Chapter 7 Path-coding patterns in Italian motion event descriptions
Yuko Yoshinari · 2025
The purpose of this chapter is to identify the preferred path-coding patterns in Italian motion event descriptions.Italian is commonly known as a verbframed language (head path-coding language), but some studies have pointed out that Italian deviates from the typical head path-coding pattern for several reasons.Analyzing the data from linguistic experiments, this study shows that Italian often uses the head-external path-coding pattern in describing self-motion events, and for caused-motion events at an even greater frequency, typically using prepositions (rather than particles) for path coding.Moreover, coding patterns are chosen based on the specific types of path, manner, and deixis that are involved in the events in question.In conclusion, the Italian language has a greater array of resources for expressing motion events, compared with other head path-coding languages. Issues in Italian motion event descriptionsItalian is usually categorized as a verb-framed language, as are other Romance languages such as French and Spanish (Talmy 2000; Verkerk 2015).However, the precise status of Italian within this category is still unclear.Researchers have pointed out that in comparison with other verb-framed languages, Italian exhibits a broad variety of behaviors in the description of motion events (Slobin 2004;Bernini, Spreafico, and Valentini 2006;Iacobini and Masini 2006;Folli 2008;Beavers, Levin, and Tham 2010;Hijazo-Gascón and Ibarretxe-Antuñano 2013;Yoshinari 2017).Romance languages, which generally code path in the main verb, also often express path in prepositions and other elements outside the main verb (head-external elements) (see Aske 1989, Folli 2008 for discussion).According to Slobin (2004), this tendency is even more prominent in Italian, which, "in comparison to other Romance languages, makes wider use of directional particles with both path and