Cover not available

In:Caused Accompanied Motion: Bringing and taking events in a cross-linguistic perspective
Edited by Anna Margetts, Sonja Riesberg and Birgit Hellwig
[Typological Studies in Language 134] 2022
► pp. 397–434

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload Book PDF
EPUB logo with download linkDownload Book EPUB
authorization required

Events of caused accompanied motion in Qaqet and Dëne Sųłıné child language corpora

 | Universität zu Köln
 | Universität Zürich
Published online: 25 May 2022
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.134.14hel
Abstract
This chapter investigates the expression of directed caused accompanied motion (directed CAM) events in child language corpora of Qaqet (a Papuan language of Papua New Guinea) and Dëne Sųłıné (a Dene language of Canada). Both languages employ complex CAM expressions. The chapter briefly introduces the constructions, and then focuses on the expression of directed CAM events in child language and child-directed language. In both languages, the CAM construction appears late in child language: early Qaqet expressions consist predominantly of ground phrase elements, while early Dëne Sųłıné expressions consist predominantly of bare verb stems. The findings are related to a proposal by Slobin et al. (2010) on early expressions of caused motion in satellite-framed languages.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Setting the scene: The directed CAM expressions in Qaqet and Dëne Sųłıné
  • 3.Directed CAM events
    • 3.1Qaqet
      • 3.1.1Intransitive motion verbs and their use in the CAM construction
      • 3.1.2The CAM construction in child language (below age 6;4)
      • 3.1.3Directed CAM expressions in early child language (below age 2;8)
      • 3.1.4Child-directed language: Variation sets
    • 3.2Dëne Sųłıné
      • 3.2.1Handling verbs and the directed CAM construction
      • 3.2.2Directed CAM expressions in child language
  • 4.Discussion and conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
References (24)
References
Ameka, F., & Essegbey, J. (2013). Serialising languages: Satellite-framed, verb-framed or neither. Ghana Journal of Linguistics, 2(1), 19–38.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bohnemeyer, J., Enfield, N. J., Essegbey, J., Ibarretxe-Antuñano, I., Kita, S., Lüpke, F., & Ameka, F. (2007). Principles of event representation in language: The case of motion events. Language, 83(3), 495–532. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cook, E.-D. (2004). A grammar of Dëne Sųłıné (Chipewyan). Winnipeg: Algonquian and Iroquoian Linguistics.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Croft, W. A., Barðdal, J., Hollmann, W. B., Sotirova, V., & Taoka, C. (2010). Revising Talmy’s typological classification of complex event constructions. In H. C. Boas (Ed.), Contrastive studies in construction grammar (pp. 201–235). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
ELAN (Version 5.0) [Computer software]. (2017). Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. Retrieved from [URL]
Frye, H. (2019). Child-directed speech in Qaqet: A language of East New Britain, Papua New Guinea (Doctoral dissertation). Universität zu Köln, Cologne.
Hellwig, B. (2019). A grammar of Qaqet. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kasyon, M. J. (1997). Dene (Chipewyan) language classification verbs. Prince Albert: Northern Canada Mission Distributors.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kopecka, A., & Narasimhan, B. (Eds.). (2012). Events of putting and taking: A crosslinguistic perspective. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Küntay, A., & Slobin, D. I. (1996). Listening to a Turkish mother: Some puzzles for acquisition. In D. I. Slobin, J. Gerhardt, A. Kyratzis, & J. Guo (Eds.), Social interaction, social context, and language: Essays in honor of Susan Ervin-Tripp (pp. 265–286). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2002). Putting interaction back into child language: Examples from Turkish. Psychology of Language and Communication, 6(1), 5–14.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Praat (Version 6.0.25) [Computer software]. (2017). P. Boersma & D. Weenin. Retrieved from [URL]
Rice, S. (1998). Giving and taking in Chipewyan: The semantics of THING-marking classificatory verbs. In J. Newman (Ed.), The linguistics of giving (pp. 97–134). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Slobin, D. I. (2004). The many ways to search for a frog: Linguistic typology and the expression of motion events. In S. Strömqvist & L. Verhoeven (Eds.), Relating events in narrative: Vol. 2. Typological and contextual perspectives (pp. 219–257). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2006). What makes manner of motion salient? Explorations in linguistic typology, discourse, and cognition. In M. Hickman & S. Robert (Eds.), Space in languages: Linguistic systems and cognitive categories (pp. 59–81). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Slobin, D. I., Bowerman, M., Brown, P., Eisenbeiß, S., & Narasimhan, B. (2010). Putting things in places: Developmental consequences of linguistic typology. In J. Bohnemeyer & E. Pederson (Eds.), Event representation in language and cognition (pp. 134–165). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Talmy, L. (1985). Lexicalization patterns: Semantic structure in lexical forms. In T. Shopen (Ed.), Language typology and syntactic description: Vol. 3. Grammatical categories and the lexicon (pp. 57–149). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(1991). Path to realization: A typology of event conflation. Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, 17(1), 480–519. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2000). Toward a cognitive semantics. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2009). Main verb properties and equipollent framing. In J. Guo, E. Lieven, N. Budwig, S. Ervin-Tripp, K. Nakamura, & Ş. Özçalışkan (Eds.), Crosslinguistic approaches to the psychology of language: Research in the tradition of Dan Isaac Slobin (pp. 389–402). Hove: Psychology Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2016). Properties of main verbs. Cognitive Semantics, 2(2), 133–136. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Toolbox (Version 1.6.2) [Computer software]. (2017). SIL International. Retrieved from [URL]
Young, R. W., Morgan Sr., W., & Midgette, S. (1992). Analytical lexicon of Navajo. Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zlatev, J., & Yangklang, P. (2004). A third way to travel: The place of Thai in motion-event typology. In S. Strömqvist & L. Verhoeven (Eds.), Relating events in narrative: Vol 2. Typological and contextual perspectives (pp. 159–190). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (1)

Cited by one other publication

Wegdell, Franziska, Caroline Fryns, Johanna Schick, Lara Nellissen, Marion Laporte, Martin Surbeck, Maria A. van Noordwijk, Shelly Masi, Birgit Hellwig, Erik P. Willems, Klaus Zuberbühler, Carel P. van Schaik, Sabine Stoll & Simon W. Townsend
2025. The evolution of infant-directed communication: Comparing vocal input across all great apes. Science Advances 11:26 DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 7 december 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue