Boundary crossing events

Boundary-crossing (BC) events involve traversing a spatial boundary, such as entering or exiting an enclosed space (Özçalışkan 2015).

1. He ran into the house.

These events are expressed differently across languages depending on their typological profile.

Typology: S-framed English vs. V-framed Turkish

• The expression of motion varies according to whether a language is satellite-framed (S-framed) or verb-framed (V-framed)(Talmy 2000).

Boundary-crossing constraint

V-languages cannot express boundary traversal using a manner verb as the main verb. Instead, they must use a path verb (Slobin & Hoiting 1994).

2. He ran into the house.

3. Eve (koşarak) girdi.

   ‘He entered the room (running).’

Descriptions in Turkish vs. English

In an elicitation task documenting boundary crossing, monolingual English and Turkish adults typically produce different patterns (Özçalışkan 2015):

4. He jumps over a hurdle

5. [Koşmaya başlıyor.] [Koşarken] [karşısına bir engel çıkıyor.] [Zıplayarak aşıyor o engeli.] [Ondan sonra tekrar koşmasına devam ediyor]

   “[He starts running.] [As he was running,] [a hurdle comes across.] [He crosses the hurdle hopping from over the top of the hurdle.] [Then he continues his run again.]”

In Turkish:

• Responses are more segmented
• Crossing is expressed through a path verb
• Manner verbs are not used to overtly express crossing

Descriptions in Turkish vs. English

Thinking for Speaking and Cross-Linguistic Influence

• Thinking for speaking (Slobin 1996): proposes that languages impose habitual thinking patterns that shape how events are conceptualized and expressed.

• Cross-linguistic influence (transfer) refers to the effect of a speaker’s L1 on L2 acquisition (Ortega 2014).

Conceptual Restructuring and Proficiency

• Acquiring an L2 requires conceptual restructuring. This is a gradual shift in how learners attend to and organize events as they adopt L2-typical patterns.
• L1 influence is generally stronger at lower proficiency levels, as shown across multiple linguistic domains (Bu 2012; Hopp 2017; Wei, Zhang & Zhang 2020)
• With increased proficiency, learners begin to internalize L2-specific conceptual patterns, though this process is often incomplete.

Conceptual Restructuring in Motion Events

• Research on motion expression shows that bilinguals and L2 learners often diverge from monolingual norms, especially when their two languages differ typologically (e.g., Brown & Gullberg 2008; 2010; 2011; Cadierno 2004; 2012; Alonso 2013; 2016; 2020).

Research questions

RQ1: How do Turkish learners of English differ from Turkish and English monolingual speakers in their expression of boundary-crossing events, particularly with respect to:

• the degree of segmentation in their descriptions (number of segments)
• the explicitness of boundary traversal (implicit vs. explicit)
• the type of verb employed to encode motion (manner vs. path)

RQ2: To what extent can the observed differences between intermediate and advanced learners be attributed to their level of L2 proficiency?

General expectations

• Bilingual speakers: hybrid pattern in between Turkish and English
• Higher proficiency: convergence toward English-like patterns

Hypotheses

• Segmentation: Because of the 10-second time limit, both groups are expected to produce minimally segmented responses.
• Boundary crossing type: Learners are expected to express crossing implicitly or omit it altogether due to entrenched L1 Turkish patterns.
• Type of Verb: Intermediate learners are expected to use more path verbs like Turkish speakers, whereas advanced learners are expected to use more manner verbs like English monolinguals.

Participants (N = 50)

• Turkish monolingual speakers (n = 15)
• Intermediate Turkish learners of English (n = 10)
• Advanced Turkish learners of English (n = 13)
• English monolingual speakers (n = 12).

Participants (N = 50)

• Age range: 18 to 73 years (Median = 26).
• 35 females (70%) vs. 15 males (30%)
• Most participants were highly educated (esp. Advanced learners).
• Monolingual Turkish group included several participants with only primary or secondary schooling.

Stimuli

• Adapted from Özçalışkan (2015)
• N = 12
• still images depicting human figures performing motion events that involved crossing a spatial boundary

Visual stimulus depicting Adam crawling out of a house

Procedure

• Online - Powerpoint - Zoom

• Two subsequent phases (variable “Condition”):

  • Free description: “Describe what the figure is doing in one or a few sentences within 10 seconds.”
  • Plus-verb condition: “Describe what the figure is doing using the word provided to you, in one or a few sentences within 10 seconds.”

Data annotation: Segmentation

6. [Adam is running] [and then hurtling a green hurdle] [before continuing to run afterwards]

Data annotation: Expression of boundary traversal

• “Explicit”: if response contained a syntactic boundary marker (e.g., into, out of, or over), or a verb encoding traversal inherently (e.g., enter, exit, or cross).
• “No/Implicit”: if the traversal was implied without explicit lexical or syntactic marking.
• Examples:

7. He runs into his house. (Explicit)
8. He runs to his house. (no overt crossing = No/Implicit)
9. He runs. (no overt crossing = No/Implicit)
10. He runs outside, then he is inside. (implicitly conveying the crossing = No/Implicit)

Data annotation: Type of Verb

• Only for explicit boundary crossing expressions: path vs. manner.
• Examples:

11. He enters the house running. (Path)
12. He exits the house crawling. (Path)
13. He crawls into the house. (Manner)
14. He jumps out of the house. (Manner)

Segmentation

Number of segments in the responses of the participants, per Group. X² = 14.70, df = NA, P-value = 0.22; simulated P-value based on 2000 replicates).

Boundary-crossing type

• N = 1175 responses expressing a boundary crossing event.
• N = 626 (53%): boundary crossing was implied without the use of explicit lexical or syntactic marking
• FORMULA: Type ~ Group + Condition + (1 + Condition|Participant) + (1|Item)
• Marginal R² = 20%, conditional R² = 49%

Boundary-crossing type

Model estimates for the effect of Group and Condition on the expression of a boundary-crossing event. Explicit was treated as the success.

Boundary-crossing type

Predicted probabilities for the explicit expression of a boundary-crossing event by Group. Predicted probabilities are bias-corrected marginal means. Probabilities are conditional on average condition (i.e., condition = zero) and average Participant and Item.

Boundary-crossing type

Pairwise differences between the different Groups on the probability scale. P-values are adjusted using Holm-Bonferroni.

Verb type

• N = 549 sentences were elicited with an explicit expression of a boundary-crossing event
• N = 405 (74%), with a manner type verb.
• FORMULA: Verb ~ Group + (1|Participant) + (1|Item)
• Marginal R² = 41%, conditional R² = 76%

Verb Type

Model estimates for the effect of Group on the type of verb that was used in the explicit expression of a boundary-crossing event. The use of a Path verb is modelled as the success.

Verb Type

Predicted probabilities for the use of a manner verb in the explicit expression of a boundary-crossing event by Group. Predicted probabilities are bias-corrected marginal means. Probabilities are conditional on the average Participant and Item.

Verb Type

Pairwise differences between the different Groups on the probability scale. P-values are adjusted using Holm-Bonferroni.

Proficiency and L1 influence

• Learners patterned between the two monolingual baselines, but the degree of alignment varied across lexical and syntactic levels:

  • Lexical alignment (verb type) emerged early but plateaued before reaching native-like levels.
  • Syntactic alignment (BC explicitness) progressed more slowly and, despite steady improvement, remained incomplete even at advanced levels.
  • Even at advanced proficiency, learners remained significantly distant from native-like patterns.

• The boundary crossing constraint did not transfer to L2 output literally: learners rarely constructed sentences such as he is entering a house running, but avoided explicitly marking the traversal instead.

Pedagogical Implications

• For adult learners, typological tendencies should be made explicit: L1 like constructions or avoidance of L2 patterns are not grammatically incorrect but they are uncommon and unnatural.

• Motion expressions should be taught contrastively: contrastive and interactive tasks, supported by recasts that model English-like motion constructions.

• Future research should examine the effectiveness of targeted instructional strategies.

Data & R Notebook

• Shared via TROLLing. CLICK HERE