Talmy’s theory of motion event frames and Slobin’s theory of “thinking for speaking”

1. Talmy’s theory of motion event frames and Slobin’s theory of “thinking for speaking”

2. Language is a system with two subsystems inside:

3. 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

4. Closedorgrammaticalclass

5. What concepts are generallyexpressed with closed-class items?

6. Talmy’s lexicalization patterns

7. Figure vs. Ground The optical illusion appears because the distinction between figure and ground isn’t clear. What color are the birds?

8. 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

9. Examples • (1) The pencil rolled off the table Figure Motion Path Ground Manner • (2) The pencil blew off the table Figure Motion Path Ground Cause

10. 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].

11. 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).

12. Lexicalisation patterns and typology • SATELLITE-framed languages (Germanic, Slavic, Finno-Ugric) • Conflation of ‘Motion’ and ‘Manner’ • ‘Path’ in satellite English (3) The boy ranout • VERB-framed languages (Romance, Semitic, Turkic, Basque, Japanese, Korean) • Conflation of ‘Motion’ and ‘Path’ • ‘Manner’ in separate element Spanish(4) El niño saliócorriendo ‘the boy exitedrunning’ Basque (5) Umea korrika irten zen ‘the boy runningexited’

13. What kind of language is French? • Il est entré dans la pièce en courant. (He entered into the room running.)

14. A few in-class experiments…

15. Little empirical test 1 • On a piece of paper, writedown as manymotionverbs as possible. Youhave ONE minute.

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

17. Little empirical test 3 • Describe what happens in these pictures (boy, deer, dog)

18. Slobin’s notion of “thinking for speaking”

19. 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 Verbs and Manner description

20. 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)

21. 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 offover a cliffinto the water.

22. Universal Concepts Theories Universal concepts Language • PATH • MANNER • CONTAINMENT • CAUSALITY 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)