Running or crossing? Children's expression of voluntary motion in English, German, and French.

Much research has focused on the expression of voluntary motion (Slobin, 2004; Talmy, 2000). The present study contributes to this body of research by comparing how children (three to ten years) and adults narrated short, animated cartoons in English and German (satellite-framed languages) vs. French (verb-framed). The cartoons showed agents displacing themselves in variable Manners along different Paths (Path saliency and variance were specifically manipulated in four item types). Results show an increase with age across languages in how much information participants expressed. However, at all ages, more motion information was encoded in English and German than in French. Furthermore, language-specific features impacted the content and its organization within utterances in discourse, showing more variation within and across Path types in French than in the satellite-framed languages, resulting in later achievement of adult-like descriptions in this language. The discussion highlights the joint impact of cognitive and typological features on language development.