Ways of Crossing a Spatial Boundary in Typologically Distinct Languages

Expression of spatial motion shows wide variation as well as patterned regularities across the world’s languages (Talmy, 2000), and events involving the traversal of a spatial boundary impose the tightest typological constraints in the lexicalization of motion, providing a true test of cross-linguistic differences. Speakers of verb-framed languages are required by their language not to use manner verbs in marking the change of location across boundaries (Aske, 1989). Here we test the strength of the boundary-crossing constraint and ask how speakers convey motion events when the constraints imposed by the experimental task are at odds with the constraints imposed by their native language. We address this question by comparing adult speakers’ description of motion scenes that involve the traversal of a spatial boundary in two typologically distinct languages: English and Turkish. Using an experimental paradigm that imposes competing demands with the semantic structure of Turkish, we compare Turkish speakers’ description of boundary-crossing scenes to that of English speakers. We find strong cross-linguistic differences in speakers’ verb choice (manner vs. path) and event segmentation (one vs. many), suggesting that boundary-crossing constraint can serve as a reliable test to detect the typological class of a language. Languages show variation in terms of not only what aspects of the experience to encode but also the linguistic means with which to encode each of these aspects (Sapir, 1921; Slobin, 1996). The distinctions that one language makes may not be available in another language; alternatively, the distinctions may be available in the other language but may not be expressed with the same linguistic forms. For example, to convey a baby’s crawling motion into a room, English speakers typically use a prepositional phrase to indicate the direction of motion, along with a main verb that expresses manner information (The baby crawled into the room). In Turkish, one has to encode the direction of motion in the main verb (gir, “enter”) and use a subordinate clause for manner information (Bebek odaya sürünerek girdi, “baby room-to crawling entered”). In Russian, the preferred pattern is to use a manner verb with a directional prefix along with a prepositional phrase to convey the baby’s motion (rebyonok vpolz v komnatu, “baby into-crawl into © Cambridge University Press 2013 0142-7164/13 $15.00 Applied Psycholinguistics 2 Özçalışkan: Boundary-crossing events room”). As these examples suggest, languages differ widely in the way they map different semantic components of an event onto syntactic elements, and the mapping preferences are strongly influenced by the typology of the language one speaks (Slobin, 2004; Talmy, 1991). In this study, we focus on a specific type of motion event that imposes the tightest linguistic constraints in the expression of motion, namely, motion events that involve the crossing of a spatial boundary (e.g., dashing out of a house, flipping over a beam). We ask how speakers express spatial motion across boundaries under experimental constraints that are at odds with the linguistic constraints of their native language. EXPRESSION OF MANNER AND PATH IN MOTION DESCRIPTIONS Talmy (2000, p. 222), in his analysis of motion events, defines path of motion (i.e., directionality) as the core semantic component of a motion event and divides the world’s languages into two types based on the way they map the path component onto syntactic elements: verb-framed languages (V-language; e.g., Turkish) typically express path of motion in the main verb of a clause (in, “descend”), whereas satellite-framed languages (S-language; e.g., English) prefer to express path information in a satellite (particles or prefixes) associated with the main verb, leaving the verb free to encode manner (run down). Because V-language speakers typically use the main verb to express path information, they have to rely on either subordinate manner verbs (koşarak in, “descend running”) or adjunct manner expressions (aceleyle in, “descend in a hurry”) to convey manner of motion. Both of these options involve additional syntactic constituents and thus impose heavier processing demands, which in turn increases V-language speakers’ tendency to leave out manner information altogether from their descriptions (Slobin, 2003). However, Talmy’s typological dichotomy does not apply equally to the lexicalization of all motion events. In V-languages, speakers can use manner verbs as the main verb when expressing activity-type events such as running toward a house or strolling in the park. It is only in describing motion events that involve crossing of a spatial boundary (i.e., motion into/out of/over a bounded region or a threshold) that V-language speakers are required by their language to use a path verb to mark the change of location (enter, exit, or cross; Aske, 1989; Slobin & Hoiting, 1994). Thus, the true typological dichotomy is said to be restricted to motion events that highlight the moving figure’s traversal of a spatial boundary. However, there has been very little empirical research that systematically examined the effect of linguistic constraints imposed by language type on speakers’ expression of boundary-crossing events. Nonetheless, the few studies that did focus on such events showed strong evidence for the proposed typological differences: in describing manner-salient motion scenes involving boundary-crossing, S-language speakers (English) predominantly used manner verbs, while V-language speakers (Spanish) relied almost exclusively on path verbs (Gennari, Sloman, Malt, & Fitch, 2002; Naigles, Eisenberg, Kako, Highter, & McGraw, 1998). In these earlier studies, the typical form of elicitation was a “free description,” in which case the speakers had the option of not using a manner verb in their descriptions. Spanish speakers followed the lexical restrictions characteristic of their language and used path verbs instead of manner verbs. Nevertheless, Spanish Applied Psycholinguistics 3 Özçalışkan: Boundary-crossing events speakers were also able to attend to the manner component of the boundarycrossing events, at least to a certain extent, and occasionally marked it outside the verb by using adjunct manner expressions (e.g., exit rapidly; Naigles et al., 1998). These findings suggest that the linguistic requirement to use a path verb in V-languages in boundary-crossing contexts may force V-language speakers to express path of motion in the verb and leave out manner information altogether from their descriptions. In other words, for V-language speakers, manner may be a linguistically less salient aspect to encode than path when it comes to traversing a spatial boundary. One way to overcome the problem of inequality in the linguistic salience of manner is to observe V-language speakers’ linguistic behavior in a situation where manner is not only perceptually salient but also brought to the speakers’ immediate attention by providing them with manner verbs. Thus, we ask the following question: how will V-language speakers behave if we require them to use manner verbs to describe boundary-crossing events? In this study, we address this question by explicitly asking English (an Slanguage) and Turkish (a V-language) speakers to describe boundary-crossing events first in a free description and second by using particular manner verbs (e.g., run, crawl, dash). English and Turkish constitute prototypical exemplars of each language type (Özçalışkan & Slobin, 1999, 2003), providing a highly relevant language pair to compare the linguistic constraints imposed by boundary-crossing events within a typological framework. We have two predictions, one for the choice of verb types and the other for the extent of the descriptions used to express boundary-crossing events. For the choice of verb types, we predict that speakers in both languages, but especially Turkish speakers, will express manner at a greater rate when explicitly asked to use manner verbs, primarily because they no longer have the option of leaving out manner information from their descriptions. As such, Turkish speakers may opt to incorporate manner information into their descriptions in several possible ways. One possibility is that Turkish speakers may express manner and path in a relatively compact description, using path verbs with subordinate manner constructions as in (1). This is a strategy that has also been shown to be the preferred choice in describing non-boundary-crossing motion events with salient manner and path components in previous work, accounting for 94% of the motion descriptions produced by adult Turkish speakers (Allen et al., 2007). This also will be a strategy similar in its compactness to the one most likely to be preferred by English speakers, in which manner is expressed in the verb and path in a particle associated with the verb (e.g., he ran into the house). In other words, Turkish speakers have the option to express boundary-crossing events in a compact description, just like English speakers, but by using a different lexicalization pattern (enter running as opposed to run into). Another possibility is that Turkish speakers may rely on path verbs in expressing the actual instance of the boundary crossing itself without any subordinate manner expression but use manner verbs to indicate movement toward and/or away from the boundary itself as in (2); each Turkish example in the original language is followed by a morpheme-by-morpheme gloss and a free translation of the example into English throughout the text (see Appendix A for a list of abbreviations used in the morpheme-by-morpheme glossing). Applied Psycholinguistics 4 Özçalışkan: Boundary-crossing events (1) Eve koşarak/ hızla girdi. House-DAT run-CVB/ rapid-ADV enter-PST “He entered the house running/ rapidly.” (2) Eve dogru süründü, içeri girdi, ve sürünmeye devam etti. House-DAT towards crawl-PST, inside enter-PST, and crawl-NMLZ continue do-PST “He crawled toward the house, he entered, and continued crawling.” For the extent of the descriptions, we expect English speakers to express the manner and path components of a boundary-crossing event in a compact description (e.g., he crawled into the house), typically using a single clausal segment, when describing the scenes with or without the explicit instruction to use manner verbs. In contrast, we expect Turkish speakers to follow one of two possible paths: one possibility is that they would describe each scene in a compact description by using path verbs with subordinate manner expressions (1). This is a strategy similar in its extent to the one likely to be preferred by English speakers. An alternative, however, is that they might express the two components in an extended description, using multiple clausal segments, particularly in the plus-verb condition, where they were explicitly instructed to use manner verbs in their descriptions. In other words, they would express motion toward the boundary with a manner verb, then encode the traversal of the boundary with a path verb, and finally express motion away from the boundary with a manner verb as in (2). Overall, the study will show how Turkish speakers organize their linguistic resources in conveying boundary-crossing events when the experimental task places competing demands with the lexical constraints in the expression of boundarycrossing events in a V-language and show us whether the boundary-crossing constraint can serve as a true test of the typological split between Vand Slanguages.