Speaking of Motion: Verb Use in English and Spanish

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Abstract
English and Spanish clearly differ in their encoding of motion events, but what is the exact nature of this difference? How does it influence language use? These questions were investigated in two studies of adult English and Spanish speakers' descriptions of static (Study 1) and dynamic (Study 2) motion events. English speakers overwhelmingly used manner-of-motion verbs (e.g. run). Spanish speakers used more path-of-motion verbs (e.g. salir/exit); however, with some motion events they strongly preferred to use manner verbs as well. The two language groups also differed in the degree to which they mentioned the manner of motion at all, and in the types of sentence frames they preferred, but not in the sheer number of verb types produced. The results are discussed with respect to the varying contexts of language use, refinements to typological differences between English and Spanish, and implications for children's acquisition of motion verbs.

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