Source-Goal and Slow-Fast Motion Expression in English, French and German Narratives: Across- and Within-Language Variations

The distinction between Verb-Framed and Satellite-Framed languages has been central in research on event encoding. While this distinction highlights general tendencies, recent research reveals substantial variation both within and across language types in the salience of Path, Manner and their subtypes. Path components like Source and Goal often display asymmetrical encodings, with Goal being typically expressed more frequently and diversely than Source. Similarly, Fast and Slow motion (Manner) show asymmetries in some languages. For example, in Estonian and Russian, Fast motion tends to be more salient than Slow motion, additionally co-occurring with Goal markers in the case of Estonian. The present study analyzes Frog-Story oral narratives from 36 adult speakers of French, English, and German, revealing nuanced cross-linguistic patterns. Contrary to assumptions about Goal primacy, Source encoding is more frequent than Goal across the data. A slight bias toward Fast-Motion is also observed, particularly in German. Additionally, preferred combinations vary: English and German favor Source+Fast motion pairings, whereas no dominant pattern emerges in French. These findings emphasize the need for finer-grained examinations of Path and Manner subtypes and their combinations to deepen our understanding of the relationships between semantic motion components and cross-linguistic variation in event encoding.