Satellite- vs. Verb-Framing Underpredicts Nonverbal Motion Categorization: Insights from a Large Language Sample and Simulations

Abstract

Is motion cognition influenced by the large-scale typological patterns proposed in Talmy’s (2000) two-way distinction between verb-framed (V) and satellite-framed (S) languages? Previous studies investigating this question have been limited to comparing two or three languages at a time and have come to conflicting results. We present the largest cross-linguistic study on this question to date, drawing on data from nineteen genealogically diverse languages, all investigated in the same behavioral paradigm and using the same stimuli. After controlling for the different dependencies in the data by means of multilevel regression models, we find no evidence that S- vs. V-framing affects nonverbal categorization of motion events. At the same time, statistical simulations suggest that our study and previous work within the same behavioral paradigm suffer from insufficient statistical power. We discuss these findings in the light of the great variability between participants, which suggests flexibility in motion representation. Furthermore, we discuss the importance of accounting for language variability, something which can only be achieved with large cross-linguistic samples.

Keeping the Result in Sight and Mind: General Cognitive Principles and Language‐Specific Influences in the Perception and Memory of Resultative Events

“…There are two potential explanations for these different findings: First, looking at the descriptions, although overall the experimental manipulations triggered the expected Estonian case alternation ensuring the validity of our central hypothesis empirically, there is variability in case marking choices. As mentioned above, several factors could have influenced speakers’ choices for the one over the other case marker, leading to variability within the language system of interest and thus providing us with no black and white cross‐linguistic contrast as test case for language effects on cognition (see Montero‐Melis et al., ). However, there is a second plausible explanation: Note that the specific carriers of perspectives on event results in Estonian are nominal in nature; that is, partitive or accusative case is specified on object nouns .…”

“…For example, speakers of satellite-framed languages typically mention the manner of motion, and they also allocate more visual attention to manner when watching and describing event videos, compared to speakers of verb-framed languages (e.g., Papafragou et al, 2008;Soroli & Hickmann, 2010). There is, however, not much evidence that such effects go beyond "thinking for speaking," that is, beyond the cognitive processes we engage in when preparing for verbalization (e.g., Bunger et al, 2016;Finkbeiner, Nicol, Greth, & Nakamura, 2002;Gennari et al, 2002;Montero-Melis et al, 2017;Papafragou et al, 2002Papafragou et al, , 2008Trueswell & Papafragou, 2010). Montero-Melis et al (2017) plausibly suggest that this may be caused by the large variability in motion event description, both within speakers of the same typological cluster, as well as across clusters.…”

“…There is, however, not much evidence that such effects go beyond "thinking for speaking," that is, beyond the cognitive processes we engage in when preparing for verbalization (e.g., Bunger et al, 2016;Finkbeiner, Nicol, Greth, & Nakamura, 2002;Gennari et al, 2002;Montero-Melis et al, 2017;Papafragou et al, 2002Papafragou et al, , 2008Trueswell & Papafragou, 2010). Montero-Melis et al (2017) plausibly suggest that this may be caused by the large variability in motion event description, both within speakers of the same typological cluster, as well as across clusters. To top it all, the typological difference mainly concerns the saliency of manner, which is considered "peripheral" information in a motion event, whereas the path represents the universal core of a motion event (Talmy, 2000).…”

“…Montero‐Melis et al. () plausibly suggest that this may be caused by the large variability in motion event description, both within speakers of the same typological cluster, as well as across clusters. To top it all, the typological difference mainly concerns the saliency of manner, which is considered “peripheral” information in a motion event, whereas the path represents the universal core of a motion event (Talmy, ).…”

How do Korean–English bilinguals speak and think about motion events? Evidence from verbal and non-verbal tasks

“…Second, the present study used a non-verbal task (i.e., triads-matching task), in which participants to had to make a forced choice between path and manner. While this task has been popular among previous studies that investigated motion event cognition, more recent studies (Kersten et al, 2010; Montero-Melis & Bylund, 2017; Montero-Melis, Eisenbeiss, Narasimhan, Ibarretxe-Antuñano, Kita, Kopecka, Lüpke, Nikitina, Tragel, Florian Jaeger & Bohnemeyer, 2017) have pointed out that this task, by its design, confounds path and manner preferences 4 . That is, it assumes that a higher path preference is equivalent to a lower manner preference when, in fact, both S-languages and V-languages prominently encode path information, and the difference between the two group lies in their frequency of manner encoding.…”