Motion Descriptions in English and Greek: A Cross-Typological Developmental Study of Conversations and Narratives

Abstract

Theoretical claims about typologically constrained differences in how speakers habitually describe physical motion are tested through three cross-linguistic developmental studies. Three types of data are analyzed in Greek and English, languages here characterized respectively as Verb- and Satellite-framed in the coding of motion: spontaneous conversations between adults and children aged 1;8–4;6 as well as two types of narratives elicited through pictures and a film from 4-, 7-, 10-year olds and adults. Results show, on the one hand, largely predictable cross-linguistic differences, with overall greater attention paid to manner in English than in Greek and different patterns for coding path. On the other hand, the very appearance as well as intensity of typological effects also depend upon various interacting factors: the precise ways of measuring them, the age of speakers, type, content and communicative exigencies of the discourse as well as the detailed structural characteristics of a language.

<em>Swimming in the desert?</em> The role of environment in motion verb acquisition

“…Cross-linguistically, path verbs show little variation in the number of unique paths expressed by the language's verbs, which may be due to the finite number of possible paths in which a figure can move. For example, Spanish and English share 13 path types, including 'away from,' 'up/onto,' and 'to/towards;' however, Spanish tends to show more lexical variation within the inventory of these types than English (Cifuentes-Férez 2008;Selimis & Katis 2010). Corpus studies have estimated English to contain about 20-44 path verbs while Spanish has upwards of 63 (Cifuentes-Férez 2008;Talmy 2003).…”

Figurative language processing in autism spectrum disorders: A review

“…The acquisition of this ability relies on both linguistic and cognitive abilities (Dietrich, 2004), in addition to meta‐pragmatic competence (Bernicot et al, 2007). Typically developing individuals begin to understand nonliteral forms of speech at preschool age and gradually develop this ability, culminating in adulthood (Selimis & Katis, 2010; Semrud‐Clikeman & Glass, 2010). In contrast, autistic individuals appear to have a deviant developmental trajectory, concerning the acquisition of figurative language processing competence.…”