How grammaticized concepts shape event conceptualization in language production: Insights from linguistic analysis, eye tracking data, and memory performance
The role of grammatical systems in profiling particular conceptual categories
is used as a key in exploring questions concerning language specificity during
the conceptualization phase in language production. This study focuses on the
extent to which crosslinguistic differences in the concepts profiled by grammatical
means in the domain of temporality (grammatical aspect) affect event
conceptualization and distribution of attention when talking about motion
events. The analyses, which cover native speakers of Standard Arabic, Czech,
Dutch, English, German, Russian and Spanish, not only involve linguistic evidence,
but also data from an eye tracking experiment and a memory test. The
findings show that direction of attention to particular parts of motion events
varies to some extent with the existence of grammaticized means to express
imperfective/progressive aspect. Speakers of languages that do not have grammaticized
aspect of this type are more likely to take a holistic view when talking
about motion events and attend to as well as refer to endpoints of motion
events, in contrast to speakers of aspect languages.
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