Typological constraints on the acquisition of spatial language in French and English

Abstract

Typological analyses (Talmy, Towards a cognitive semantics, MIT Press, 2000) show that languages vary a great deal in how they package and distribute spatial information by lexical and grammatical means. Recent developmental research suggests that children's language acquisition is constrained by such typological properties from an early age on, but the relative role of such constraints in language and cognitive development is still much debated (Bowerman, Containment, support, and beyond: Constructing typological spatial categories in first language acquisition, Benjamins, 2007; Bowerman and Choi, Space under construction: language-specific categorization in first language acquisition, MIT Press, 2003; Slobin, From ‘thought to language’ to ‘thinking for speaking’, Cambridge University Press, 1996, Slobin, Language and thought online: cognitive consequences of linguistic relativity, MIT Press, 2003a, Slobin, The many ways to search for a frog, Erlbaum, 2003b, Slobin, What makes manner of motion salient? Explorations in linguistic typology, discourse, and cognition, Benjamins, 2006). In the context of this debate, we compare the expression of motion in two data bases of child English vs. French: 1) experimentally induced productions about caused motion (adults and children of three to ten years); 2) spontaneous productions about varied types of motion events during earlier phases of acquisition (18 months to three years). The results of both studies show that the density of information about motion increases with age in both languages, particularly after the age of five years. However, they also show striking cross-linguistic differences. At all ages the semantic density of utterances about motion is higher in English than in French. English speakers systematically use compact structures to express multiple types of information (typically manner and cause in main verbs, path in other devices). French speakers rely more on verbs and/or distribute information in more varied ways across parts of speech. The discussion highlights the joint impact of cognitive and typological factors on language acquisition, and raises questions to be addressed in further research concerning the relation between language and cognition during development.