Chapter published in:
Dynamism in Metaphor and Beyond
Edited by Herbert L. Colston, Teenie Matlock and Gerard J. Steen
[Metaphor in Language, Cognition, and Communication 9] 2022
► pp. 293–304

How to talk about motion without verbs

| University of California, San Diego , California

Infants are fascinated by motion. There is abundant evidence that they are far more interested in motion than in static objects. This would lead us to expect that, in addition to nouns, motion verbs would figure prominently in their early vocabularies. But verbs are late, because they are complex and harder to learn than the names of objects. So infants find other ways to refer to motion. For example, they use prepositions such as up and down to refer to things moving up and down, and social terms such as hi and bye to coming in and going out. Infants talk about motion very early – just not with verbs. This article is dedicated to the memory of Ray Gibbs.

Keywords: motion language, language learning, verbs, meaning, conceptualization
Article outline
  • Noun dominance in early language
  • The salience of motion in early cognition
  • Early words for motion other than verbs
    • Nouns
    • Prepositions and function words
  • Early meanings of up and down
    • Early meanings of hi and bye
    • Other early words for motion
  • Conclusions
  • References
Published online: 09 September 2022
https://doi.org/10.1075/milcc.9.15man
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