Attraction of attention in perceived motion events weighed against typology and cognitive cost

The purpose of this chapter is to identify the preferred path-coding patterns in Italian motion event descriptions.Italian is commonly known as a verbframed language (head path-coding language), but some studies have pointed out that Italian deviates from the typical head path-coding pattern for several reasons.Analyzing the data from linguistic experiments, this study shows that Italian often uses the head-external path-coding pattern in describing self-motion events, and for caused-motion events at an even greater frequency, typically using prepositions (rather than particles) for path coding.Moreover, coding patterns are chosen based on the specific types of path, manner, and deixis that are involved in the events in question.In conclusion, the Italian language has a greater array of resources for expressing motion events, compared with other head path-coding languages. Issues in Italian motion event descriptionsItalian is usually categorized as a verb-framed language, as are other Romance languages such as French and Spanish (Talmy 2000; Verkerk 2015).However, the precise status of Italian within this category is still unclear.Researchers have pointed out that in comparison with other verb-framed languages, Italian exhibits a broad variety of behaviors in the description of motion events (Slobin 2004;Bernini, Spreafico, and Valentini 2006;Iacobini and Masini 2006;Folli 2008;Beavers, Levin, and Tham 2010;Hijazo-Gascn and Ibarretxe-Antuano 2013;Yoshinari 2017).Romance languages, which generally code path in the main verb, also often express path in prepositions and other elements outside the main verb (head-external elements) (see Aske 1989, Folli 2008 for discussion).According to Slobin (2004), this tendency is even more prominent in Italian, which, "in comparison to other Romance languages, makes wider use of directional particles with both path and

This study investigates how children lexicalize motion event patterns in their first and second languages, L1-Turkish and L2-English. English is a satellite-framed language that conflates motion with manner expressed in the main verb and path in a non-verbal element, whereas Turkish is a verb-framed language that conflates motion with path in the main verb and expresses manner in a subordinated verb. We asked whether (1) learning a second language had an effect on children’s event descriptions in their first and (2) the effects were bidirectional. One hundred and twelve 5- and 7-year-old monolingual (L1-Turkish) and bilingual (L1-Turkish; L2-English) children participated. Participants produced narratives for wordless picture book, Frog, Where are you?. Six scenes of the book were selected for coding purposes as they represented motion events: (1) Frog’s exit from the jar, (2) Dog’s fall from the window, (3) Gopher popping out of the hole, (4) Owl’s exit from a nest, (5) Boy and dog falling down and (6) Boy and dog landing in a pond. For L1 descriptions, 5-year-old bilinguals used more manner-only and less path-only descriptions than monolinguals; no difference was found for 7-year-olds. For L2 descriptions, bilingual children used less Manner-only and Path-only expressions in their L2 narratives compared to L1 narratives. These findings suggest that for 5-year-olds, exposure to second language had an impact on how motion events are encoded. Results inform us about the early interactions between L1 and L2 in motion event lexicalization

A study of visual path expressions in Mandarin Chinese from the perspective of motion event typology

This study investigates how children lexicalize motion events in their first and second languages, L1-Turkish and L2-English. English is a satellite-framed language that conflates motion with manner expressed in the main verb and path in a non-verbal element, whereas Turkish is a verb-framed language that conflates motion with path in the main verb and expresses manner in a subordinated verb. We asked three questions: (1) Does early L2 acquisition in an L1 dominant society affect motion event lexicalization in L1? (2) Is the effect of L2 on L1 subject to change due to decline in L2 exposure? (3) Do L1 vs. L2 lexicalizations differ within the bilingual mind? One hundred and twelve 5- and 7-year-old monolingual and bilingual children watched and described video-clips depicting motion events. For L1 descriptions, 5-year-old bilinguals used more manner structures than monolinguals. No difference was found for 7-year-olds. For L2 descriptions, 7-year-old bilinguals used more manner-only constructions compared to their L1 descriptions. For 5-year-old bilinguals no difference was found. Findings suggest that early exposure to a second language had an impact on how motion events are packaged, while decline in L2 exposure dampened the effects of L2.

The concept of motion is present in all the world’s languages. However, the ways in which speakers of different languages codify motion do not seem to be so universal. Languages offer different types of structures to express motion, and speakers pay attention to different elements within the motion event. The goal of this paper is to examine in great detail how motion events are described and expressed in Basque oral and written narratives. This study focuses on three main areas: motion verbs, elaboration of Manner and elaboration of Path. Although Basque can be classified in Talmy’s terms as a verb-framed language, it is argued that it is not a prototypical example of this group with respect to the lexicalisation of Path. Unlike other verb-framed languages, the description of Path in Basque motion events is very frequent and detailed, not only in situations when it adds new information, but also in pleonastic cases. This characteristic seems to be related to Basque’s rich lexical resources for motion and space, as well as to its high tolerance for verb omission. On the basis of these data, the scope of Talmy’s binary typology is questioned. It is suggested that the verb- and satellite-framed language typology should be revised in order to account for these intra-typological differences.

The paper analyses motion events in the Mande language Bambara, using the theoretical framework developed by Croft et al. (2010), which is a revision of the theory first proposed by Talmy (1975, 1985). The revision of Talmy's theory on the semantics and syntax of motion events introduces a distinction between symmetrical and asymmetrical constructions and proposes to apply it to individual constructions and not to entire languages. In Bambara we find two different types of constructions both of which are asymmetrical: verb framing and satellite framing constructions. The verb framing construction expresses the path of motion in a finite verb, whereas manner of motion is encoded in an adverbial form or copredicative form, which is derived by means of -t? or -bagat?. The adverbial form precedes the finite form of the verb. The second type is a satellite framing construction where the manner of motion is expressed in a finite verb form and the path of motion by means of an infinitive form of the verb introduced by the morpheme ka. Some of the path verbs in the language have developed into prepositions together with the infinitive morpheme ka. Although this allows characterizing them as satellite framing, there are some features that set them apart from satellite framing constructions in languages like English, German or Polish. The first feature is that even those path verbs that develop into prepositions continue to function as full verbs in the language with no tendency to lose this function. The second distinguishing feature is the possibility of combining several path verbs in one clause. These features make Bambara resemble languages that have serial verb constructions, which belong to symmetrical constructions according to Croft et al. (2010).

Our statistical work on data in early Ningpo dialect shows us that Ningpo dialect is a kind of typical satellite-framed language in motion events. Non-agentive motion events and agentive motion events are more likely to encode the information of motion events as satellite-framed languages than self-agentive motion events. Although self-agentive motion events can encode it according as verb-framed and satellite-framed languages, compared to early Shanghai dialect and Mandarin, self-agentive motion events are less likely to encode it in the way of verb-framed languages. There is a strong correlation between the type of lexicalization in motion events in early Ningpo dialect and its topicalization, which prove that topicalization plays a critical role in evolution of motion events in Chinese from a verb-framed language and an equipollently-framed language to a satellite-framed language.

In this paper we will have a short look at Persian language structure and discuss about expressing change of state and motion in Persian.Persian is considered among languages with a few simple verbs, and most of Persian verbs are compound.We can categorize the Persian verbs indicating motion event as following: 1. PATH is expressed in a non-head framed construction, and the main verb shows the MANNER of motion.Compounds in this pattern are combined verbs and non-separable.2. PATH is indicated by the main verb (head-framed construction type) and is emphasized or explained in the non-verbal (satellite/non-head) part, and the MANNER of motion comes in the adverb.3.The main verb indicates both PATH and MANNER of motion: Although, it may be considered as an incorporated compound verb in which the prepositional disappears after incorporation.Both head-framed and non-head framed construction of path are available in Persian, but except deictic verbs in which path is specified, in other cases, path is expressed mostly in a nonhead construction type.The main verb almost expresses manner of motion, and path is mentioned in the nonhead part of a clause.Of course, it needs more studies in order to judge and prove whether Persian is a nonhead framed (S-Language) or not.

This paper investigates motion ideophones in Basque, a high-salient-path verb-framed language with a large repertoire of Manner-of-motion ideophones (Ibarretxe-Antuñano, 2015, 2017, 2019, 2023, 2025). Two main questions are addressed: Does the presence of Manner ideophones affect the inclusion of this component in Basque motion descriptions, and what factors influence its use? Three datasets were analysed: the IdEus-Psylex Stimulus Kit, the IdEus Motion Questionnaire, and different motion event stimuli (Frog stories, Canary Row, and novels). Results show that (i) Manner is more frequent in Basque motion events than in other verb-framed languages but less frequent than in satellite-framed languages, and (ii) motion ideophones are used across contexts regardless of sociolinguistic factors (age), diatopic variation (all Basque dialects), and discourse mode (oral, written). However, their distribution is uneven: some ideophones are widely known and used by all speakers, while others are more age- and dialect-specific.

Motion events in Chinese novels: Evidence for an equipollently-framed language

This chapter analyzes phasal, modal and verbs of motion which, in Toba language (Guaycuruan family), have grammaticalized starting from two types of constructions: completive clauses with phasal and modal verbs, and serial verb constructions (SVCs) with motion verbs. In the domain of phasal and modal completive clauses, the process of grammaticalization involves a change of the grammatical status of the phasal or modal verb. The verb loses the agreement person marker, a common process in other domains of the language. This change constitutes the sole evidence of the co-evolution of form and meaning. In this domain, phasal verbs develop into either aspectual auxiliaries (inceptive or resultative) or as words with a prepositional function. The latter is the only conventionalized strategy that Toba has to express what is encoded through adpositions in other languages. In serial verb constructions (SVCs) with motion verbs, these cover a wide range of meanings of meanings associated with movement (direction, path, location, etc.). In such contexts, one of the verbs, the directional verb is grammaticalized as progressive aspect auxiliary, while the second verb, the locative weta does so to a durative aspect auxiliary. Thus, serial verb constructions with motion verbs also explain the origin of directional and locative suffixes from verbs. The synchronic coexistence of serial and complex verb constructions with an identical function favors the argument of different diachronic paths of grammaticalization within languages for which no historical documents are available as Toba.

Before infants produce words, they can discriminate changes in motion event components such as manner (how an action is performed) and path (trajectory of an action). Individual differences in nonlinguistic event categorization are related to children's later verb comprehension (Konishi, Stahl, Golinkoff, & Hirsh-Pasek, 2016). We asked: (a) Do infants learning Turkish, a verb-framed language, attend to both manner and path changes in motion events? (b) Is early detection of path and manner related to children's later verb comprehension and (c) how they describe motion events? Thirty-two Turkish-reared children were tested at three time points. At Time 1, infants (Mage = 14.5months) were tested on their detection of changes in path and manner using the Preferential Looking Paradigm. At Time 2, children were tested on their receptive language skills (Mage = 22.07months). At Time 3, children performed 3 tasks (Mage = 35.05months): a verb comprehension task, an event description task depicting motion events with different path and manner combinations, and an expressive language task. The ability to detect changes in event components at Time 1 predicted verb comprehension abilities at Time 3, beyond general receptive and expressive vocabulary skills at Times 2 and 3. Infants who noticed changes in path and manner at Time 1 used fewer manner-only descriptions and more path-any descriptions (i.e., descriptions that included a path component with or without manner) in their speech at Time 3. These findings suggest that early detection of event components is associated not only with verb comprehension, but also with how children lexicalize event components in line with their native language. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

In the literature on motion events, a lot of previous research can be found on the contrast between the typology of expression favoured by so-called ‘verb-framed languages’ and that favoured by so-called ‘satellite-framed languages.’ Only some of this previous research, however, has focused its attention on the reasons that ultimately bring about such contrasting fashions of speaking. The present study explores this issue in some depth by trying to identify what specific grammatical constraints lead Italian speakers to be shy of the use of manner verbs in the expression of motion events (at least when compared with speakers of a typical satellite-framed language such as English). The outcome of an interpretation task and a grammatical judgement task conducted with some Italian native speakers suggests that this phenomenon ultimately originates from features exhibited by the Italian system of spatial prepositions, as well as from features exhibited by a certain kind of Italian manner verbs. The constraints caused by the verbs appear to be particularly significant.

This study investigates the mechanisms of event integration in Mandarin motion events, with a specific focus on the widely used “V + Dào” construction, a representative verb complex in the language. Event integration, defined as the reconceptualization of events through conceptual conflation or integration, has traditionally been examined within the scope of either the main verb or the satellite. This research broadens the theoretical scope by introducing two complementary dimensions of event integration: internal event integration, where individual lexical items conflate multiple subevents, and external event integration, where subevents are integrated between the main verb and the satellite. Using a dataset of 611 “V + Dào” sentences extracted from a spoken Chinese corpus, the study identifies 12 distinct patterns of event integration. These patterns include combinations such as “(motion + manner) + (motion + path)” and “(motion + cause) + (motion + path),” illustrating the intricate interplay between semantic components. The analysis reveals that internal integration operates through the conflation of conceptual elements within “V” or “Dào,” while external integration is achieved through conceptual mapping and the semantic overlap between these components. The findings of this study advance our understanding of Mandarin’s typological flexibility and enrich existing theories on motion event encoding. By proposing a refined framework for analyzing event integration, this work offers new insights into cross-linguistic variation and highlights the significance of Mandarin as a language that challenges traditional dichotomies in motion event typology. These contributions underscore the importance of reconsidering established linguistic models to account for the complexity of event integration mechanisms in diverse languages.

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 (Talmy 2000; Slobin 2004). 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 Peyraube's (2006) claim, the typological shift in Chinese has not yet been achieved; (ii) there is little justification for classifying Chinese as an equipollently framed language as in Slobin (2004) and Chen and Guo (2009). Therefore, there is no need to posit an equipollent type for Chinese; and (iii) Modern Chinese is in a transitional state from a V-type to an S-type due to the evolution of its motion expressions. It also favors the S-type in both its morphosyntactic properties and language use.