Early language-specificity in Turkish children's caused motion expressions in speech and gesture

Abstract

Caused motion events (e.g. a boy pulls a box into a room) are basic events where an agent (the boy) performs an Action (pull) that causes a Figure (box) to move in a spatial Relation or Path (into) to a Goal (the room). Languages differ in the way these semantic elements are mapped onto lexical and syntactic structures (Talmy, 2000). For instance, satellite-framed languages such as English encode Action in the verb (e.g. put in (1)) and express Relation (Path) in the satellite (e.g. into in (1)). Thus, these languages use verbs that are semantically general to express caused motion events. In contrast, speakers of verb-framed languages such as Turkish can encode both Action and Relation in the verb and also exercise the option of using semantically specific verbs to do so (e.g. sok- ‘put in, insert’ in (2)).