Montero-Melis Guillermo
Department of Linguistics, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden.
Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, Netherlands.
Front Psychol. 2021 Mar 30;12:625153. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.625153. eCollection 2021.
Syntactic templates serve as schemas, allowing speakers to describe complex events in a systematic fashion. Motion events have long served as a prime example of how different languages favor different syntactic frames, in turn biasing their speakers toward different event conceptualizations. However, there is also variability in how motion events are syntactically framed within languages. Here, we measure the consistency in event encoding in two languages, Spanish and Swedish. We test a dominant account in the literature, namely that variability within a language can be explained by specific properties of the events. This event-properties account predicts that descriptions of one and the same event should be consistent within a language, even in languages where there is overall variability in the use of syntactic frames. Spanish and Swedish speakers ( = 84) described 32 caused motion events. While the most frequent syntactic framing in each language was as expected based on typology (Spanish: verb-framed, Swedish: satellite-framed, cf. Talmy, 2000), Swedish descriptions were substantially more consistent than Spanish descriptions. Swedish speakers almost invariably encoded all events with a single syntactic frame and systematically conveyed manner of motion. Spanish descriptions, in contrast, varied much more regarding syntactic framing and expression of manner. Crucially, variability in Spanish descriptions was not mainly a function of differences between events, as predicted by the event-properties account. Rather, Spanish variability in syntactic framing was driven by speaker biases. A similar picture arose for whether Spanish descriptions expressed manner information or not: Even after accounting for the effect of syntactic choice, a large portion of the variance in Spanish manner encoding remained attributable to differences among speakers. The results show that consistency in motion event encoding starkly differs across languages: Some languages (like Swedish) bias their speakers toward a particular linguistic event schema much more than others (like Spanish). Implications of these findings are discussed with respect to the typology of event framing, theories on the relationship between language and thought, and speech planning. In addition, the tools employed here to quantify variability can be applied to other domains of language.
句法模板充当着模式，使说话者能够以系统的方式描述复杂事件。运动事件长期以来一直是一个主要例子，说明不同语言倾向于不同的句法框架，进而使说这些语言的人倾向于不同的事件概念化方式。然而，在一种语言中，运动事件的句法框架也存在变异性。在此，我们测量了西班牙语和瑞典语这两种语言在事件编码方面的一致性。我们检验了文献中的一种主流观点，即一种语言内部的变异性可以通过事件的特定属性来解释。这种事件属性观点预测，即使在句法框架使用存在总体变异性的语言中，对同一事件的描述在一种语言内部也应该是一致的。说西班牙语和瑞典语的人（N = 84）描述了32个致使运动事件。虽然每种语言中最常见的句法框架正如基于类型学所预期的那样（西班牙语：动词框架型，瑞典语：卫星框架型，参见塔尔米，2000），但瑞典语的描述比西班牙语的描述要一致得多。说瑞典语的人几乎总是用单一的句法框架对所有事件进行编码，并系统地传达运动方式。相比之下，西班牙语的描述在句法框架和运动方式的表达上变化要大得多。至关重要的是，西班牙语描述中的变异性并非主要如事件属性观点所预测的那样是事件之间差异造成的。相反，西班牙语在句法框架上的变异性是由说话者的偏好驱动的。对于西班牙语描述是否表达运动方式信息，也出现了类似的情况：即使在考虑了句法选择的影响之后，西班牙语运动方式编码中很大一部分方差仍然可归因于说话者之间的差异。结果表明，运动事件编码的一致性在不同语言之间存在显著差异：一些语言（如瑞典语）比其他语言（如西班牙语）更能使说这些语言的人倾向于特定的语言事件模式。我们从事件框架类型学、语言与思维关系理论以及言语规划等方面讨论了这些发现的意义。此外，这里用于量化变异性的工具可以应用于语言的其他领域。
