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

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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. 12
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
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Page 3 and 4: such as figure orientation). Common
Page 5 and 6: left-to-right vs. right-to-left) wi
Page 7 and 8: With respect to terrestrial biologi
Page 9 and 10: than not, the aspectual prefix is a
Page 11: 3.3 Verbs of walking The most centr
Page 15 and 16: change of location, and whether the
Page 17 and 18: translation vs. non-translation (re
Page 19 and 20: Fig. 2 Overall frequencies of the t
Page 21 and 22: has demonstrated that infants as yo
Page 23 and 24: verbs only in Norwegian. In Bulgari
Page 25 and 26: Tversky 1977), and are specifically
Page 27 and 28: and respectively the verbs naming t
Page 29 and 30: across species at particular Froude
Page 31 and 32: independently, there is sufficient
Page 33 and 34: 5.2.6 The salience of path shape an
Page 35 and 36: motion scenes that we had selected
Page 37 and 38: Dimitrova-Vulchanova, M. 1999. Incr
Page 39 and 40: Papafragou, A. et al. 2002. Shake,
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Page 43 and 44: 13 Long-legged bird walking 14 Croc
Page 45 and 46: 25 Snake crawling 26 Snake sidewind
Page 47 and 48: Fig. 1b. Multiset tree for Bulgaria
Page 49 and 50: Fig. 2b. Multiset tree for English
Page 51 and 52: Fig. 3b. Multiset tree for Norwegia

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

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