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Article published In: Review of Cognitive Linguistics
Vol. 18:2 (2020) ► pp.316–349

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Boundary-crossing events across languages

A study on English speakers, Spanish speakers and second language learners

 | University of Vigo
Published online: 4 December 2020
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https://doi.org/10.1075/rcl.00062.alo
Abstract
This study analyses how speakers of two typologically distinct first languages (English (N = 12) and Spanish (N = 16)) and a group of 19 Spanish second language learners of English express boundary-crossing events, what type of verb they use, and how they segment these motion events. The stimuli used were 12 pictures of boundary-crossing events indicating motion into, out of and over a bounded space. In task 1 participants described each of the 12 scenes freely and in task 2 they were provided with a specific Manner verb between brackets. Significant differences were found in boundary-crossing and event segmentation in both L1 and L2. Participants also differed significantly in the type of verb used in the two tasks.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Motion events across languages
  • 3.Boundary-crossing across languages
  • 4.Methodology
    • 4.1Participants
    • 4.2Stimuli and procedures
  • 5.Results
    • 5.1Type of verb
    • 5.2Boundary-crossing
    • 5.3Event segmentation
    • 5.4Type and token analyses
  • 6.Discussion
    • 6.1Verb types
    • 6.2Type of boundary-crossing
    • 6.3Event segmentation
    • 6.4Type/token analysis
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
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