Motion-Verb Generalizations in English and Spanish: Influences of Language and Syntax

TLDR

English and Spanish speakers differ in how they describe motion events, prompting investigation into how these differences become embodied as syntactic or lexical generalizations. Two studies presented novel motion verbs in three sentence frames to English- and Spanish-speaking adults to assess how they interpret these verbs. English speakers interpreted novel verbs as encoding manner of motion, Spanish speakers as encoding path, with sentence frames influencing interpretation, showing that language-specific generalizations are represented both lexically and syntactically and may affect acquisition and linguistic relativity.

Abstract

English and Spanish speakers differ in the ways they talk about motion events, but how have these different modes of expression become instantiated as differing generalizations—as syntactic rules, lexical patterns, or both? In two studies, we asked English- and Spanish-speaking adults to interpret novel motion verbs presented in three types of sentence frames. Overall, English speakers expected novel verbs to encode the manner of motion, whereas Spanish speakers expected the verbs to encode the path of motion. The sentence frames also significantly affected how the speakers interpreted the novel verbs. We conclude that speakers of different languages represent their different generalizations about the composition of motion verbs both lexically and syntactically, and discuss how these generalizations might be important for issues of language acquisition and linguistic relativity.