Directional prepositions and event endpoint conceptualization: a study ofnaarandrichtingin Dutch

Abstract

Two Dutch directional prepositions (i.e., naar and richting) provide a useful paradigm to study endpoint conceptualization. Experiment 1 adopted a sentence comprehension task and confirmed the linguistic proposal that, when naar was used in motion event descriptions, participants were more certain that the reference object was the goal of the agent than when richting was used. Experiment 2 and Experiment 3 used this linguistic pair to test the effect of two factors (i.e., the actor’s goal and the interlocutor’s status) on endpoint conceptualization via language production tasks. We found significant effects of both factors. First, participants chose naar more often when there was an inference in the referential situation that the reference object was the actor’s goal than when there was no such inference. Second, participants chose richting more often when they were told to describe the referential scenario to a police officer than to a friend. Participants were more cautious with their statements and were less willing to commit themselves to stating the goal of the agent when talking to a police officer than to a friend. The results are discussed in relation to relevant linguistic theories and event theories.

Linguistic and non-linguistic cues in motion event endpoint description: The selection between English to and towards

“…Given that richting only refers to the moving direction, not the endpoint of a motion event, the use of richting in a motion event description is considered a more conservative and more cautious expression compared with the use of naar because the speaker does not commit to a destination. Importantly, the effect of Interlocutor is also found larger than the effect of Intention (odds ratios: 1.72 vs. 3.79) in Liao et al (2021), which highlights the importance of considering contextual factors in event description studies.…”

“…The more sensitive people are to these two factors, the larger effects they might create on people's event endpoint description, which can be shown based on their choice between to and towards. Liao et al (2021) did not investigate this possibility, which is a limitation of their study. Our current study, therefore, goes beyond the previous work by exploring the potential effect of grammatical aspect on event comprehension, and consequently, on event endpoint description.…”

“…The current study is an extension of Liao et al (2021). We aim to investigate the effects of the actor's goal and the interlocutor's status on the choice between a different pair of directional prepositions in a different language, that is, two English directional prepositions (i.e., to and towards) during motion event description.…”

“…We aim to investigate the effects of the actor's goal and the interlocutor's status on the choice between a different pair of directional prepositions in a different language, that is, two English directional prepositions (i.e., to and towards) during motion event description. Furthermore, the current study also goes beyond Liao et al (2021). Before we explain why this is the case, we would like to first provide a brief summary of Liao et al (2021) and highlight the limitation of their study that we are about address in the current paper.…”

“…Furthermore, the current study also goes beyond Liao et al (2021). Before we explain why this is the case, we would like to first provide a brief summary of Liao et al (2021) and highlight the limitation of their study that we are about address in the current paper.…”