In press: In: Dimitrova-Vulchanova, M - NTNU

In press: In: Dimitrova-Vulchanova, M. & E. van der Zee (eds.) Motion encoding in Language, Oxford: OUP.
Motion Naming in Three Satellite-framed Languages: an exploratory study 1
Mila Dimitrova-Vulchanova, Liliana Martinez, Ole Edsberg & Thomas Brox Røst
The Norwegian University of Science & Technology, Trondheim
Abstract
In this paper we report the results of an exploratory study whose main purpose was to test how native
speakers in satellite-framed languages categorize and name scenes of biological motion. Our study
demonstrated that speakers of English, Norwegian and Bulgarian use what we here define as basiclevel
motion verbs, such as walk, run, crawl and climb for the naming of a wide range of biological
motion stimuli rather than more concrete and specific manner verbs or more general verbs, like go or
move. Furthermore, our study provided experimental support for the basic features we propose on
theoretical grounds for the decomposition and semantic representation of motion verbs crosslinguistically.
The current study has also provided important insights and adjustments to the original
typology in terms of satellite-framed vs. verb-framed languages proposed by Talmy (1985, 2000). In
the paper we address the results and discuss the implications for future studies of biological motion
and its encoding across languages.
0. Introduction
It is a well-established fact that languages exhibit a variation in the mapping of conceptual
categories to lexical items and grammatical categories, respectively referred to as
lexicalization and grammaticalization (cf. the seminal work by Talmy 1985, 2000, also Slobin
2001, Clark 2001, among others). Various proposals have been put forward to explain the
nature and consequences of this mapping, all focusing on the issue of universality of
conceptual categories and the likelihood of their lexicalization/grammaticalization crosslinguistically.
Among potentially universal categories, the notions of (biological) motion and
path feature prominently.
This paper reports the results of a pilot study of how motion scenes are encoded in three
satellite-framed languages. The languages under investigation are Bulgarian (a Slavic Balkan
Sprachbund language), English and Norwegian (both of them Germanic languages). The
focus is on open-class forms, more specifically – verb roots, and on lexicalization patterns.
The experimental set-up included a free naming task for basic biological motion scenes
featuring running, walking, crawling and climbing. The purpose of the experiment was to map
out the basic lexical inventory available to speakers when naming a range of biological
motion situations and to check for variation in naming preferences when the motion scenes
differed on selected parameters.
1 Research conducted under Nordic Research Council NOS-H Grant # 10088.
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1. Background
An important characteristic of language is that it imposes structure on the ‘reality’ it
represents (Jackendoff 1996, Talmy 1985, 2000) by selecting for expression only specific
concepts and features. As a consequence, the linguistic expression of spatial scenes, including
motion, is constrained by a schema consisting of a closed class of elements like Motion, Path,
Figure and Ground. Motion-event typology focuses on how these elements are encoded crosslinguistically.
One of the most widely applied formats recently is Talmy’s (1985, 2000),
which approaches motion encoding in language from two perspectives, that of linguistic form,
and that of semantic content. In terms of linguistic form, the verb is viewed as the main
lexical item encoding the motion event. Languages differ as to what elements of the motion
situation they choose to bundle into their most frequently occurring basic motion verbs.
According to these preferences, languages can be divided into several types, the most
common being path-type languages and manner-type languages. From the perspective of
semantic content and its interface with syntax, languages can be divided into two types,
according to how they express the path of motion. In the so-called verb-framed languages
(e.g. Spanish, Turkish, and Japanese), path is encoded in the verb in the main clause (enter,
exit, ascend, etc.), while manner is specified most commonly in a subordinate clause. In
satellite-framed languages path is encoded in ‘satellites’ (e.g. adpositions in Germanic
languages and verb prefixes in Slavic languages) which accompany the verb. Manner in such
languages is encoded in the main verb of the clause, and typically those languages have a
large number of commonly occurring manner of motion verbs. Although Talmy’s
classification is useful and captures important insights in motion encoding, the rigidity of the
system has engendered much debate. Many recent studies (e.g. Strömqvist & Verhoeven
2004, Ameka & Essegbey 2000) have demonstrated that the data are more complex. Slobin
(2004) argues that the preferential encoding of path vs. manner in verb roots is not a matter of
belonging to one of two poles, but rather a cline along which manner salience can vary.
Furthermore, there appears to be at least one more distinct type of language, where manner
and path are expressed by equivalent semantic forms (e.g. verbs in serial-verb languages, cf.
Ameka & Essegbey 2000, Zlatev & Yangklang 2004, among others).
Typological research and Language Acquisition research (cf. Slobin 2001) indicate that
the most frequent verbs of motion cross-linguistically and the ones that tend to be acquired
early on in the process of language acquisition are generalized items denoting default motion
scenes (e.g. scenes which are underspecified for global or local path shape, or parameters,
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such as figure orientation). Commonly these are the equivalents of come, go, move across
languages. In adult language use general motion verbs continue to be the most frequently used
to denote motion scenes generally, and are supplanted by more specific manner verbs only in
cases where the manner of motion itself is at issue (Strömqvist & Verhoeven 2004).
Quite often manner of motion verbs have been treated as pure manner verbs, and not as
motion verbs per se. This line of reasoning has followed the assumption that such verbs
denote an activity which usually accompanies motion, but do not encode motion as such. This
claim, however, cannot be universally substantiated by the data. Thus, cross-linguistically we
find “manner” verbs (e.g. Bulgarian katerja se, Norwegian klatre – ‘climb/clamber’, German
kletteren, Bulgarian turkaljam se, Italian rotollare – ‘roll’) which uncontroversially include
both a Manner and a Path element (cf. also Weisgerber, this volume for a similar proposal). In
addition, recent research in cognitive interfaces and the cross-linguistic encoding of motion
(cf. Nikanne & van der Zee 2005, this volume, Dimitrova-Vulchanova 2004a, 2004b) has
demonstrated that both Path and Manner are too crude to account for the linguistic evidence,
and, as such, lead to controversial representations and accounts. The notion of Path, for
instance, subsumes parameters as diverse as spatial grids and frames of reference, Regions
and Grounds (van der Zee and Nikanne 2000, van der Zee and Slack 2003). Also, the
encoding of path in languages has been shown to vary in the way a motion event is
segmented, and different path elements may be related to Grounds/ Landmarks and the
regions defined by them (Slobin 2004). Path shape has also been shown to be an important
factor which can be encoded cross-linguistically with different degrees of granularity
(Nikanne 2004, Nikanne & van der Zee 2005). In the proposal in van der Zee (2000), and
Nikanne & van der Zee (this volume), a verb like zig-zag encodes a local path shape
specification, as each path segment of the zig-zag scene involves a change in figure
orientation and thereby path orientation at a certain (sharp) angle. Observe that quite often
these verbs have been labelled ‘manner’ verbs, while specifying exclusively features of the
path.
In a similar fashion, the notion of Manner can be felicitously decomposed into a number
of independent parameters pertaining to various aspects of the motion scene, e.g. (change in)
figure orientation or curvature (wriggle, shake), rate of displacement (speed) (e.g. the contrast
between run and sprint), psychological state of the figure (e.g. English strut, the Luganda
verb gubagguba – ‘trudge for a long distance with a sad event ahead’, Ndiwalana 2003).
Thus, neither Path nor Manner can be viewed as primitives in the theory. At best, they are
useful ‘short-hands’ for a range of independent and well-defined features.
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Particularly interesting with respect to the encoding of these features are what we here
label ‘verbs of biological motion’. The term ‘biological motion’ denotes the patterns of body
and limb motion which animate creatures employ to achieve translational motion. Biological
motion differs from non-biological motion in several ways (however, see Bejan & Marden
2006 for a unified perspective on all motion). Its recognition and expression in language is of
paramount cognitive and social importance to human beings (Mandler 1996, Troje 2002). It is
by definition self-agentive and involves the cyclic iteration of events of greater complexity
(the cycles/patterns of internal motion of the body and limbs), the function of which is to
cause translational motion (Dimitrova-Vulchanova 1996/99).
A viable hypothesis of the factors that play a role in biological motion categorization
can draw on evidence from research in visual perception. As it turns out, the human
mechanisms of biological motion recognition are extremely robust. Biological motion can be
recognized from strongly impoverished stimuli, for example when the moving figure is
reduced to a point-light display (classical experiment in Johansson 1973, Giese 2004a, b).
Furthermore, motion categorization is learning-based, perspective-dependent and selective
(ibid). Giese & Poggio (2003) argue that the robustness of motion categorization resides in
two neural pathways, each of them representing motion in a specific way: A form-pathway
recognizes biological motion as a sequence of ‘snapshots’ of the figure in motion, and a
motion-pathway recognizes biological motion as a sequence of optic flow patterns. While
human action perception seems to tolerate substantial variation in form features (Giese 2004
a, b), motion patterns seem to be specific to particular types of actions, which explains why
biological motion can be recognized only through the motion pathway and in the absence of
form information (e.g. in point-light displays). This theory of motion recognition enables us to
hypothesize which criteria will be relevant in the categorization and linguistic encoding of
biological motion. Criteria related to the form-pathway of recognition are body shape and
proportions (e.g. bulky vs. slim body, short vs. long legs), characteristic use of limbs (e.g.
biped vs. quadruped; the isolated movements of the limbs) and, by extension, also species e.g.
human vs. non-human). The series of ‘snapshots’ in a particular temporal order is what we
will call the cycle of a particular type of biological motion. Relevant factors, related to the
motion pathway of recognition will be characteristic speed, path (the presence vs. absence of
translational motion), basic path shape (underspecified vs. globally specified, cf. Nikanne &
van der Zee 2005, Dimitrova-Vulchanova 2004a, b). The view dependence of motion
recognition will predict that factors like figure orientation (e.g. front forwards vs. front
backwards, head up vs. head down), relative vector orientation (towards vs. away from vs.
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left-to-right vs. right-to-left) will play a part also in categorization, and possibly in
lexicalization (cf. Jellema et al. 2002 for a bias for left-to-right human walking recognition in
the macaque, also Dimitrova-Vulchanova & van der Zee, in preparation).
2. Objectives
From the brief discussion above, it has become clear that Manner and Path are pre-theoretical
terms, useful in the description of major lexicalization strategies (e.g. the path / manner
contrast). Detailed typological and conceptual structure research, however, ought to resort to a
more refined system taking into account the different parameters that define these notions.
With this in mind, we conducted an exploratory study which had three main goals. The first
goal was to zoom in into the features comprising “manner” and to empirically test the validity
of the parameters proposed in van der Zee (2000), Nikanne (2004), Nikanne & van der Zee
(2005) and Dimitrova-Vulchanova (2004a, b), and to check whether there is variation in
naming preferences when the scenes vary on different parameters. Our second objective was
to find whether there is evidence of the presence of a translational component (the feature
[+Path]) in the conceptual structure of common manner verbs, such as run, walk, crawl and
climb (cf. Berman & Slobin 1994, Jackendoff 2002b, Dimitrova-Vulchanova 2003, 2004a, b).
The third objective was to check whether in the description of motion scenes native speakers
of the target languages would resort to motion verbs we define as basic-level in these
languages (e.g., walk, run, crawl, climb) or to the super-ordinate general motion verbs (e.g.,
go, come, move), or would perhaps use more concrete and detailed manner verbs (e.g., gallop,
scurry, jog, lope and the like).
3. The Verbs
All three languages in the current study (English, Norwegian and Bulgarian) fall in Talmy’s
satellite-framed category. Typically, they conflate translational motion with manner and
express the path in such contexts through satellites or prepositional phrases, as shown in the
examples in (1a-c). However, all three languages also have a dedicated category of verbs
encoding pure translational (non-conflated) motion. Within the latter category, two major
types can be distinguished. On the one hand, we have verbs that denote bounded motion (e.g.
the boundary-crossing constraint of verb-framed languages), as in (1d) parallel to the Spanish
example in (1e), and, on the other, verbs that do not encode any path specification (i.e. they
lexicalize ‘pure translational motion’), as in English move, Norwegian bevege seg and
Bulgarian dviza se (both meaning ‘move’) in the examples in (1f-h).
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(1) a. The bird flew out of the window
(main verb specifying Manner) (path satellite)
(English)
b. Fuglen fløy ut
bird-the flew
out
(main verb specifying Manner) (path satellite)
(Norwegian)
c. Pticata izletia prez prozoreca
bird-the pref.-flew out window-the
(main verb letja specifying Manner, plus a directional prefix iz-, specifying Path)
(Bulgarian)
d. Momcheto izleze ot kustata lazeiki
boy-the pref.-went out house-the crawling
(main verb expressing path - ‘exited’) (manner participle – ‘crawling’)
“The boy exited the house crawling”
(Bulgarian)
e. El pajaro salió volando.
(main verb specifying Path) (subordinated clause specifying manner)
“The bird exited flying”
(Spanish)
f. The dot moves. (English)
g. Prikken beveger seg. (Norwegian)
h. Točkata se dviži. (Bulgarian)
Since in all three languages, both verbs conflating manner and translational motion and
verbs encoding pure translational motion can be felicitously employed given the appropriate
context, a secondary goal in our pilot study was to check to what extent speakers of these
languages would resort to the conflation verbs and to what extent the more general pure
translational motion verbs would be used in the naming of motion scenes. In other words, we
set out to check to what extent the three languages would behave as satellite-framed following
the standard classification, and to what extent they will employ strategies claimed to belong in
the verb-framed languages.
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With respect to terrestrial biological motion, at least four basic types of biological
motion can be distinguished: walking, running, crawling, and climbing. The WALK type
covers supported gaits usually involving ‘normal’ to slow speed. The RUN type applies to
quick suspended motion. The CRAWL type defines slow supported motion, with the body
near and/ or parallel to the ground. The CLIMB type covers motion in both directions along a
vertical axis. Languages tend to have at least one lexical item encoding each basic type, but
this is not necessarily so. For instance, the Asante dialect of Akan (a West African serial verb
language) does not have verbs corresponding to e.g. run or fly (cf. Apraku 2005, Dimitrova-
Vulchanova & Martinez, in preparation), and Ewe has only one lexical item, dzò for hop,
jump and fly (cf. Agbelengor 2007). Also, some languages may display more than one verb
for the same basic motion type (e.g. Bulgarian. tičam - ‘run1’ vs. bjagam –‘run2’) with no
clear-cut distinction at first sight. 2 We address the Bulgarian data in 3.1 below.
In the lexicons of English, Bulgarian, and Norwegian there are verbs of biological
motion corresponding to all four basic types (cf. e.g., Rosch et al. 1976 for objects, and Zacks
& Tversky 2001 for events, among others). In addition, all three languages have more
concrete verbs (e.g. English strut, pace, Norwegian spasere –‘take a walk’, Bulgarian
razxozdam se – ‘take a walk’). This is not surprising for two reasons. Firstly, these are the
main modes of terrestrial locomotion typical of humans commonly observed in the world
around us. Secondly, all three languages belong to the same language family. Given this fact
we set out to investigate how speakers of these languages would use motion verbs in their
descriptions of motion scenes.
Here we will concentrate only on the following verbs in the domain of biological
terrestrial motion. 3
• For the walking type: English walk, Norwegian gå and Bulgarian hodja/ vurvja
• For the running type: English run, Norwegian løpe and Bulgarian tičam / bjagam
• For the crawling type: English crawl, Norwegian krabbe/ krype and Bulgarian
pulzja/ lazja
2 In Bulgarian the use of two verbs is generally motivated diachronically, as Old Bulgarian would have the socalled
aspectual verb pairs, with one verb denoting the general scene (e.g. the specific motion pattern), and the
other denoting the goal-oriented, bounded (telic) event. Such pairs are still found in Modern Russian (cf. Foote
1967), e.g. xodit` (roughly corresponding to walk) vs. idti (go), and to a limited extent in Modern Bulgarian, e.g.
xodja (walk, imperf.) vs. otivam (go, perf.). However, it would be premature to attribute this situation to a
‘specific’ Slavic property, as German displays a similar situation (cf. e.g., Weisgerber, this volume for a
discussion).
3 For English, the main source was Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, but Merriam-Webster Online,
Oxford Dictionary online, Encarta Dictionary for English were also consulted for a counter-check. For
Bulgarian, the dictionary used was Andreichin (2004), and for Norwegian, the online versions of ‘The Bokmål
Dictionary’ and ‘The Nynorsk Dictionary’.
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• For the climbing type: English climb, Norwegian klatre and Bulgarian katerja se,
slizam
We predict that these verbs are basic-level verbs in the sense of Rosch (1973), thus being used
more often than more abstract or more specific verbs in the description of events in that
domain. In this section we briefly introduce the linguistic facts for each language, discussing
data relevant for our basic hypotheses in the exploratory study.
3.1 The Bulgarian verb pairs
The Modern Bulgarian verbs for walking, running, and crawling deserve somewhat special
attention. As is widely assumed, language does not tolerate redundancy in the lexicon. True
synonyms are rarely attested cross-linguistically (Lyons 1977, among others). Now, a quick
look up in standard mono-lingual Bulgarian dictionaries reveals very similar, if not
overlapping, definitions. Quite often, one of the verbs is used to explain the meaning of the
other. There is indeed some complementarity in the use of the respective verbs, xodja / vurvja
(walk1/walk2), tičam / bjagam (run1/run2) and pulzja / lazja (crawl1/crawl2), and native
speakers experience problems in explaining the potential difference between the two verbs in
the pair 4 . Furthermore, it has not been attested in research whether they agree on how to use
those verbs, either. One way to approach this issue is to look for differences on the level of
language as a system revealed in patterns of occurrence and collocational restrictions, and in
restrictions on the mapping of conceptual and semantic information to syntax. Another
approach, empirical in nature, can simply test how native speakers use the items in question.
We briefly sketch the differences observed at the level of grammar.
One distinction are constraints as regards use in certain idiomatic expressions. Thus, of
the two walk verbs, only xodja (walk1) occurs in fixed collocations, such as xodja na-PP
(attend), as shown in (2a) below. In contrast, only vurvja (walk2) can be used in the context of
Imperatives, most likely because Imperatives are usually associated with a bounded event, i.e.
a directed motion situation. An example is given in (2a’) below featuring the two directed
motion verbs vurvja (walk2)/otivam (go) vs. the ungrammatical xodja (walk1).
Likewise, in aspectual processes involving reference to walking/running situations, only
one of the two verbs (verb2) can give rise to an aspectually completed bounded event. This
process is characterized by promotion of the prepositional phrase (PP) that expresses the path
to direct object accompanied by aspectual prefixation on the verb. In such cases, more often
4 As revealed in random elicitation queries in the preparation of the experiment.
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than not, the aspectual prefix is a copy of the original preposition that heads the PP (cf.
Dimitrova-Vulchanova 1998, 1999, and Guentcheva 2002, 2006 for an analysis and
discussion). Consider the examples in (2b-b’, c-c’) below.
(2) a. xodja na kino/uciliste/rabota
Go to (the) cinema/school/work
a’. Vurvi/otivaj/*xodi na rabota
walk2/go/*walk1 to work
b. vurvja/xodja [ PP po putja]
walk on the road
b’. Ivan iz-vurvja/*-xodi [ NP celija put]
I. asp.pref.-walked the whole road
c. bjagam/ticam do kustata
run to the house
c’. Ivan pro-bjaga/*- tiča razstojanieto
I. perf.pref.-ran the distance
In both pairs in (2b-b’) and (2c-c’) the contrast is between the possibility of promoting the
prepositional phrase, po putja (on the road) and do kustata (to the house), respectively in the
case of vurvja (walk2) and bjagam (run2), but not xodja (walk1) and tičam (run1). The PPpromotion
construction in Bulgarian is similar, but not identical to the English walk NP (as in
walk the corridors, sail the seas) construction, whereby the interpretation in the case of
English is that of [+affected] for the direct object. The path PP-promotion pattern is an
important test providing evidence of the underlying semantics of the verbs at hand in the
sense of whether they encode directed traversal of the ground, or not.
Furthermore, primarily xodja (walk1), but not vurvja (walk2) can be used in the derivation
of new lexical items combining with semi-lexical/semi-aspectual prefixes to produce new
verbs of motion further specifying various aspects of ‘manner’. Thus pro-xodja means to start
walking (toddle), raz-xodja (stroll, Norwegian spasere), za-xodja ((the sun) set down). Based
in our current research (cf. Dimitrova-Vulchanova & Martinez, forthcoming) we propose that
the two Bulgarian verbs in each pair, while both encoding traversal, differ in the presence of
the feature [+directed motion]. Thus, xodja (walk1) encodes /low pace/ biological traversal
motion, while vurvja (walk2) lexicalizes directed traversal motion. This find is coherent with
an assumption that self-propelling based in force accumulation and discharge naturally leads
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to transition in space (cf. the analysis in Dimitrova-Vulchanova 1996/99, 1999). In the study
we set out to check whether the picture in this outline is supported by native speaker
responses.
3.2 Verbs of running
The main verbs denoting running are English (run), Bulgarian (tičam, bjagam), and
Norwegian (løpe, springe). They encode roughly the same meaning, which has been
described by dictionary definitions in all three languages as ‘move fast by propelling oneself
with quick and abrupt motions of the legs from the ground’. The two run-verbs in Bulgarian
have more or less the same status with respect to register, however they display the [+/-
directed motion] distinction discussed above. In contrast, in Norwegian, there is a distinction
of register. The verb løpe belongs to the formal Bokmål variety, while springe is more
informal, and is typical of particular dialects where it is employed consistently instead of løpe.
Some examples are given in (5) below.
(5) a. We had to run to catch up with him (English, Cambridge Learner’s Dictionary)
b. Byaga za zdrave (Bulgarian)
“He runs/ is running for health/ recreation”
c. Detsata tičat… po polyanata. (Bulgarian, Andreichin 2004)
“The children are running on the meadow”
d. Jeg løp og løp (Norwegian)
”I ran and ran”
e. Han selv ikke ønsket å springe omkring i skogen … (Norwegian)
”He himself did not want to run around in the forest”
In addition to the meaning of biological motion, the verbs run, løpe, springe and bjagam
(run2), but not tičam (run1) have the meaning of ‘flee, move away (by running) when in
danger or being chased’.
The English verb run, and the Norwegian verb løpe also have extended meanings along
the lines of ‘move quickly’, ‘function’, ‘develop in time’, which are by far more widely used
than the biological motion meanings, as revealed in a search in the ICAME corpora collection
which yielded only hits for non-metaphorical run.
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3.3 Verbs of walking
The most central verbs encoding walking are English walk, Norwegian gå, and Bulgarian
xodja (walk1), vurvja (walk2), as illustrated in (6) below. All of them have the meaning of
‘move forward by putting one foot in front of the other usually at a moderate pace’ 5 .
(6) a. Peter walks along the road. (English)
b. Petur vurvi/ xodi po putja. (Bulgarian)
c. Petter går langs veien. (Norwegian)
Observe that the dictionary definition of the walk verbs captures the [+traversal] feature
we proposed for verbs of biological motion in the discussion of Bulgarian. The Norwegian
verb gå is ambiguous between the manner meaning (=‘walk’) and a meaning of a general
motion along a path, with which it is predominantly used. Gå is also used with a variety of
abstract meanings of the type ‘happen’, ‘develop in time’.
3.4 Verbs of crawling
For the description of crawling scenes, English uses mainly the verb crawl, Bulgarian uses the
verbs pulzja (crawl1) and lazja (crawl2), and Norwegian, the verbs krabbe and krype.
Illustrations are given in (7) below.
(7) a. There's an ant crawling up your leg. (English)
b. For første gang så jeg henne krabbe fremover. (Norwegian, The Oslo Corpus)
”It was the first time I saw her crawling forwards”
c. En bille krøp over gulvet. (Norwegian)
“A beetle was crawling across the floor”
d. Zmiyata/ bebeto/ gusenitsata pulzi. (Bulgarian)
“The snake/ baby/ caterpillar is crawling”
e. Mravkata/ deteto lazi.
“The ant/ baby is crawling”
The verbs crawl (E), pulzja (Bg) and krype (N) mean: ‘move slowly in a prone position,
with the body along close to or touching the surface’ 6 . The use of limbs is not required. Lazja
5 As defined in Longman and Encarta Dictionary
6 Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary
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(Bg) and krabbe (N), however, apply only to scenes where limbs are used, in addition to the
specification for a ‘prone’ body position.
3.5 Verbs of climbing
For the description of biological motion along the vertical axis, and adhering to a vertical
objector surface, English uses the verb climb, and Norwegian the verb klatre. Both verbs can
be used to denote motion either up (8 a, b) or down, but in the latter case the direction is
usually specified overtly by a directional expression (8 d, e). Bulgarian splits the domain of
vertical biological motion into two, using the verb katerja se for upward motion (8c), and
slizam for downward motion (8f).
(8) a. The koala is climbing the tree (English)
b. Koalaen klatrer opp treet (Norwegian)
koala-the climbs up tree-the
c. Koalata se kateri (*nadolu) po durvoto (Bulgarian)
koala-the refl. climb (downwards) on tree-the
d. The sloth is climbing down the tree. (English)
e. Dovendyret klatrer ned/ nedover treet. (Norwegian)
Sloth-the climbs down1/ down2 tree-the
f. Lenivecat sliza ot durvoto. (Bulgarian)
sloth-the descends from tree-the
An interesting difference between English and Norwegian is that while English climb
encodes the upward direction by default, in Norwegian this has to be overtly specified, as
shown in (8a-b). In a similar way, in Bulgarian the upward direction is lexically encoded in
katerja se (climb) and need not be overtly expressed at all, as confirmed by the example in
(8c) above. In the latter, the PP realizes a location, not a direction, as revealed by its English
gloss, ‘on the tree’. Further confirmation of the inherent specification for upward direction
comes from the ungrammaticality of an adverbial for downward direction (nadolu,
downwards) in the context of katerja se (climb). While klatre, katerja se and slizam are
usually restricted to biological motion and require a characteristic use of limbs and clinging to
a vertical or steep surface, climb can be used with the more general meaning of ‘go up, move
upwards’, very similar to German steigen (cf. Weisgerber, this volume). This use of climb is
not considered here, as none of the scenes in the experiment show non-biological notion.
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3.6 Features in the representation of motion verbs
Here we propose a finer-grained feature analysis for the representation of biological motion
based in parameters independently argued to apply in the identification and categorization of
motion scenes (cf. Giese & Poggio 2003, Shipley 2003, van der Zee 2000, Nikanne & van der
Zee 2004, this volume, Dimitrova-Vulchanova 2004a,b, Matlock & Richardson 2004,
Dimitrova-Vulchanova & van der Zee, in preparation, among others).
• Type of biological motion (e.g., terrestrial vs. aqua vs. air)
• Species (human vs. non-human)
• Characteristic use of limbs (bi-ped vs. quadro-ped vs. centi-pede)
• Characteristic speed (fast vs. normal vs. slow)
• Figure orientation (front-forwards vs. front-backwards vs. head-up vs. head-down)
• Figure posture (erect vs. supine/lower than usual)
• Path (presence vs. absence of translational motion)
o Vector orientation (horizontal: towards vs. away from vs. left-to-right vs.
right-to-left; vertical: up vs. down)
o Path shape (underspecified vs. global specified vs. local specified)
• Psychological state of the figure
The above features can be represented in terms of a typed structure with a variation in
the values set for each type. Thus, an instance of [terrestrial/ human/ bi-pedal/ supine/ slow/
translational/ underspecified-path-shape] motion would be crawl. Most of the above types
have default values and quite often are hierarchically related in terms of
entailment/inheritance. For instance, human terrestrial motion is by default bi-pedal, head-up.
Likewise, some features will not be relevant for the categorization, and respectively,
representation of certain motion types. Thus, for the aqua type, the use of limbs does not play
any role whatsoever, humans swim with arms and legs, fish swim with fins, etc. Rather, the
type of contact with the surface and whether motion is self-propelled are important, e.g., swim
vs. float (cf. Geuder & Weisgerber 2006, Lander et al., this volume). Thus, the main thrust of
our analysis is that all of the above types can in theory combine on all of their values, thus
potentially yielding a host of possible motion scenes, as confirmed by what is observed in the
external world, and in the naming patterns reported in our experiment below. An interesting
research question in this respect is whether all theoretically possible combinations are
13

encoded linguistically across languages. Our current work suggests that languages rather
choose to encode certain (proto-)typical combinations of features that correspond to higher
perceptual salience and experiential frequency of the motion scene at hand. We refer to this as
the default setting of parameters. Thus, cross-linguistically we expect these feature
combinations to cluster systematically, giving rise to lexical items in the respective (motion)
lexicon. For the naming of less prototypical or non-default situations, speakers are expected to
resort to items already existing in the lexicon, a strategy we refer to as re-cycling (cf. Dekova
& Dimitrova-Vulchanova 2006). Thus, a chimp moving on all fours (i.e., knuckle-walking),
which is the default for the species, will be nevertheless characterised by walk, if slow or run,
if fast, apparently picking on the head-up horizontal nature of the motion or, alternatively
ignoring hand-contact. The above features can be represented along the attribute-value graph
format proposed in Dimitrova-Vulchanova (2004a,b) in (9) below. 7
Fig. 1
Monodevelopment
Element: Moverj
Orientation of Moverj:
+/- rotation
front-forwards/front-backwards
Psychological state of Moverj
Phasing: multi-point
Medium: Location
Path
Fixed parameters:
Vector orientation:
Horizontal (left-to-right/right-to-left/towards/away from)
Vertical (upward/downward)
Shape: (straight/curved/circular)
Specifiable parameters:
Path origin
Path end
Contiguous to: x2
Path length
Path-temporal function: path length
tn
The basic types in the representation include the figure in motion under the label of Mover,
the medium with respect to which the change takes place, in the case of motion this is a
7 All unidirectional processes of change, including motion are subsumed by the category Monodevelopment
following the Sign Model framework (cf. Dimitrova-Vulchanova 1996/99, Dimitrova-Vulchanova & Hellan
1995, Dimitrova-Vulchanova & Hellan 2000, Dekova 2006)
14

change of location, and whether the situation at hand is defined by multi-points (is a process)
or by one/two-points (is punctual). The location includes specifications and attributes of the
path defined as fixed parameters (those that are necessarily encoded in the meaning of the
verb), and specifiable parameters (those that can be overtly referred to, and can take any value
without causing contradiction with the original meaning of the verb). A separate path attribute
is the path-temporal function which refers to the velocity of movement. There are also
attributes of the Mover, the most important of which is its orientation in the movement. Also
included in the representation is the possibility of certain verbs to specify for a psychological
state of the mover (e.g., in Luganda (cf. Ndiwalana 2005), quite often verbs encode this
feature).
The current format is based in findings in current research of the perception and
identification of biological motion (Johansson 1973, Giese 2004a, b, Jellema et al. 2002). It
allows for highly detailed, while at the same time, naturally constrained representations (i.e.
the array of features is limited) without resorting to descriptive loose notions, such as e.g.,
manner. Such a format is also more coherent with the physical properties of translational
motion in naturally including features of the figure in motion or the path or the path-temporal
function (speed), and recognizing their salience in the recognition and categorization of
motion scenes, rather than “degrading” them to concomitant, but not motion proper
parameters.
3.7 Hypotheses
On the basis of the general motion encoding properties of the target verbs in the three target
languages, our hypothesis is that the speakers of these three languages will use the verbs of
biological motion, rather than pure path verbs, or more abstract verbs when describing scenes
of biological motion. We expect this choice because the basic-level categories are
informationally richer than the superordinate (0-level on Nikanne & van der Zee’s 2004
classification) ones, as they encode translational motion ([+ Path]), in addition to other
specifications of the path or figure in motion (e.g., path shape, figure orientation, specific use
of limbs etc.). Furthermore, the target verbs, which are basic-level verbs describing terrestrial
gaits, will be preferred to their more specific/concrete verbs (e.g., strut, gallop, lope), because
of the level of encoding they represent, revealed, among other things in looking at the
linguistic data in terms of patterns of occurrence.
With respect to the categorization and lexicalization of biological motion, our prediction
is that non-default scenes of biological motion will elicit a less uniform response across verb
15

types, since such scenes are more difficult to categorize, and thus, more difficult to name than
scenes with default setting of the parameters (cf. e.g. the study by Pavlova et al 2001,
Thornton & Vuong 2004, among others). A default motion scene, such as e.g., walking,
would feature a figure moving head-up horizontally left-to-right forward (cf. Giese & Poggio
2003, Shipley 2003, among others). We return to default settings in the discussion in section
5. below.
In regard of the distribution of the target verbs across answers, we predict that the
responses for Bulgarian will display the two-way split found in the lexicon, e.g. answers will
feature the two verbs in the pair, verb1 and verb2. The distribution of these verbs will vary
according to whether the context does or does not activate the feature [+directed motion] that
the verbs in the pair do not share. Norwegian gå is expected to be used more frequently across
all scenes compared to the walking verbs in English and Bulgarian, due to its general motion
sense equivalent to English go (i.e. also for scenes which do not depict walking).
4. Experimental design
4.1 Material, method and participants
The purpose of this experiment was to compare how some instances of biological motion are
described by native speakers of Bulgarian, English, and Norwegian. For each of the three
languages, the participants performed a free naming task: they watched a sequence of scenes
on a computer screen and were asked to name the action they saw in each clip and to rate their
level of confidence on a scale from 1 (lowest) to 7 (highest) for each response. 8
46 stimuli were selected from documentaries or made by the experimenters with the aim
to provide a range of biological motion scenes observable in nature or everyday life featuring
intransitive actions performed by animate beings (humans, non-human primates, other
animals). 17 out of the 46 scenes were distractors. The target clips, showed five full cycles of
the action, or, for slower actions, a time interval of approximately 5 seconds. The scenes were
shown in a stratified random order, to ensure that scenes that were similar were not presented
close to each other. There were both typical and less typical to marginal examples of the
target biological motion. The scenes covered variations with respect to cycle structure and/or
body configuration (crawl on all fours, crawl on one’s stomach, bipedal walk, quadrupedal
walk, bipedal run, quadrupedal run, quadrupedal trot), species (human, ape, bird, cat, dog,
etc.), age differences among the actors (baby vs. adult), speed (slow vs. normal vs. fast),
8 However, to the extent that some subjects had used an inverted scale (especially in the responses for
Bulgarian), we did not process the level of confidence results statistically.
16

translation vs. non-translation (regular running vs. running on the spot or running on a
treadmill), vector orientation (horizontal: forwards vs. backwards vs. to the left/ right,
vertical: up vs. down), figure orientation (front forwards, front backwards), shape of path
(straight, circular), substrate (ground vs. branch vs. leaf, smooth vs. grassy surface). The
stimuli were pre-screened and judged for prototypicality by 5 adult speakers for each
language. Based in the judgements from the pre-test screening, we selected 29 target scenes
(cf. Appendix 1), divided into 9 walking scenes, 9 running scenes, 8 crawling scenes, and 3
climbing up/ down scenes.
The participants were adult native speakers of the respective language: 16 for Bulgarian,
16 for Norwegian, and 12 for English. They were randomly selected for age and sex. Each of
the participants completed the experiment separately, in the presence of staff conducting the
experiment.
4.2 The procedure
Subjects viewed the clips in a single session, with a brief break in between each two blocks of
trials. They received detailed instructions from staff conducting the experiment before the
start of each session, and also on screen before each block of trials. They were advised to
provide the first word/description that came to mind and allowed to work at their own pace.
Each image froze after the showing time expired and could not be played back for reference.
Subjects were then prompted to enter their responses in a text box that appeared under the
image. Below the text box there was a digit box for selecting the value for level of
confidence. After filling in this box subjects could proceed to the next clip.
4.3 Design
The scenes presented in the experiment were not matched on parameters like settings,
physiological characteristics of the agents, viewing angle, etc. We wanted to elicit preliminary
responses to as many different instances of the actions as possible, and include not only
humans but other species as well. For this purpose, we had to use natural settings and
deliberately ignore the context uniformity requirement. As the experiment was planned as an
exploratory study for a sequence of further experiments on the encoding of biological motion,
its purpose was not to check systematically for all of the above factors, but to give general
indications of their role and potential significance in motion categorization and naming, and
thus help to direct the attention to specific features for further research. We are aware that the
results should be interpreted accordingly. Thus, the current study has provided a good starting
17

point for further research in the area, generating concrete direct experimental developments
(cf. Dimitrova-Vulchanova & van der Zee, in preparation), as well as work on setting up a
cross-linguistic typology of expressions of biological motion (cf. Dimitrova-Vulchanova &
Dąbrowska, in progress).
4.4 Results
As predicted, in all three languages, the participants preferred to use the basic-level motion
verbs to describe the target scenes, even though the lexicons of all three languages display a
rich inventory of motion words. Thus, clearly our study points towards a distinction between,
on the one hand, properties of the lexicon (in terms of whether it encodes a concept or not),
and naming strategies, on the other, similar to Slobin’s (1996) habitual attention/language use
tendencies. In the responses for all languages, the verbs that are the focus of study were more
frequent than other more abstract or more specific (gait) verbs, thus showing that these verbs
are basic-level verbs (in the sense of Rosch 1973). Most of the respective motion scenes
elicited clear responses that fall into groups, according to verb use and in correspondence to
the scene type viewed (e.g. run verbs for running, walk verbs for walking, etc.). A small
number of scenes failed to classify as either (cf. discussion below).
As predicted, English and Norwegian opt for one basic term per biological motion type,
except for the split in Norwegian in the domain of crawling (see fig.2). General (non basiclevel)
motion verbs were used very rarely in all three languages, and only in connection with
scenes with non-default parameter settings.
18

Fig. 2 Overall frequencies of the target verbs in English
22,13
20,98
21,55
17,53
8,33
5,46
0,57 0,86
2,59
run walk crawl climb general motion more specific
biological
motion
intrinsic motion tandem non-motion
Fig. 3 Overall frequencies of the target verbs in Norwegian
24,78
23,92
14,22
9,27
9,91
8,19
5,60
3,66
0,43
gå løpe/springe krabbe krype klatre general motion more specific
biological
motion
intrinsic motion
non-motion
19

Fig. 4 Overall frequencies of the target verbs in Bulgarian
15,95
14,87
11,64
9,48
9,91
8,84
10,34
4,53
5,60
5,17
1,51
0,86
1,29
vurvja hodja ticham bjagam pulzja lazja katerja se slizam general
motion
more
specific
biological
motion
intrinsic
motion
tandem
motion
nonmotion
The histograms in Fig. 2-4 show the scoring of lexical items across all output in target
scenes for each language. As expected, the cumulative percentage of target verbs across all
scenes considerably exceeds the percentage of both general (non basic-level) motion verbs as
well as the percentage of other (more specific) gait or path-shape verbs. Thus, there is a close
match across the three languages with a total of 68,97% of target verbs for English, 73,49%
for Norwegian and 68,75% for Bulgarian.
A possible confound concerning this result is that basic level motion verbs are generally
phonologically shorter than the more concrete (manner) verbs (cf. e.g., walk vs. meander),
and subjects might have resorted to these responses for brevity. However, this is counterevidenced
by our data. As a matter of fact, many responses did contain rather detailed
descriptions, including prepositional phrases, manner phrases etc. An interesting observation
concerns the use of general motion verbs in Norwegian at a mere 0,43%. Most likely, this
result confirms our prediction that gå which covers both go and walk pre-empts the need to
use other lexical items above the basic-level category. In addition, in responses for all three
languages we find verbs describing not the type of motion in the scene, but rather its purpose
(e.g. play, plan/intend to take a bath). This finding is highly coherent with ideas put forward
in Tomasello (2001) and Zacks & Tversky (2004) that human categorization is highly
susceptible to the teleology of events, and that humans attend from very early on to agents’
intentions and goals. Furthermore, recent research in infant cognition based in eye-tracking
20

has demonstrated that infants as young as 12 months can predict other people’s action goals
(cf. Falck-Ytter, Gredebäck & von Hofsten 2006).
The category of “other motion verbs” in the histograms in figures 2, 3 and 4 include
non-target motion verbs encoding a more specific gait pattern (e.g., strut, step, lollop) or
verbs encoding path-shape, such as circle, Bulgarian obikaljam (go round) or verbs denoting
tandem motion (e.g., chase) and the like.
4.4.1 Running scenes
The use of running verbs in all three languages and across all 29 scenes was limited only to 9
out of the 29 target scenes, which were defined as running scenes based on the pre-screen
results. As predicted, the use of target verbs in Bulgarian was divided between the two target
verbs, while English and Norwegian (with the exception of one case mentioned below) used
only one verb. The frequency of each Bulgarian verb alone was much smaller, compared to
that of the single main running verb in English or Norwegian, but the combined frequency of
the two verbs is similar to that of the single verbs in the other two languages.
Both Bulgarian run-verbs appear in the description of each running scene, but there is a
preference for ticham (run1) over bjagam (run2). The only scene that stands apart from this
pattern is the one of a chimpanzee disappearing rapidly into a wood, moving away from the
camera. Most likely, in this scene, subjects have focused on the ‘directed motion’ feature of
the scene, with the chimpanzee appearing as running away from danger. Also, Bulgarian
showed a clear difference from English and Norwegian in the naming of the scene of a dog
running round a tree. In this case Bulgarian subjects used also verbs encoding path-shape (e.g.
obikaljam –‘go round’), or figure rotation (vurtja se – ‘spin around’) at 18,75%, in addition to
(basic-level) biological motion verbs at 47,5%. In English, run is the main verb used for all
running scenes in 83,33% of the cases. Although a variety of other verbs of running were used
in the naming of these scenes, their frequency in comparison with run was negligible (8,33%).
In Norwegian, løpe was the main verb used to describe running scenes. Two of the
participants used consistently another verb (springe) instead of løpe, stating that the verb løpe
did not exist in their dialect of Norwegian. Some of the other participants reported hesitation
between løpe and springe, but used løpe in the end. 9 This shows that springe and løpe may be
viewed as a synonymous pair, similar to the Bulgarian pairs of motion verbs in this study,
however with the distinction found not in the lexicon of the language, but rather in
9 This was confirmed in a brief interview after the experiment.
21

individual/sub-system (dialectal) lexicons. As a result, in the study we have treated
løpe/springe as individual variants of the same verb.
Another interesting observation is that, in Norwegian, for two scenes (the man running
on the spot, the dog on a treadmill), the more specific manner of motion verb jogge (‘jog’)
was used (for the man running on the spot in 68,75% of the cases even surpassing the
frequency of løpe at 31,25%). There are two things which might have caused this deviation:
the running is done in a slower, steady pace, and it could be straightforwardly interpreted as a
recreational activity, in which case Norwegian employs a verb borrowed from English,
namely jogge.
The scenes of a man running on the spot and a dog running on a treadmill stand apart
also in another way due to the absence of translational motion. Except for jogge, this did not
cause a preference for a different verb, but resulted in the addition of adverbial phrases with
the meaning ‘on the spot’/ ‘on a treadmill’ for all three languages. We discuss this finding in
section 5. below.
4.4.2 Walking scenes
Although walking verbs were used throughout all scenes, the main bulk applied to the
nine walking scenes, with occasional use for other scenes, mainly the ones in the ‘grey zone’
between walking and crawling 10 . The difference between the number of walking verbs used
in walking scenes and the number used across all scenes was minimal (with Bulgarian walk1
used at 85,71% and walk2 at 87,84%, Norwegian gå at 87,83% and English walk at 93,15%),
showing that the target verbs indeed encode the basic-level concept of low-to-normal pace
space traversal. Again, both Bulgarian verbs co-occurred in the naming of each scene but one
of them, hodja (walk1), was the preferred one. Across all languages the scenes of humans
walking elicited the highest target verb scores, supporting ideas about a fundamental
difference between the identification of human motion and motion performed by other species
(cf. Thornton & Vuong 2004, Pavlova et al. 2001 for adult categorization, Shipley 2003).
The answers elicited by a scene of a woman walking backwards, did not show a
difference in target verb use, but target verbs were always accompanied by satellites/
adverbial phrases. In Bulgarian also a path verb meaning ‘regress’ occurred once.
In four scenes there were lower frequencies of the target verbs for some or all of the target
languages. The scene of monkeys walking around a tree elicited a significant use of target
10 These included a tortoise walking very slowly and a beetle crawling/walking on a twig.
22

verbs only in Norwegian. In Bulgarian the target verbs were totally absent, but the answers
contained verbs encoding path-shape (at a total of 43,75 % for that scene) or figure rotation
(12,5%). In English, both target verbs and path-shape verbs were used (the latter at 41,67 %
for that scene).
Two other walking scenes – that of a crocodile, and that of a long-legged bird – elicited
few target verbs. We assume that the relevant factor for these two scenes was the atypical
movements of the body or head that accompanied the gait. This triggered the use of more
specific manner of motion verbs (included in Fig. 2-4 as ‘other motion verbs’), like English
strut, waddle, Norwegian sprade (‘strut’), vagge (‘sway’), Bulgarian razhozdam se
(‘promenade’), kracha (‘pace’). In Norwegian also the factor of substrate showed to be
important in one scene – that of a chameleon walking along a tree branch: For this scene, the
most frequently occurring Norwegian verb was balansere (‘balance’) at 37,5 % . Another
interesting result was that in Norwegian the verb gå was used at 50% also for a scene showing
a beetle, which the other two languages predominantly described as an instance of crawling.
4.4.3 Crawling scenes
Generally, the three languages exhibited much more variation in the naming of crawling
scenes compared to the two types already discussed. All the expected crawl verbs were used
in the context of scenes of crawling. The image of a human crawling on all fours elicited
systematic crawl verb responses, in the case of Norwegian a 100% of all responses for that
scene yielded krabbe. In Bulgarian, both pulzja (crawl1) and lazja (crawl2) were used in the
naming of the images of humans crawling. However, across all scenes, as expected, the verb
pulzia (crawl1) had a much higher frequency than lazia, because of the underspecification for
[+ directed motion]. Also being more general (and underspecified) of the two, pulzia was the
only verb used to name scenes of limbless locomotion (snakes), and the one predominantly
used where the body of the agent has contact with the surface. Both verbs were almost equally
acceptable in scenes based in a clear limb cycle (with species that had limbs).
The two snake scenes showed the greatest variation and differences across the three
languages in terms of choice of verb. Only in Bulgarian, they were characterized
overwhelmingly by target verbs. In English the verb predominantly used for the snake moving
in a ‘default’ way (technically called ‘lateral undulation’) was slither, with clear emphasis on
the friction between the body and the substrate. In Norwegian the same scene and the scene of
the man crawling on his belly were predominantly characterized by verbs denoting the
23

winding body- and, consequently, path-shape (åle seg – ‘move like an eel’). Also non-humans
(beetles, tortoises) elicited non-coherent responses in terms of target verbs.
Norwegian stands apart from the other two languages in the classification of crawling
scenes. The verb krabbe seems to be restricted to humans and is applied exclusively to human
locomotion, with a non-significant use for other legged creatures (a tortoise), but not for
insects. For locomotion scenes of legged creatures, several verbs were used (krype – ‘creep’,
kravle ≈ ‘crawl’) but none of them was given significant preference.
4.4.4 Climbing scenes
The three climbing scenes elicited the target verbs for English and Norwegian, while for
Bulgarian this applied primarily to the climbing up scene. As mentioned previously, English
and Norwegian use only one verb to cover motion both up and down, confirmed by
preferences in our experiment, while Bulgarian uses two different verbs, one for each vector
orientation. Bulgarian results differ from those of the other two languages in that other verbs
were used as well: kachvam se –‘go up’ used at 31.25% and spuskam se –‘go down’ at 25%
of verbs used for climb scenes (both verbs can be classified as ‘pure-path’ [+directed motion]
verbs).
The scene of a koala climbing a tree scored highest for target verbs in English and
Norwegian, while the scene of a koala climbing a tree in small hops scored highest for the
Bulgarian verb katerja se. The scene of a koala climbing a tree in small hops scored lower in
English, where in 25% of the cases the subjects chose hopping as the main activity in the
scene’ (compared to 12,5% in Norwegian and none in Bulgarian). As expected, in the
climbing down scene, there was a difference between the three languages. For Bulgarian, both
[+directed motion] verbs and the basic-level motion verb specific to climbing down were
used. In English and Norwegian, though the target verbs were used consistently, the naming
commonly included prepositional phrases and satellites, such as Norwegian nedover/ English
down.
4.5 Cluster analysis
In order to check the results obtained through the percentage distribution of verbs across
scene types in responses we conducted a cluster analysis and calculated Simpson’s diversity
index (D), essentially following the idea in Majid et al.(2007), however employing a different
linkage method. Cluster analyses have proved to be very reliable in revealing patterns of
grouping in collections of objects, and thus potential similarity (cf. e.g., the seminal work by
24

Tversky 1977), and are specifically appropriate in the field of matching perceptual stimuli
(action scenes) to lexical items to reveal patterns of lexical preference, as shown in a recent
cross-linguistic experiment (cf. Majid et al. 2007). In the analysis we matched languagestimulus-response
to check the degree of similarity across motion scenes as revealed in verbs
used in the responses. The main aim was to check whether patterns in naming reflected any
commonality in the stimuli on the general assumption that the stimuli were analysable in
terms of features of the motion scene displayed. Thus, the general idea was that the pattern of
clustering of motion scenes according to verbs used would provide evidence for the
conceptual features that underlie the respective lexical choice for each language, and,
respectively, across the three languages. The method we used in our analysis was hierarchical
agglomerative clustering with average linkage. We employed a multiset distance measure
formally defined in Appendix 3.
The clustering of data according to the multiset distance appears to reflect the data in the
current study somewhat more accurately than the average linking of the Jaccard distance 11 , as
indicated by the higher Cophenetic Correlation Coefficients (CPCCs) for the clusterings with
the multiset distance (respectively C= 0.991 for English, 0.986 for Norwegian and 0.966 for
Bulgarian, compared to C=0.876, 0.894 and 0.916 for the Jaccard analysis for the same
languages). 12 We reason that this is due to the fact that the multiset distance measure also
takes into account the frequency of occurrence, which we believe is more appropriate in
handling experimental linguistic data reflecting language usage. 13 For the sake of comparison,
however, we also applied a Jaccard distance measure to the data.
The cluster analysis generally confirmed the results obtained in the percentage
(histogram) analysis. For all three languages, the more similar the stimuli were in terms of the
basic features adopted in our analysis, the closer clustering was obtained in terms of verbs
used. Thus the clustering confirmed the features we had preliminarily selected for the
conceptual analysis of verbs of biological motion briefly introduced in 3.5 above. An
interesting, but not unexpected result was that Bulgarian displayed a much lower average
Simpson’s index (D) than English or Norwegian (0.39 vs. 0.56 and 0.62) meaning that the
11 The Jaccard measure is based in a binary vector for each stimulus (1 or 0) whereby a single occurrence of a
verb is sufficient for a similarity result. Thus the Jaccard measure will produce a 100% similarity between the
two sets {walk, walk, walk, walk, run} and {walk, run, run, run, run} despite the difference in verb frequency. In
the study in Majid et al. (2007) a Jaccard measure was employed, apparently producing reliable results in view
of the small populations/sets the study handled.
12 Majid et al. (2007) also used average linkage for the clustering.
13 Thus from the same two sets {walk, walk, walk, walk, run} and {walk, run, run, run, run}, with set
intersection {walk, run} and union {walk, walk, walk, walk, run, run, run, run} the multiset measure yields a
similarity of 2/8 = 0.25.
25

former has higher diversity in the motion lexicon. This result is highly coherent with the data
and observations at the outset, namely the two-verb split for each motion scene. An inspection
of the two plots revealed another interesting general result worth mentioning. While the
multiset–based cluster analysis provides a grouping based on core similarities across stimuli
and scene types, the Jaccard-based analysis, provides grouping based on similarity regarding
marginal features, a fact which may be useful in planning future research and obtaining
subtler results. We address the more detailed results in the discussion in section 5. below (cf.
also Dimitrova-Vulchanova, Matínez, Edsberg & Eshuis, in preparation). The dendrograms
for each language are enclosed in the Appendix.
5. Discussion
5.1 General comments
Our basic results confirm that English and Norwegian have one basic term per motion scene
(modulo the crawl verbs in Norwegian), and confirm the two-way split for each motion scene
in Bulgarian. The target verbs in all three languages were used for the naming of basic motion
scenes involving humans, with canonical figure orientation (front forwards), vector
orientation (left-to-right or towards), and underspecified (straight path shape) performed at
characteristic rate. Most scenes featuring a variation from the default on one or more of these
conditions produced an increase in the range of lexical items preferred across subjects. Below
we discuss the most salient findings. We first consider the selection of factors that have
influenced responses for a particular scene type and for particular lexical items.
5.2 Factors
5.2.1 Biological factors – cycle, body and limb structure, species
The most distinctive feature of at least three of the four types of targeted biological motion
(running, walking and crawling), was their cycle – the number of limb movements, and the
pattern of limb movement - the way the Agent moves its limbs and body, in order to achieve
translational motion. In this respect, two factors were of utmost importance: suspended vs.
supported motion (i.e. running vs. walking/ crawling), and erect posture vs. ‘supine’/ ‘lower
than usual’ posture (i.e. walking vs. crawling).
Our prediction that the naming of the target scenes would consistently reflect the value
of the parameter supported vs. suspended was borne out. All scenes with suspended motion
were overwhelmingly identified with verbs of running in all three languages. In addition, the
cluster analysis revealed a major split between the clustering of suspended (running) scenes
26

and respectively the verbs naming them and the supported motion scenes and verbs (e.g.
walking and crawling). Further support for the relevance of the feature supported vs.
suspended comes from the cluster analysis which clearly displays a greater semantic closeness
between crawl and climb seen in how these verbs cluster on a jaccard similarity plot in
English and Bulgarian. Apparently, the common denominator here is supported motion in
both cases, usually referred to as ‘clambering’ in the context of climb.
For the two types of supported biological motion, walking and crawling, a further
dividing factor may prove to be posture. While in walking, the default value is erect posture,
or at least erect limbs and some distance between the torso and the ground, in crawling the
default is ‘supine’ posture, non-erect limbs, and nearness or contact with the ground. These
features are clearly present, and respectively influence, the naming of walking vs. crawling of
humans. In other cases, however, it is unclear what the difference between ‘erect’ and
‘supine’ means, as the species in question have only one posture available. This was
demonstrated in the naming of the scenes of a beetle, and a tortoise, responses to which varied
on the walking – crawling continuum. Likewise, for images of quadrupeds moving at a
moderate pace (e.g., a koala, a tiger and a chimp) the most common verb employed was walk
across all three languages, despite the non-erect posture. Most likely, in this case the decisive
feature is ‘head-up’, probably levelling the otherwise observable distinction between figure
posture and figure orientation.
Special patterns of locomotion can elicit more concrete verbs. For instance, for the scene
of a crocodile walking towards water, some English and Norwegian participants chose to
stress the sideways swaying motion of the body by using the verbs waddle (Eng)/ vagge (No).
In the scene of a long-legged bird walking, English and Norwegian participants preferred the
verbs strut (Eng)/ sprade (No) to the target verbs, because of the specific mode the bird
carried its head and shoulders. In Bulgarian, some participants put an emphasis on the
separate steps, by using the verb kracha (‘stride’).
An interesting observation was the difference across the three target languages in the
focus on features encoded in the respective verbs used. This was particularly salient in the
scenes of snake locomotion, where one and the same motion event was lexicalized differently
in each language, selecting different features. In English, the most salient feature was the
friction occurring between the body and the ground (expressed in the verb slither). In contrast,
in Norwegian the most salient feature was the sideways undulation of the body (expressed by
the verb åle seg – ‘move like an eel’), the latter apparently a ‘metaphor’ for path shape
specification. In Bulgarian both of these features were ignored, and the scene was lumped
27

together with the other cases of ‘supine’ locomotion. This however, does not mean that each
respective language lacks the means to express the features selected by the other two. All
three languages have verbs covering each of the three features (English crawl, wind;
Norwegian krype, skli – ‘slide’; Bulgarian izvivam se – ‘wind’, pluzgam se –‘slither/slide’),
but they are not habitually applied to the situation in question.
A biological factor which proved to be important was species, though it did not have
equal weight in all cases. Thus, for Norwegian krabbe, ‘species’ is a crucial feature,
overriding cycle or posture, with the verb used exclusively for humans, and with high
uniformity of naming for the human crawling scenes. An interesting question is to what extent
motion categorization is driven by features (e.g., shape, size) of the object moving or by the
pattern of movement, similar to the influence of object features on object categorization (cf.
Madoley & Smith 2005). We are currently investigating this option in a controlled experiment
(cf. Coventry et al., in progress).
The domains of walking and crawling generally showed to be ‘anthropocentric’, with
the clips of human locomotion scoring highest in the use of target verbs. The variation and
uncertainty in the naming of motion by non-human species, such as insects and reptiles, can
be attributed exactly to this anthropocentric emphasis at the core of lexical items denoting
walking and crawling, clearly supporting the view in Shipley (2003, current research). If
distinctions such as ‘erect’ and ‘supine’ are not relevant for the species, the choice between
existing verbs will be difficult. At the same time, it will be difficult to use any other verb, as
our whole lexicon is generally anthropocentric, reflecting the perception and categorization of
human locomotion, which prove to be easier, if the one categorizing and naming also has
relevant experience in planning and executing the same locomotion patterns (cf. Shipley
2003, Pavalova et al. 2001, among others). Also, since categorization is a learning-based
process (Giese & Poggio 2003, Giese 2004), it will be natural for a particular type of
biological motion to be most commonly associated with the species that exhibit it most often
in our experience (for the clustering of naturally co-occurring features in categorization, cf.
Rosch 1976).
5.2.2 Velocity and substrate
A factor directly related to the cycle of biological motion is velocity. This is theoretically
supported by the Froude equation, where speed, alongside gravity and limb length, is one of
the three main parameters that influence gait pattern and gait-transition (cf. Alexander 1989,
1996). It has been discovered that the transition from supported to suspended gaits happens
28

across species at particular Froude numbers, which means that, generally, supported
locomotion will correspond to a lower velocity, while suspended motion corresponds to
higher velocity. Thus, velocity is a major factor distinguishing walking from running, with
even greater variation across gait-types in quadrupeds (e.g. walk vs. amble, trot vs. pace,
canter vs. gallop). Our experiment was not explicitly designed to check for the role of
velocity, as we used scenes shot in natural surroundings which were not subject to any
manipulation 14 . There are some indications, however, that each of the three main gait types:
walking, running and crawling has its ‘default’ velocity: high for running, low for crawling
and normal-to-low, for walking. In some verbs of biological motion, velocity is more salient
than in others, even to the degree that all other meaning components of these verbs can be
factored out in extended uses where the verbs denote purely speed. Thus, English run and
Bulgarian ticham/ bjagam are often used to indicate high velocity and ease of motion, rather
than a specific suspended cycle (9a, b). English crawl, Bulgarian pulzja/ lazja, and Norwegian
krype (but never krabbe), on the other hand, are used to denote slow and laborious motion (9
c, d, e).
(9)a. She ran over to the shop to get some sugar (English)
b. Tja iztiča do magazina za da kupi zahar (Bulgarian)
c. Traffic crawls along at 10 miles an hour. 15 (English)
d. Kolata pulzeshe edvam-edvam (Bulgarian)
“The car was barely crawling”
e. Lastebilen krøp oppover stigningen / Temperaturen krøp oppover (Norwegian)
”The truck was creeping up the slope” / “The temperature was creeping up”
In addition, the dendrograms in the cluster analysis revealed a basic split between
lexical items naming high speed scenes (e.g. run) vs. all others (e.g. walk and crawl) the latter
both performed at a normal-to-low speed. These results confirm independently the salience of
velocity in the identification and naming of basic-level biological motion, with a clear split in
the lexicon between items for fast motion vs. items for slow or normal, clearly making motion
at high velocity the non-default feature in the pair.
Some of the data in our experiment also suggest that, when not overtly modified, the
target verbs refer to a particular speed range, while divergence from the default is usually
14 Except for one clip which was generated backwards.
15 Example from Merriam Webster Online.
29

specified explicitly through modification. The responses elicited by one of our target scenes (a
tiger walking slowly) in all three languages displayed a high degree of modification with
adverbial phrases spelling out the unusually slow velocity of the action.
5.2.3 Presence vs. absence of translation
The presence of a translational component could not be checked across all types of motion in
our set up. There were only two scenes explicitly targeting this parameter, a man running on
the spot and a dog running on a treadmill, where the translational motion parameter was
removed. Prior to the experiment we hypothesized that the concept of run is a kind of dot
object concept (cf. Pustejovsky 1995, and Jackendoff 2002), deriving its conceptual structure
as inherited from two main types, biological motion (a manner verb) and translational motion
(a path verb), as indicated in (10). 16
(10) [biological motion ● translational motion]
Thus, English run can be used with both notions feeding the mapping to syntax and
interpretation demonstrated in the examples in (11) below.
(11) a. John ran.
b. The motor was running.
c. The river runs parallel to the road.
The example in (11a) is ambiguous between the traversal motion interpretation and the
pure “manner” basic-level biological motion interpretation, especially in the absence of overt
path specification. In the example in (11b), however, in an extended use of run, the
translational motion component has been factored out, thus expressing only the complex
pattern of movement, in this case roughly meaning “work/be in action”. In contrast, in (11c)
we witness an instance of the “manner” component being removed, with a focus on the
traversal component, in this case meaning “extends”. In terms of the system put forward most
recently in Jackendoff (2002), this would be an instance of the EXT (extension) function
represented formally as EXT (x, Path) which includes a path and applies to non-temporal
expressions. If metaphorical extensions based in run can feature both components
16 This is also recognized in Berman & Slobin (1994) for some “manner” verbs.
30

independently, there is sufficient ground to assume that both are originally present in the
conceptual structure of the verb. Otherwise it remains a mystery what the source of the
respective extensions in (11b-c) can be.
Our expectations regarding the two scenes where the path-traversal component in run
had been factored out, were that subjects could still felicitously apply a run verb in the
naming task. Our hypothesis was confirmed by the clusering in the dendrograms, whereby the
multiset average plot for both English and Bulgarian yielded a high similarity score for the
two stimuli (0,8 for Bulgarian and 0,65 for English) with both branching from the same node.
Likewise, for all three languages the jaccard plot displayed a high degree of similarity
between the two in-place scenes and the central run scenes (e.g., a woman running). It is
however worth noting that the translational interpretation is the default one when the target
run-verbs are used in their basic-level biological motion sense. Thus, in our experiment, while
the two non-translational run scenes elicited overwhelmingly target run verbs, most
commonly this was accompanied by modification through adverbial phrases explicitly
spelling out the absence of translation. We return to the connection between non-default
values and modification shortly below.
5.2.4 Axis and vector orientation
Verbs of climbing clearly instantiate a group of biological motion verbs where ‘Manner’
cannot be dissociated from Path. In Norwegian klatre, and Bulgarian katerja se/ slizam, both
the contact of the limbs with the vertical surface and the translation in space are necessary
features, without which no scene can be felicitously described as an instance of climbing. It is
language specific, however, to what degree these verbs specify for a vertical path. Both in
English and Norwegian the respective verbs encode motion along a vertical axis, but the
direction is not specified, it can be either up or down (cf. the analysis for German
steigen/klettern in Weisgerber, this volume). Still there is some evidence that motion upwards
is the default (it is the direction implicitly understood when the verbs appear unmodified),
while motion downwards is usually specified through modification with satellites or adverbial
phrases. This was clearly demonstrated in responses to the climbing down scene in the
experiment. In Bulgarian, each of the two climbing verbs is specified for a particular (vector)
orientation along the vertical axis.
Although the target verbs of walking, running and crawling appear to be underspecified
for axis of motion, motion along the horizontal axis seems the default. Thus, some of the
scenes where the surface was slightly inclined (the scene of a caterpillar, a snake, and a beetle
31

moving along an upward 15-20’ angle path) elicited satellites overtly expressing this nondefault
path orientation (English up, Norwegian opp, oppover), and in few cases triggered the
use of climbing verbs. These results are coherent with the representation for German and
English in Weisgerber (this volume) on which the path explcitly is specified for a difference
in height between the starting point and the goal, irrespective of which way the difference
goes (e.g., whether a positive or negative value). To the extent that a vertical path cannot vary
on the features for vector orientation left-to-right/right-to-left and away/towards (at least not
linguistically), in our representation in (9) above, we conflate the two factors.
5.2.5 Vector orientation and Figure orientation
Although the concepts of objects and actions that humans entertain have been considered by
some authors as three-dimensional, and view-independent (Jackendoff 1996), recent studies
have shown that objects, as well as events have privileged views, which are recognized most
easily. Recent studies (Giese 2004b) show that biological motion (especially walking) is best
recognized in a left-to-right view (as opposed to motion form right to left, towards the viewer
and away from the viewer). Our experiment was not explicitly designed to test the parameter
of vector orientation, but it displayed evidence in support of the ‘privileged’, default view
idea. Thus, two scenes representing motion away from the camera produced a large variation
in naming results. The scene of a chimpanzee running away from the camera, and the image
of a woman walking right-to-left, both being instances of non-default vector orientation,
“jammed” coherent responses and triggered overt expression of the non-default value.
As for Figure orientation, the default in horizontal motion is ‘head up’, facing in the
direction of motion. If the default is to be overridden it is specified overtly by the use of
adjuncts. Thus, in the scene of a sloth climbing down where the climbing was head down,
quite often subjects resorted to overt modification. In contrast, the default setting was never
overtly specified, e.g. for the scenes with a koala climbing head up. These findings support
the lexical encoding model proposed in Koenig et al. (2003) whereby lexically-encoded
semantic features do not necessarily coincide with overt syntactic realization. Also, our results
suggest that when more than one parameter is set to non-default setting, subjects` responses
are less coherent and less focussed on the primary lexical exponents of the category. Thus,
when non-default vector orientation is combined with non-default figure orientation,
responses spread across a wide range of lexical items, rather than triggering the expected
target verbs.
32

5.2.6 The salience of path shape and direction
According to Nikanne & van der Zee (2005) and Nikanne & van der Zee (this volume), Path
encoding in languages can be represented at three grain levels: neutral, global, and local. At
the neutral grain level, path shape is underspecified, expressing directed motion, where the
path is seen as the shortest/ unmarked/ default route between the point in space occupied by
the Figure, and the Ground, as in the English verbs go, arrive, enter, the Norwegian verbs
komme, and the Bulgarian verbs otivam ‘go’, idvam ‘come’. The global grain level can
provide general and non-composite specifications of the trajectory of motion, such as e.g., a
curve (in English – circle, swerve, veer, Bulgarian - obikalyam ‘go round’, zavivam ‘make a
turn’, krazha ‘circle’). At the local grain level, path shape is specified as composed of smaller
segments, which may or may not lead in a definite general direction (in English - wind, spiral,
zigzag, in Bulgarian krivolicha, lakatusha, viia se ‘go in an irregular path’, in Norwegian -
bukte seg, slynge seg ’wind ). The overarching prediction is that path (-shape) supersedes
other parameters in the categorization of motion scenes and, more specifically in the linguistic
encoding of motion. Our experimental data included two scenes designed to check for the
relevance of this parameter. The scenes showed animals walking/ running in a circular path.
The results for the three languages were different.
For Bulgarian, path shape indeed did override other ‘Manner’ parameters, such as e.g.
cycle, inducing the predominant use of verbs denoting path shape in the case of the scene of
monkeys walking around a tree (at 56,25% for that scene), but not in the scene of a dog
running around a tree. We hypothesise that the overriding factor in the latter case was the high
velocity of motion. This result also raises the issue of a possible hierarchy of factors in motion
identification to be attested in future research.
In English, path-shape verbs were also used, but not so commonly (41,67% for the
monkeys-walking-round-tree scene). In Norwegian, path shape verbs were not used at all with
participants giving a clear preference to biological motion verbs (75%). The important
observation, here is that for both scenes across the three languages, path shape was overtly
spelled out through the use of adverbial expressions.
The above data show that though path shape is an important factor in motion
conceptualization and encoding in language, its salience in verb choice differs across
languages. From the three target languages in this study, Bulgarian has the strongest tendency
to give preference to this factor, while Norwegian has the lowest, with English occupying an
intermediate position on the scale. Thus, in Bulgarian the stimuli featuring a non-default pathshape
form their own branch in the dendrograms from the cluster analysis, while in both
33

English and Norwegian they are grouped with other scenes of similar gait pattern, with
subjects resorting to basic level biological motion verbs in the naming. The use of adverbial
modifiers also suggests that there is a default value (a straight path), the divergence from
which has to be explicitly realised in language.
5.2.7 The use of satellites
The general pattern observed in our study was that satellites are indeed very frequent in all the
languages under consideration, thus confirming Talmy’s (1985) general proposal for a
typology in terms of this property. However, our data produced a surprising result in regard of
expectations concerning the role of satellites. Generally, it has been assumed in the literature
(cf. Talmy 1985, 2000, Bowerman et al. 2002, however see Slobin 2004 for a critical
discussion) that satellites serve to express overtly the specification of the path parameter (here
referred to as [+/- Path]) in the group of languages called satellite-framed languages (with
English and German usually cited as good examples). The free naming task in our study
provided a good opportunity to check this tendency, as our set up was very similar to (but not
exactly replicating) the recent tradition of “frog stories” across languages (cf. Berman &
Slobin 1994, Slobin 2004). Indeed, two of the languages in our study, English and
Norwegian, moderately confirmed the role traditionally assumed for satellites, in that subjects
had chosen to describe the scenes at hand by using a path satellite along with the head verb.
However, our data revealed quite an orthogonal tendency, especially for Bulgarian. Responses
for the latter systematically used satellites in the cases of non-default settings, that is, when a
default parameter was modified. In all three languages, satellites explicating the removed
[Path] parameter were used for the scene of a man running on the spot, therefore we believe
that this is a tendency for all three languages in this study. In English and Norwegian,
however, the tendency was obscured in the data for two reasons. Firstly, it is impossible to
isolate the pure non-default setting explication uses from the general tendency for explicating
the path in Germanic. Secondly, both English and Norwegian only have one major verb per
scene, thus making the path parameter difficult to test independently. In Bulgarian, in
contrast, the competition of two verbs provides a good testing environment for the tendency at
hand. We propose non-default explication function as a preliminary label for this tendency.
6. Concluding remarks
The current study has provided input to the main objectives we set out to investigate. We
obtained good evidence for the relevance and respective salience of the factors in biological
34

motion scenes that we had selected for the conceptual representation and lexical encoding of
such scenes. Our experiment has also demonstrated that subjects generally prefer the basiclevel
biological motion verbs to both more general (super-ordinate) and more concrete (underordinate)
verbs. Our general results have shed some light on the issue of universality of
cognitive concepts and their encoding in language. Our data provide support to the view that
many conceptual primitives are indeed based in universal cognitive categories. The main
difference across languages resides in how these features/primitives are encoded (or ‘bundle’
to use Jackendoff’s term) in lexical items and underdetermine their felicitous use. As it turns
out, a possible distinction might be along the lines of how these features split into sufficient
and necessary conditions, and whether these conditions apply in conjunction or disjunction
(cf. a new function proposed by Jackendoff 2002 for the latter type of disjunction).
Apparently, there are robust features that underlie the core concepts (which are also
semantically relevant) confirmed in our study by the overall high confidence level for
canonical (default) scenes across all three languages. Our data also indicate that in naming
processes there appears to be a prototypical packaging of the features that characterize
biological motion (e.g., walking upright front-forwards left-to-right, as also shown in Jellema
et al. 2002), while marginal members of the category are notoriously difficult to name. An
interesting question here is what is more salient in motion identification, the motion pattern
(cycle) or the body-shape/form, or rather the combination of both (cf. Madoley & Smith 2003
for a developmental study). In our study, non-default settings of more than one parameter
dramatically influence subjects’ responses or produce what we call “jamming” effects. The
latter were also observed with images showing “nonsensical movements”, such as e.g., a
baby-tortoise struggling to walk on a sand beach. That is, movements that are biologically
possible (e.g. following the laws of gravity, use of limbs etc.), which are, however, rarely
observed or culturally non-salient. 17 In such cases the preferred naming strategy is to use a
verb at grain level 0 (underspecified on all parameters) or try out obsolete or rare words.
Satellites would be used in conjunction with level 0 verbs or basic-level biological motion
verbs when more than one parameter is set at a non-default value. This strategy is clearly at
deviance from previously suggested functions of satellites, and we choose to label it the nondefault
explication function. Future cross-linguistic research will provide further support to
this tendency.
17 These images included, among others, a penguin sliding down an ice slope on full body, a baby sea turtle
trying to walk, a chimp baby trying to walk, a fish using its fins to “walk” out of water.
35

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40

Appendix 1
This appendix contains still images of the 29 motion scenes used in the analysis and the
motion verbs (and their frequencies) used for each scene in each of the target languages. Nonmotion
verbs which are not taken into account in the cluster analysis are not present.
Running scenes (scenes 1 - 9)
1 Chimpanzee running
2 Koala running
3 Dog running fast
English: 9 run, 1 lollop, 1 gambol, 1 chase
Norwegian: 14 løpe/springe (run)
Bulgarian: 2 ticham (run), 10 bjagam (run),
1 turcha (run spec.), 1 prepuskam
(run spec.)
4 Dog running in circles
English: 8 run, 2 bound, 1 gallop, 1 hop
Norwegian: 11 løpe/springe (run), 1 sprette
(jump), 1 hoppe (hop), 1 galoppere
(run spec.), 1 lunte (run spec.), 1
bevege seg (move)
Bulgarian: 4 ticham (run), 6 bjagam (run),1
turcha (run spec.), 1 pripkam (run
spec.), 1 prepuskam (run spec.), 2
podskacham (hop), 1 obikaljam
(circle)
5 Dog running on treadmill
English: 9 run, 1 lope, 2 sprint
Norwegian: 14 løpe/springe (run), 1 sprinte
(run spec.)
Bulgarian: 7 ticham (run), 3 bjagam (run), 3
prepuskam (run spec.), 1 gonja
(chase), 1 presledvam (pursue)
6 Lizard running
English: 10 run, 1 race
Norwegian: 15 løpe/springe (run)
Bulgarian: 5 ticham (run), 1 bjagam (run),
2 turcha (run spec.), 2 obikaljam
(circle), 1 vurtja se (turn)
English: 8 run, 1 jog, 1 trot, 1 walk
Norwegian: 12 løpe/springe (run), 2 jogge
(run spec.), 1 gå (walk/ go)
Bulgarian: 6 ticham (run), 5 bjagam (run), 1
pripkam (run spec.), 1 podtichvam
(run spec.)
English: 7 run, 1 lope, 1 trot, 1 scurry, 1
move
Norwegian: 13 løpe/springe (run), 1 pile
(run spec.), 1 ile (run spec.), 1
bevege seg (move)
Bulgarian: 7 ticham (run), 7 bjagam (run), 1
turcha (run spec.), 1 presledvam
(pursue)
41

7 Lizard running on hind legs
8 Man running on the spot
9 Woman running
English: 8 run, 1 sprint
Norwegian: 13 løpe/springe (run)
Bulgarian: 7 ticham (run), 3 bjagam (run), 1
pritichvam (run spec.)
English: 8 run, 4 jog
Norwegian: 5 løpe/springe (run), 11 jogge
(run spec.)
Bulgarian: 7 ticham (run), 5 bjagam (run)
English: 10 run, 2 jog
Norwegian: 12 løpe/springe (run), 4 spurte
(run spec.)
Bulgarian: 9 ticham (run) ,4 bjagam (run), 1
vturvam se (run spec.)
Walking scenes (scenes 10 – 18)
10 Woman walking
11 Woman walking backwards
12 Chimpanzee walking
English: 11 walk, 1 chancé
Norwegian: 14 gå (walk/ go), 1 spasere
(walk spec.), 1 marsjere (walk
spec.)
Bulgarian: 11 hodja (walk), 5 vurvja (walk)
English: 11 walk
Norwegian: 15 gå (walk/ go), 1 spasere
(walk spec.)
Bulgarian: 10 hodja (walk), 4 vurvja (walk),
1 dviza se (move), 1 vrushtam se
(return)
English: 1 lope, 9 walk 1 step, 1 lumber
Norwegian: 13 gå (walk/ go), 1 spasere
(walk spec.), 2 rusle (walk spec.)
Bulgarian: 8 hodja (walk), 1 vurvja (walk),
3 razhozdam se (walk spec.), 2
dviza se (move), 1 otivam (head
for)
42

13 Long-legged bird walking
14 Crocodile walking
15 Monkeys walking round a tree
English: 6 walk, 5 strut, 1 stalk
Norwegian: 9 gå (walk/ go), 1 spasere (walk
spec.), 4 spankulere (walk spec.), 1
sprade (walk spec.), 1 vagge (walk
spec.)
Bulgarian: 5 hodja (walk), 1 vurvja (walk),
3 kracha (walk spec.), 1 pristupvam
(walk spec.), 3 razhozdam se (walk
spec.), 1 dviza se (move)
16 Tiger walking
English: 3 walk, 1 step, 6 waddle, 1 paddle,
1 stroll
Norwegian: 8 gå (walk/ go), 1 lunte (walk
spec.), 1 luske (walk spec.), 1 stavre
(walk spec.), 4 vagge (walk spec.),
1 vralte (walk spec.)
Bulgarian: 5 hodja (walk), 1 vurvja (walk),
1 pristupvam (walk spec.), 1
shljapam (walk spec.), 1 lazja,1
tutrja se (crawl spec.), 3 dviza se
(move), 1 otivam (head for)
17 Koala walking
English: 2 walk, 1 chase, 1 follow, 5 circle
Norwegian: 2 løpe/springe (run), 12 gå
(walk/ go)
Bulgarian: 1 gonja (chase), 1 sledvam
(follow), 7 obikaljam (circle), 2
vurtja se (turn)
18 Chameleon walking on twig
English: 8 walk,1 pad, 1 slope, 1 prowl, 1
stalk
Norwegian: 12 gå (walk/ go), 2 lunte (walk
spes.), 1 spankulere (walk spes.), 1
tusle (walk spes.)
Bulgarian: 9 hodja (walk), 2 vurvja (walk),
3 razhozdam se (walk spec.), 1
dviza se (move), 1 minavam (pass)
English: 1 lope, 10 walk, 1 stroll
Norwegian: 1 trave (run spec.), 13 gå (walk/
go), 1 spasere (walk spec.), 1 lunte
(walk spec.)
Bulgarian: 1 pritichvam (run spec.), 8 hodja
(walk), 2 vurvj (walk), 1 krach
(walk spec.), 1 dviza se (move), 1
zaputvam se (make for)
English: 2 move, 1 make one’s way, 8 walk,
1 crawl
Norwegian: 5 gå (walk/ go), 1 spasere (walk
spec.), 1 luske (walk spec.), 1 snike
seg (walk spec.), 1 krabbe (crawl), 1
klatre (clamber)
Bulgarian: 9 hodja (walk), 2 vurvja (walk),
1 kracha (walk spec.), 1
promukvamse (walk spec.), 1 lazja
(crawl), 1 pulzja (crawl), 1 dviza se
(move)
43

Crawling scenes (scenes 19 - 26)
19 Baby crawling
20 Woman crawling
21 Man crawling on his stomach
English: 12 crawl
Norwegian: 16 krabbe (crawl)
Bulgarian: 8 lazja (crawl), 7 pulzja (crawl),
1 presledvam (pursue)
22 Caterpillar crawling
English: 1 move, 1 walk, 10 crawl
Norwegian: 16 krabbe (crawl)
Bulgarian: 3 hodja (walk) ,5 lazja (crawl), 7
pulzja (crawl)
23 Beetle crawling on twig
English: 1 move, 9 crawl, 1 creep
Norwegian: 1 snike seg (walk spec.), 1
krabbe (crawl), 7 krype (creep), 7 åle
seg (wriggle)
Bulgarian: 1 lazja (crawl), 13 pulzja
(crawl), 1 dviza se (move)
24 A slow tortoise
English: 1 move, 1 make one’s way, 9
crawl, 1 creep
Norwegian: 3 krabbe (crawl), 3 krype
(creep), 2 kravle/kråle (crawl), 6 åle
seg (wriggle), 2 bukte seg (wind/
wriggle)
Bulgarian:
English: 1 scurry, 1 climb ,1 move, 1 walk,
6 crawl, 2 creep
Norwegian: 8 gå (walk/ go), 2 krabbe
(crawl), 4 krype (creep), 1
kravle/kråle (crawl), 1 klatre
(clamber)
Bulgarian: 2 hodja (walk), 2 vurvja (walk),
4 lazja (crawl), 3 pulzja (crawl), 1
dviza se (move)
English: 1 walk, 1 mosey, 10 crawl
Norwegian: 4 gå (walk/ go), 1 stabbe (walk
spec.), 4 krabbe (crawl), 7 krype
(creep)
Bulgarian: 3 hodja (walk), 1 vurvja (walk),
2 lazja (crawl), 4 pulzja (crawl), 1
mukna se (crawl spc.), 4 dviza se
(move)
44

25 Snake crawling
26 Snake sidewinding
English: 2 crawl, 9 slither, 1 slide
Norwegian: 4 krype (’creep’), 1 kravle/kråle
(’crawl’), 7 åle seg (’wriggle’), 2
bukte seg (’wind/ wriggle’), 1
slange seg (’move in a snake-like
fashion’)
Bulgarian: 2 promukvam se (‘sneak’), 12
pulzja (‘crawl’), 1 dviza se
(‘move’)
English: 2 move, 1 crawl, 3 slither, 4
sidewind, 1 slide, 1 ripple
Norwegian: 1 flyte (‘flow’),1 krype,1
kravle/kråle (’crawl’), 8 åle seg
(’wriggle’),4 bukte seg (’wind/
wriggle’),1 slange seg (’move in a
snake-like fashion’)
Bulgarian: 10 pulzja (‘crawl’), 1 pripluzvam
se (‘slither’), 1 kachvam se
(‘ascend’), 1 izvivam se (‘wind’), 2
dviza se (’move’)
Climbing scenes (scenes 27 – 29)
27 Koala climbing a tree
28 Koala climbing a tree in small hops
29 Sloth climbing down a tree
English: 11 climb, 1 crawl
Norwegian: 15 klatre (‘clamber’)
Bulgarian: 10 katerja se(‘clamber’), 5
kachvam se (‘climb’)
English: 9 climb, 3 hop
Norwegian: 2 hoppe (hop’), 14 klatre
(‘clamber’)
Bulgarian: 14 katerja se (’clamber’)
English: 8 climb, 2 descend, 1 move, 1 walk
Norwegian: 1 gå (‘go’), 15 klatre
(‘clamber’)
Bulgarian: 1 hodja (‘walk’), 1 lazja
(‘crawl’), 1 pulzja (‘crawl’), 7
slizam (‘go down’), 4 spuskam se
(‘descend’)
45

Appendix 2
Dendrograms showing the clustering of the 29 analysed motion scenes
Fig. 1a.
Jaccard tree for Bulgarian
46

Fig. 1b.
Multiset tree for Bulgarian
47

Fig. 2a.
Jaccard tree for English
48

Fig. 2b.
Multiset tree for English
49

Fig. 3a.
Jaccard tree for Norwegian
50

Fig. 3b.
Multiset tree for Norwegian
51

Appendix 3
Formal description of the multiset distance measure
We employed a multiset distance measure formally defined in the following manner: Given a
set of verbs V and two verb lists l 1 and l 2 , we define the multiset distance between l 1 and l 2 to
be
d _ multiset(
l , l
1
2
) = 1−
∑
∑
υ∈V
υ∈V
min( n
max( n
υ,
l
1
υ,
l
1
, n
, n
υ,
l
2
υ,
l
2
)
)
(1)
where n υ,l is the number of occurrences of the verb υ in the verb list l. (The numerator is really
the cardinality of the multiset intersection of the verb lists, and the denominator is really the
union.)
To highlight the difference between the multiset distance and the Jaccard distance, the
Jaccard distance between l 1 and l 2 can be formulated as
d _
jaccard(
l , l
1
2
) = 1−
∑
∑
υ∈V
υ∈V
min( p
max( p
υ,
l
1
υ,
l
1
, p
, p
υ,
l
2
υ,
l
2
)
)
(2)
where p υ,l is 1 if υ is present in l and 0 otherwise. (The numerator is really the cardinality of
the set intersection of the verb lists, and the denominator is really the union.)
Simpson’s diversity index (D) for a given verb list was calculated with the formula
(http://www.wku.edu/~smithch/biogeog/SIMP1949.htm)
∑ n
,
× ( n
,
−1)
υ∈
υ l υ
( l)
=
N × ( N −1)
D
V l
(3)
where n υ,l is the number of occurrences of the verb υ in l, and N is the length of the given verb
list.
52