verbs of putting do not always require a particle to indicate-change-of place: Reine la (ner) boken på bordet – Reine put (down) the book on the table.  An exception are verbs that express co-motion of agent and object such as the verbs of carrying: Reine bar ut resväskan i tamburen. Reine carried his suitcase out into the hall.

In their basic meaning, the object motion verbs studied in this paper refer to goal-directed physical action sequences, which consist of a Goal (in the sense of an Intention), a sequence of bodily movements of some body part(s) and a result which is congruent with the Goal (in the unmarked case). Object-centered motion often is achieved with various types of hand actions. For example, putting refers to an action where the Figure (the moved object) is held in the hand and is moved toward the Ground (the target) and then released at the Ground in a controlled way. Throwing refers to a forceful movement of the arm and hand and the launching of the Figure into the air. Such representations make it possible to derive several of the extended meanings of the verbs and show how various senses are related.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The present research investigates the bidirectional transfer between English as a mother tongue and Spanish as a second language in the motion domain. The empirical research carried out compared the written narrations in L1 and L2 of a group of English speakers learners of Spanish, beginners level, with those of a native English speakers group and a native Spanish speakers group respectively. The present article discusses the findings of event conflation not only in boundary crossing but also in non boundary crossing situations. The qualitative analysis showed a clear transfer from L1 to L2 as examples of event conflation have been found. Additionally, the quantitative analysis evidenced transfer from L2 to L1 in other components (Ground and Manner) not discussed in this article. This research proves how the languages that cohabit in the bilingual mind interact and influence one another, even in the early stages of the second language acquisition. It also shows that L1 thinking for speaking patterns can be reestructered accepting characteristics of the emerging language and including them in the established language.
Keywords: Thinking for speaking hypothesis, satellite-framed lanagues, verb-framed languages, motion, bidirectional transfer, event conflation.

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).

[PT] Este trabalho tem como objetivo analisar de que maneira o movimento pode ser organizado e representado no Português Paulista em corpora dos séculos XVIII a XX. Para
tanto, analiso os padrões de combinação propostos por Talmy (2000b) e a representação dos pontos do percurso num deslocamento no espaço físico. A análise é qualitativa e quantitativa, e nesse caso, levei em conta as propriedades discursivas dos textos que compõem os corpora, à
luz do modelo de Tradições Discursivas.

[EN] The aim of this article is to analyze how motion can be organized and represented in Paulista Portuguese (Portuguese spoken in São Paulo), in data taken from several
genres of text from the 18th to the 20th centuries. I take into account the patterns proposed by Talmy (2000b), and the representation of path points in motion events. The analysis is qualitative and quantitative, taking into account the discursive properties of the texts in the corpora, based on the Discourse Traditions model.

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.

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.

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.

This paper highlights some facets of motion typology, applied here to mainly English and French. These two languages are not perfect examples of satellite-framed and verb-framed languages, in Leonard Talmy’s well-known typology, but they can nonetheless be shown to differ in a number of related respects: compared to English (and other Germanic languages), French (like other Romance languages) is quite constrained in its use of Manner-of-motion verbs. French also lacks true particles – Path satellites without a Ground that can be syntactically detached from the verb. Drawing on some of my previous research, I briefly discuss two simple but apparently sufficiently efficient corpus-based translation studies that reveal that these differences show up when we compare English texts originally written in English with English texts translated from French vs. English texts translated from German (or other Germanic languages). A third, more recent, study contrasts a single English novel with its French and Dutch translations, focusing on expressions of visual motion. Here, too, some of the basic encoding preferences (satellite-framed vs. verb-framed) that these languages exhibit for actual motion appear to apply, by and large, for visual motion. This paper also lists some precursors of Talmy, one of whom is famously linked with the linguistic relativity hypothesis. It is suggested that French, because of its typological nature, may not urge its speakers to convey much detail (neither of Manner nor of Path) in the encoding of motion. It remains an open question, one that goes beyond the purview of corpus linguistics, whether this stylistic difference is matched with a deeper cognitive one.

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.

Slobin's thinking-for-speaking (TFS) hypothesis suggests that speakers are habitually attuned to aspects of an event that are readily codable in the language while they are formulating speech. This TFS process varies considerably cross-linguistically and can be observed in all forms of production and reception including listening for understanding or mental imagery. This study explored whether second language learners (L2) engage in mental simulation of deictic paths while processing motion language online. Forty Chinese native speakers (NSs) and eighty English-speaking learners of L2 Chinese participated in an online judgment task. They listened to motion sentences containing deictic paths while simultaneously watching a motion display of a toward-or away-direction. Since simultaneous presentation of the sentence and the display of the same directionality require the same neural structures to process competing inputs, interference effects are expected and the reaction time to respond should take longer. Results of repeated measures ANOVA show interference effects for the NSs, but not for the L2 learners of both heritage and foreign language backgrounds, suggesting that while the NSs were sensitive to the deictic cues and automatically performed mental simulations of the deictic paths, the L2 learners' listening for imagery did not pattern with the NSs. The results added to our understanding of L2 learners' development of TFS in the new modality of listening for imagery.