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

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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