The Acquisition of Motion Events in Verbs of Motion

Author(s):  
Frances Conlin
2002 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 467-477 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana Rojo ◽  
Javier Valenzuela

Abstract Slobin (1997, 1998) has pointed out the differences between Spanish and English verbs of motion with regard to the expression of elements such as “Path of motion” or “Manner of motion”. Generally speaking, English verbs incorporate manner to their core meaning while Spanish verbs tend to incorporate Path, expressing Manner with an additional complement. Comparing English motion events and their translation into Spanish in several novels, Slobin found out that only 51% of English manner verbs were translated into Spanish manner verbs (Slobin 1996), the rest being neutralized or omitted. We intend to apply Slobin's analysis to verbs of saying in English and Spanish. Our work aims to analyze the conflation patterns of verbs of saying in English and Spanish and the way Spanish translators deal with them.


2002 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-71 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jill P. Morford

This study examined the Frog Story narratives of two adolescent homesigners in order to investigate whether homesign shares characteristics with ASL in the expression of motion events. Specifically, the study examined whether the homesigners would (1) combine conceptual elements of figure, ground, path and manner in single signs, and (2) whether the path element would form a central part of the expression of motion events. Results indicated that the homesigners each used a unique strategy to express motion events, neither of which resembled ASL verbs of motion. The homesigners combined fewer conceptual elements in their signs, and one of the two homesigners rarely encoded path. The results imply that the structure of ASL verbs of motion is not an inevitable outcome of either the modality or the rich use of visual iconicity in ASL, and may only be possible after the emergence of other grammatical structures.This study examined the Frog Story narratives of two adolescent homesigners in order to investigate whether homesign shares characteristics with ASL in the expression of motion events. Specifically, the study examined whether the homesigners would (1) combine conceptual elements of figure, ground, path and manner in single signs, and (2) whether the path element would form a central part of the expression of motion events. Results indicated that the homesigners each used a unique strategy to express motion events, neither of which resembled ASL verbs of motion. The homesigners combined fewer conceptual elements in their signs, and one of the two homesigners rarely encoded path. The results imply that the structure of ASL verbs of motion is not an inevitable outcome of either the modality or the rich use of visual iconicity in ASL, and may only be possible after the emergence of other grammatical structures.


2016 ◽  
Vol 69 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Amir Karimipour ◽  
Vali Rezai

AbstractThis paper attempts to assess motion events in Ilami Kurdish through Talmy’s binary typology (1985. Lexicalization patterns: Semantic structure in lexical forms. In Timothy Shopen (ed.),


2005 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 219-243 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana Rojo ◽  
Javier Valenzuela

Slobin (1996, 1997) has pointed out the differences between Spanish and English verbs of motion with regard to the expression of elements such as “Path of motion” or “Manner of motion”. Generally speaking, English verbs incorporate manner to their core meaning while Spanish verbs tend to incorporate Path, expressing Manner by means of an additional complement. Comparing English motion events and their translation into Spanish in several novels, Slobin found out that only 51% of English manner verbs were translated into Spanish manner verbs (Slobin 1996), the rest being neutralized or omitted. In this work, we apply Slobin’s analysis to sensory verbs of perception in English and Spanish. Our paper analyzes the conflation patterns of sensory verbs of perception in English and Spanish in order to investigate possible changes in the informational load during the translation process. For this purpose, we have extracted 200 sensory verbs of perception from two English and two Spanish novels and their respective translations. The paper examines instances of gain or loss of information during the translation process, as well as whether the translation shifts provide evidence for a difference in the way the perception event is structured in both languages


2020 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jingxia Lin

AbstractTypological shift in lexicalizing motion events has hitherto been observed cross-linguistically. While over time, Chinese has shown a shift from a dominantly verb-framed language in Old Chinese to a strongly satellite-framed language in Modern Standard Mandarin, this study presents the Chinese dialect Wenzhou, which has taken a step further than Standard Mandarin and other Chinese dialects in becoming a thoroughly satellite-framed language. On the one hand, Wenzhou strongly disfavors the verb-framed pattern. Wenzhou not only has no prototypical path verbs, but also its path satellites are highly deverbalized. On the other hand, Wenzhou strongly prefers the satellite-framed pattern, to the extent that it very frequently adopts a neutral motion verb to head motion expressions so that path can be expressed via satellites and the satellite-framed pattern can be syntactically maintained. The findings of this study are of interest to intra-linguistic, diachronic and cross-linguistic studies of the variation in encoding motion events.


2009 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 245-276 ◽  
Author(s):  
Teresa Cadierno ◽  
Peter Robinson

The present paper focuses on the acquisition of L2 constructions for the expression of motion from a typological (Cadierno, 2008; Talmy, 1985, 1991, 2000) and a psycholinguistic perspective with implications for pedagogy (Robinson, 2003a, 2007; Robinson & Gilabert, 2007a, 2007b). Specifically, we report the results of a cross-linguistic study which examined the extent to which the manipulation of pedagogic tasks in terms of cognitive complexity can facilitate the development of target-like lexicalization patterns and appropriate L2 ways of thinking-for-speaking for the expression of motion by adult L2 learners with typologically similar and typologically different L1s and L2s, i.e., Danish vs. Japanese L1 learners of English. The results of the study show that level of L2 proficiency, assessed using a cloze test, predicts more target-like reference to L2 motion across both L1 groups. Typological similarity between the L1 (Danish) and L2 (English) results in greater use of motion constructions incorporating mention of ground of motion compared to their use by Japanese L1 speakers. More cognitively complex tasks lead to production of more target-like lexicalization patterns, but also only for speakers of the typologically similar L1, Danish.


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