A Contrastive Study on Motion Events: Encoding Manner and Path Information in English and Turkish

Year 2022, Issue: 1, 9 - 22, 21.02.2022

Pelin Önal

Abstract

Leonard Talmy’s typology divides languages into two categories; satellite-framed and verb-framed
languages. This paper, by focusing on the typological tendencies of the languages, examines English (s-framed
language) and Turkish (v-framed language) motion verbs. The analysis is divided into four main questions which
focus on the typology, manner encoding, and function of adverbs. Data, comprised of 360 motion verbs from ten
novels in total, is analysed quantitatively to find an answer to the research questions. The results show that
English and Turkish behave accordingly within the typology. However, the most significant finding is that
Turkish can encode Manner information as much as English despite previous claims through alternative
mediums, subordinated motion verbs, and adverbial expressions while employing the former more frequently.

Keywords

Typology, Motion Events, Manner, Path, S-framed, V-framed

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