Talmy’s theory of motion event frames

and

Slobin’s theory of “thinking for speaking”

Language is a system with two subsystems inside:

Open systemLEXICAL

Closed systemGRAMMATICAL

Nonconstrained Constrained

Conceptual content Conceptual structure

Open or lexical class

Any category of linguistic forms that are large in number and easy to augment

. Roots of nouns, verbs, adjectives.

. Collocations (lexical complexes) spill the beans

Closed or grammatical classOvert

(Phonologically substantive)

Abstract/implicit

bound: inflections, derivations, cliticsfree: determiners, adpositions, conjuctions, particlessuprasegmental: intonation, stress

Word orderGrammatical categories(N, V, A, NP, VP)Grammatical relations(subject, object)Grammatical Complexes(synt/gramm structure)

What concepts are generallyexpressed with closed-class items?

Talmy’s lexicalization patterns

Figure vs. Ground

What color are the birds? The optical illusion appears because the distinction between figure and groundisn’t clear.

Talmy’s (1991, 2000) Lexicalization patterns and motion events

Meaning components associated with surface components in different languages packaging strategies.

Motion events: “containing movement or the maintenance of a stationary location”.

Six basic semantic elements or components: Central or ‘internal components’: Figure, Ground, Path,

Motion Associated or ‘external co-event components’: Manner,

Cause

Examples

(1) The pencil rolled off the tableFigure Motion Path

GroundManner

(2) The pencil blew off the tableFigure Motion Path

GroundCause

Motion—manner—path may be encoded in various ways

Motion+path (exit, enter, climb)Motion+manner (skip, slide, scurry)

English:The squirrel scurried [along the wall]. Spanish: The squirrel went-along the wall [scurrying].

What’s encoded in the following sentences?

The woman exited the house (path, motion). The woman ran out of the house (path, manner). The bear climbed the tree (path, manner). The batter slid into first base (path, manner). She went home (path, motion). He tucked his shirt into his jeans (path, manner).

Lexicalisation patterns and typology

SATELLITE-framed languages (Germanic, Slavic, Finno-Ugric) Conflation of ‘Motion’ and ‘Manner’ ‘Path’ in satellite

English (3) The boy ran out

VERB-framed languages (Romance, Semitic, Turkic, Basque, Japanese, Korean) Conflation of ‘Motion’ and ‘Path’ ‘Manner’ in separate element

Spanish (4) El niño salió corriendo‘the boy exited running’

Basque (5) Umea korrika irten zen‘the boy running exited’

What kind of language is French?

Il est entré dans la pièce en courant. (He entered into the room running.)

A few in-class experiments…

Little empirical test 1

On a piece of paper, write down as many motion verbs as possible. You have ONE minute.

Little empirical test 2 Describe what happens in these pictures (boy, owl)

Little empirical test 3 Describe what happens in these pictures

(boy, deer, dog)

Slobin’s notion of “thinking for speaking”

Verbs and Manner description Satellite-framed: ENGLISH

Buck, bump, buzz, carry, chase, climb, come, crawl, creep, depart, drop, dump, escape, fall, float, fly, follow, get, go, head, hide, hop, jump, know, land, leave, limp, make-fall, move, plummet, pop, push, race, rush, run, slip, splash, splat, sneak, swim, swoop, take, throw, tip, tumble, walk, wander

Manner: In verb-framed languages:

Manner is only expressed in the motion event if it is very important for the narrative, otherwise it is left out (McNeill 2000, Slobin 1997)

Manner is lexicalised in a manner verb or usually in a separate expression Spanish: -adverbial expressions (adverbs, gerundives)

Ground elaboration:

Journeys: How many complements does the verb take?

‘Complex path’ or ‘journey’: an extended path that includes milestones or subgoals, situated in a medium. Satellite-framed languages:

English used this pattern very frequently.

(11) He starts running and he tips him off over a cliff into the water.

Universal Concepts TheoriesUniversal concepts

PATH MANNER CONTAINMENT CAUSALITY

Language

maps onto concepts

“The central problem is how do children, from an initially equivalent base, end up controlling often very differently structured languages.”

Bowerman & Levinson (2001)