SPEAKING OF MOTION - VERB USE IN ENGLISH AND SPANISH

English and Spanish clearly differ in their encoding of motion events, but what is the exact nature of this difference? How does it influenc e language use? These questions were investigated in two studies of ad ult English and Spanish speakers' descriptions of static (Study 1) and dynamic (Study 2) motion events. English speakers overwhelmingly used manner-of-motion verbs (e.g. run). Spanish speakers used more path-of -motion verbs (e.g. salir/exit); however, with some motion events they strongly preferred to use manner verbs as well. The two language grou ps also differed in the degree to which they mentioned the manner of m otion at all, and in the types of sentence frames they preferred, but not in the sheer number of verb types produced. The results am discuss ed with respect to the varying contexts of language use, refinements t o typological differences between English and Spanish, and implication s for children's acquisition of motion verbs.