Skordos Dimitrios, Papafragou Anna
Department of Linguistics and Cognitive Science, University of Delaware.
Department of Psychology, University of Delaware.
Dev Psychol. 2014 Jul;50(7):1985-98. doi: 10.1037/a0036970. Epub 2014 May 26.
We report a study that explored the mechanisms used in hypothesizing meanings for novel motion predicates (verbs and prepositions) cross-linguistically. Motion stimuli were presented to English- and Greek-speaking adults and preschoolers accompanied by (a) a novel intransitive verb, (b) a novel transitive verb, (c) a novel transitive preposition, or (d) no novel predicate. Our study provides evidence that both language-specific (lexical) and universal (syntactic and semantic-geometric) factors shape the acquisition of motion predicates cross-linguistically. Lexical biases lead to distinct interpretations (more or less manner- vs. path-oriented) for novel intransitive verbs in English and Greek; however, syntactic (transitivity) cues overcome lexical biases and lead to uniformly path interpretations for novel transitive verbs in both languages. Syntactic (transitivity) cues also lead to path interpretations of novel motion prepositions. Finally, semantic-geometric constraints lead learners in both languages to assume that path interpretations abstract away from visual details of the motion path.
我们报告了一项研究，该研究跨语言探索了为新的运动谓词（动词和介词）假设意义时所使用的机制。向说英语和希腊语的成年人及学龄前儿童呈现运动刺激，并伴随以下情况：(a) 一个新的不及物动词，(b) 一个新的及物动词，(c) 一个新的及物介词，或 (d) 没有新的谓词。我们的研究提供了证据，表明特定语言（词汇）和通用（句法和语义几何）因素在跨语言层面塑造了运动谓词的习得。词汇偏向导致英语和希腊语中对新不及物动词有不同的解释（或多或少偏向方式与偏向路径）；然而，句法（及物性）线索克服了词汇偏向，并导致两种语言中对新及物动词都统一为路径解释。句法（及物性）线索也导致对新运动介词的路径解释。最后，语义几何约束使两种语言的学习者都认为路径解释会从运动路径的视觉细节中抽象出来。
