Investigating Motion Events in

Austronesian Languages
D.Victoria Rau, Chun-Chieh Wang, and Hui-Huan Ann Chang
NATIONAL CHUNG CHENG UNIVERSITY, TAIWAN

Huang and Tanangkingsing found that six Western Austronesian languages

share the common property of giving greater attention to path information
than to manner. They proposed that Proto-Austronesian was probably path-
salient. In order to ascertain the validity of their hypothesis, this study com-
pares the motion events in a Yami Frog story with six Western Austronesian
languages, followed by a research design using VARBRUL (a logistic
regression analysis program) to analyze the factors that account for the varia-
tion between path and manner verbs in 20 Yami texts. In the process, a clear
set of operational definitions is proposed. Our quantitative analysis indicates
that Yami is a path salient language in that (i) path verbs are more frequent
than manner verbs, (ii) path verbs favor cooccurrence of figure and ground
even more than manner verbs, and (iii) manner is usually not expressed after
the path verb. If it is expressed, it is coded as a serial verb construction.

1. INTRODUCTION.1Motion events, which typically involve an entity moving

from one place to another, are among the earliest, most basic, and most pervasive events in
our lives (Johnson 1987). They are used to specify the motion of objects through space
with respect to other objects (Talmy 2000). Each language may have a preferred pattern to
encode their motion events. Talmy (2000) proposed a distinction between two major pat-
terns: verb-framed languages (V-languages) and satellite-framed languages (S-languages).
In V-languages, the frame event, such as path, is in the verb. A typical example is Spanish,
in which verbs like entrar go in and salir go out only contain the path and do not show
the manner. In S-languages, the verb usually conveys the manner, while information about
the path follows the verb in a satellite. A typical example is English, for example, The dog
ran (manner verb) across (path satellite) the street.
To examine how the dichotomy between path verbs and manner verbs plays out in
other typologically different language families, Huang and Tanangkingsing (2005) com-
pared six western Austronesian (WAN) languagesTagalog, Cebuano, Saisiyat, Tsou,
Squliq Atayal, and Malayand found that they shared the common property of giving
greater attention to path information than to manner. As some of the languages are Verb-
1. This paper was presented at the 2011 Conference on Language, Discourse, and Cognition
(CLDC) at National Taiwan University, Taipei, April 29May 1, 2011. We would like to
express gratitude for comments from Fong-Ha Yap and Michael Tanangkingsing, as well as
two anonymous reviewers.
Oceanic Linguistics, Volume 51, no. 1 (June 2012)
by University of Hawaii Press. All rights reserved.
2 OCEANIC LINGUISTICS, VOL. 51, NO. 1

framed languages or prefer using path verbs, they claimed that Proto-Austronesian was
probably a path-salient language. To corroborate Huang and Tanangkingsings claim, it is
necessary to find another Austronesian language with sufficient language documentation
to both conduct a comparative study and fine-tune the current methodology for applica-
tion to future investigation of motion events. Although the Frog stories (Slobin 1996,
1997, zaliskan and Slobin 1999) used in Huang and Tanangkingsing (2005) comprised
35 narratives totaling 230 minutes and 8 seconds of data (Huang and Tanangkingsing
2005:312), a good corpus in an Austronesian language with representative genres can also
provide rich data on the expression of motion events. In addition, a wider range of motion
events, not restricted to the Frog stories, can provide a solid foundation to sharpen the tool
for conducting comparative research.
This paper aims to provide quantitative evidence from Yami (Rau and Dong 2006) to
provide an in-depth analysis of the characteristics of another Austronesian language.
Yami, spoken on Orchid Island in Taiwan, has long been recognized as a sister of
Itbayaten, Ivatan, and the other Bashiic languages, possibly as a result of back-migration
from the Philippines within the last millennium or so (Reid 2009).
Similar to other Philippine languages (Reid and Liao 2004), the Yami case marking of
the regular transitive and intransitive verbs (table 1) is ergative in that the A is marked
with the genitive case and the S and O are marked with the nominative case. Yami intran-
sitive verbs include dynamic verbs with the traditionally called AF (Agent Focus) affixes
(-om-, mi-, ma-, maN-, maka-, maci-), stative ma- verbs, and involuntary ka--an verbs.2

TABLE 1. YAMI PIVOT, MOOD, AND ASPECT MORPHEMES

(adapted from Rau and Dong 2006:88)
Indicative Nonindicative
DYNAMIC STATIVE IMPERATIVE SUBJUNCTIVE
(ATEMPORAL) (PROJECTIVE)
NEUTRAL PERFECTIVE NEUTRAL PERFECTIVE DYNAMIC STATIVE
AF (Actor) -om- ni-om- - N-*
Intransitive m- ni-m- ma- ni-ma- - N- a-
NAF
Transitive
PF -en ni- ma- ni-ma- -i N-...-a a-...-a
(Undergoer)
LF (Location) -an ni--an ka--an ni-ka--an -i N-...-i a-...-i
IF, BF i- ni-i- i-ka- ni-i-ka- -an N-...-an a-...-an
(Instrument)
* The rules for N-morphophonemics after the auxiliary verbs to and ji are conditioned as fol-
lows (adapted from Rau and Dong 2006:99):
STEM BEGINNING WITH PHONEME CHANGE TO
[+alveolar] and [+palatal] /s/, /t/, and /c/ /n/
[+labial] /p/ /m/
[+velar] /k/ /ng/ = []
[+vocalic] /i/, /a/, and /o/ /ng/ = []

2. The abbreviations of the morpheme glosses not found in, or differing from. the Leipzig Gloss-
ing Rules are as follows: AF, Agent focus; Co-, company; CON, conjunction; H, hesitation
marker; IF, Instrumental focus; LF, Locative focus; LIN, linker; NF, nominal affix; ORD, ordinal
number; P, plural; PA, perfective aspect; PAR, particle; PF, Patient focus; PLN, place name; PN,
personal name; RED, reduplication; SUB, subjunctive; SV, stative verb; TOP, topic linker; VF,
verbal affix.
INVESTIGATING MOTION EVENTS IN AUSTRONESIAN LANGUAGES 3

Transitive verbs include those traditionally called PF (Patient Focus), LF (Locative

Focus), and IF (Instrumental Focus) verbs with -en, -an, i-, respectively, potential ma-
verbs and involuntary ka--an verbs with expressed actor.
A preliminary observation of the Yami texts indicated that one could find both proto-
typical path verbs (for example, s-om-dep <AF>enter) and manner verbs (for example,
k-om-alat <AF>climb) in Yami motion events. However, there was also another type of
verb that contained both manner and path meanings: for example, mi-agag AF-pull out.
These are certainly different from Tsou and Bunun, the so-called macro-event languages
(Shuanfan Huang 2002, Shuping Huang 2011), where the root and affix in a verb denote
the two properties of path and manner, respectively. How do we classify verbs that are
neither purely path nor purely manner? Faced with this question, at the very beginning of
our investigation it became imperative to propose a clear operational definition of verb
types in order to code the motion events and be able to compare them in different Austro-
nesian languages. To investigate the usage of motion events in Yami and determine
whether Yami is a path-salient language, this study elicited a Frog story from our Yami
consultant, Esther Dong, as a basis for comparison with Huang and Tanangkingsing
(2005), followed by a quantitative analysis of the twenty texts from the Yami language
documentation website.3 Moreover, we used a logistic regression analysis program
(VARBRUL) to analyze the factors that account for the variation between path and man-
ner verbs in Yami.
In the following section, we first review literature about motion events and the typol-
ogy of western Austronesian languages that Huang and Tanangkingsing (2005) pro-
posed. Section 3 describes how to distinguish path verbs from manner verbs in Yami.
Section 4 is a comparison of the Yami Frog story with other western Austronesian lan-
guages. Section 5 contains the results and the discussion of VARBRUL analysis of the 20
texts in Yami. The final section presents the conclusions of this study.

2. MOTION EVENT. We start with Talmys (2000:25) definition of motion event:

The basic motion event consists of one object (the Figure) moving or located with
respect to another object (the reference object or Ground). The Path is the path followed
or site occupied by the Figure object with respect to the Ground object. The component
of Motion refers to the presence per se of motion or locatedness in the event. Only these
two motive states are structurally distinguished by language.
Based on this definition of motion events, there are four main components: Figure,
Ground, Path, and Motion. In addition to these internal components, Manner and Cause
constitute potential Co-events, as in (1) (from Talmy 2000:26)..
(1) Manner Cause
Motion The pencil rolled off The pencil blew off
the table. the table.
Locatedness The pencil lay on the table. The pencil stuck on the table
(after I glued it).

3. The twenty texts can be obtained either from http://yamiproject.cs.pu.edu.tw/yami or Rau and
Dong (2006).
4 OCEANIC LINGUISTICS, VOL. 51, NO. 1

The verb rolled in (1) is a manner verb in the context, describing how the pencil moved
down from the table. However, the verb blew is a cause verb in the context, which
implies the pencil is moved down from the table by some other cause instead of moving
in that manner by itself.
In this study, a motion event is determined by the potential realization of its four com-
ponents: Figure, Ground, Path, and Motion. Therefore, we focused only on verbs that
show the trajectory of the figure with a potential ground that can be inferred from the
motion. In other words, even though it is possible to identify prototypical motion verbs,
coding of motion events can only be properly determined within clauses, similar to Hop-
per and Thompsons coding of semantic transitivity (1980).
Our distinction between path and manner verbs or V-languages and S-languages also
follows Talmy (2000). As mentioned before, in V-languages, path is encoded in the main
verb while manner can be introduced outside the verb, such as Spanish entrar, salir,
subir, and bajar, meaning go in, go out, go up, and go down without any coding of
manner. In S-languages, the manner information is encoded within the verb itself, while
the path information is encoded in the satellite, such as The dog ran (manner verb) across
(path satellite) the street in English. One justification for recognizing the satellite as a
grammatical category is that, for V-languages, it is the characteristic site for the expres-
sion of the core schema (Talmy 2000:102).
S-languages and V-languages have distinct narrative styles. According to Berman and
Slobin (1994:11819), S-languages tend to have greater specification of manner but also
allow for detailed description of path within a clause. The manner tends to be encoded in the
verb, with the path incorporated and encoded by a particle. The satellite also tends to be
expressed by a prepositional phrase. In V-languages, path and manner are elaborated in sep-
arate clauses. The manner is added as a separate adverbial phrase/clause. If path and manner
occur in the same clause, the manner is generally optional and more compact in form.
Slobin (2004) claimed that in addition to V-languages and S-languages, a third type of
languages should be distinguished in motion events, the so-called equipollently-framed
languages (E-languages), where path and manner are expressed by equivalent grammati-
cal forms, including serial, bipartite, and generic verbs. Based on Talmy and Slobins
research, Huang and Tanangkingsing (2005) identified four distinct patterns to encode
path and manner verbs (constituent order ignored), as in (2):4
(2) A. Satellite framed language: MANNER VERB + PATH SATELLITE
B. Verb framed language: PATH VERB + MANNER ADJUNCT
C. Macroevent language: [MANNER PREFIX + PATH ROOT] VERB
D. Serial-verb language: PATH VERB # MANNER VERB
or MANNER VERB # PATH VERB
Satellite- and verb-framed languages have been illustrated with English and Spanish,
respectively. A macroevent language (2C) can be illustrated with Tsou, where the path
verb root is combined with a manner prefix, as in (3).

4. The coding symbols + and # follow Huang and Tanangkingsing (2005). The symbol + in X+Y
indicates the constituent order of X and Y should be ignored, while the symbol # in X#Y indi-
cates X precedes Y.
INVESTIGATING MOTION EVENTS IN AUSTRONESIAN LANGUAGES 5

(3) Mo cu tmai-aemonu si mali.

AUX PF roll-in NOM ball
The ball rolled in. (Huang and Tanangkingsing 2005)
A serial verb language (2D) can be illustrated with Chinese in which a manner verb pre-
cedes a path verb with an optional deixis, as in (4).
(4) Wo pao#jin(#qu) fang-jian le.
I ran-enter(-go) room ASP
I ran into the room.
Following Slobins revised typology (2004), Huang and Tanangkingsing (2005)
examined motion events of the Frog story, narrated by adult native speakers of six west-
ern Austronesian languages: Tagalog, Cebuano, Saisiyat, Tsou, Squliq Atayal, and
Malay. In addition to P(ath) and M(anner) verbs, MP was used to represent a macro-
event, the pattern found in (2C). In a serial verb construction, P#M stands for the pattern
where the path verb precedes the manner verb, whereas in M#P, the manner verb pre-
cedes the path verb.
They found that Tagalog and Cebuano belong to the class of pure V-languages. Saisiyat
can also be classified as a V-language, since the frequencies of the path verbs are much
higher, although it also contains MP, M#P, and P#M constructions. Tsou is a macro-event
language, as illustrated in (3). Squliq Atayal has more features of a V-language than that of
an S-language. Malay is essentially a V-language with high frequencies of path verbs.
Overall, the WAN languages seem to be path-salient. Thus, they claimed that the PAN may
also have been a path salient language.

3. DISTINGUISHING PATH FROM MANNER VERBS IN YAMI. The

goal of this research is to develop a clear operational definition of path and manner verbs in
Austronesian languages, so that the results of motion events in individual languages can be
easily compared. As stated previously, both path and manner verbs in motion events should
have potential realization of the four components Figure, Ground, Path, and Motion. There-
fore, existential verbs, such as amian exist, be located are excluded from this category.
This decision matches Huang and Tanangkingsings coding (2005). A list of path and man-
ner verbs in seven Austronesian languages can be found in appendices 1 and 2.
How is a path verb determined in Yami? The verbs encoding path usually express a
clear trajectory of the Figure with respect to the Ground, such as enter, exit, ascend, and
descend. Moreover, following Huang and Tanangkingsing (2005), the deictic path verbs,
come/go, are also included in the study because such verbs usually encode the Figures
Path to the Ground in the context.
How is a manner verb determined in Yami? The manner is only a coevent, but not
obligatory, as Talmy (2000) claimed. Such verbs only show how the Figures carry out the
Motion. They can vary from encoding very general manner, such as walk, run, and swim,
to making specific distinctions, such as limp, sprint, and swoop (Slobin 2004). In addi-
tion, some cause verbs, such as put, pick, take, carry, in sentences such as He put (cause)
the apple (figure) on the table (ground), are also coded as manner verbs. Although the
real movement involves Figure rather than the agent, such verbs usually involve an ensu-
6 OCEANIC LINGUISTICS, VOL. 51, NO. 1

ing trajectory of the moved object and express Path information implicitly. This decision
also followed Huang and Tanangkingsings coding (2005).
In summary, following Talmy (2000)s definition, a motion event should contain the
four components Figure, Motion, Path, and Ground. However, not all four components
must be explicitly encoded in each clause before a motion event can be determined.
Sometimes, the Figure or the Ground may not be expressed in the clause to be consid-
ered, but can be interpreted anaphorically from the previous context. Therefore, a motion
verb is determined by its potential realization of the four components in a clause.

3.1 EXAMPLES OF YAMI PATH AND MANNER VERBS. In this paper,

we first divide the motion event into four patterns: path verb (P), manner verb (M), serial
verbs with a linker a (M#P or P#M), and a deictic verb mangay or mi go followed by
another verb. First, we show the prototypical pattern with purely path verbs in Yami, as in
(5)(8). Each motion verb (bolded) contains a figure moving to the reference object or
Ground. The Ground information is encoded by the locative case marker do. In (5), for
example, the Figure he moves to the Ground the big rock that is split open with the
path encoded in the verb kato agcin-an and then just go down.
(5) Ratateng am, to mi-vwa o rako a vato a,
later.on PAR AUX AF-open NOM big LIN stone PAR
ka-to na rana agcn-an do mi-vawa rako a vato a
CON-AUX 3S.GEN already SUB.go.down-NF LOC AF-open big LIN stone LIN
mi-kizi ori a.
AF-split.open that PAR
Later on, the big rock opened. He fell inside the big rock that was split open.
(6) Ji ko rana toda angay do Jiayo a,
NEG 1S.GEN already AUX SUB.go LOC PLN PAR
ji ko a-gcin.
NEG 1.S.GEN SV.SUB-go.down (divorce)
Im going (back) to Jiayo, and I want a divorce.
(7) Karaan am, maka-sasnad rana sira do Jiahaod ori am,
later.on PAR AF-arrive already 3P.NOM LOC PLN there PAR
to da rana i pa-zomtd-a do dang a.
AUX 3P.GEN already H CAUS-let.off-PF.SUB LOC there PAR
Once they got to Jiahaod, they let the old man off.
(8) Ratateng am, to sia na angay do .
later.on PAR AUX 3P.NOM already SUB.go LOC
To da pa-lad-a do Jimaramay ori am, ...
AUX 3P.GEN VF-off.shore-PF.SUB LOC PLN there PAR
Later on, they went to . They went farther and farther. When they
got to Jimaramay,
We can also find motion events that contain purely manner verbs in Yami, as shown
in (9)(12). In example (9), the Figure I moves to the Ground the sea, with the manner
encoded within the verb to novoz just jump and the trajectory inferred from the Motion
and the Ground. The Ground information is also encoded by the locative case marker do.
All the manner verbs are bolded.
INVESTIGATING MOTION EVENTS IN AUSTRONESIAN LANGUAGES 7

(9) To ko nvoz do wawa am, to ko a-atta-ttaw

AUX 1S.GEN SUB.jump LOC sea PAR AUX 1S.NOM SV.SUB-RED-float
a mi-ta-tangay a, ka-ine-ynawa ko a.
LIN AF-RED-lie PAR only-RED-breathe 1S.GEN PAR
Again I jumped into the water and did the dead mans float.
(10) Ka-to na ngad-an sia do teylaod,
CON-AUX 3S.GEN SUB.row-NF 3S.OBL LOC lowland
to na a-cita a mi-ipos a.
AUX 3S.GEN SUB-see.PF.SUB LIN AF-tail PAR
When he rowed even farther from the shore, she saw him starting to
grow a fish tail.
(11) To ko monas-a jia o ke-kezdas na am,
AUX 1S.GEN SUB.wipe.out-PF.SUB 3S.LOC NOM RED-sickle 3S.GEN PAR
to ko vozcn-a am, to ko walt-an
AUX 1S.GEN tear.down-PF.SUB PAR AUX 1S.GEN throw-IF.SUB
do ka-ango-an am.
LOC NF-pandanus-NF PAR
I took away (lit., wiped out and tore down) her sickle and threw it into
the pandanus trees.
(12) Ji da ngamizing-a no ra-roa ori a, saon jimo am,
NEG 3P.GEN SUB.listen-PF.SUB GEN RED-two that PAR let.it.be 2S.LOC PAR
mo todey rara-i jiamen a om-avang nimo do Jiahaod.
2S.GEN AUX summon-PF.SUB 1EXCL.P.LOC LIN <AF>-ride 2S.GEN LOC PLN
The two brats didnt listen. Your own fault! You summoned us to
take you to Jiahaod.
In addition, Yami verb reduplication (Rau and Dong 2005), such as ka-pi-asa-salap
then fly in all directions in (13), help recontexualize the motion event. The verb mi-
salap fly by itself cannot be considered as a manner verb, as the Motion does not have a
potential realization of the Ground, that is, no point of reference or direction for the flying
Figure. After being reduplicated, the verb implies the bees are flying everywhere and thus
denotes a Ground. Therefore, ka-pi-asa-salap then fly in all directions was coded as a
manner verb.
(13) O tapipi am, ni-ma-kas do kayo, a ni-goyo-goyon no ino,
NOM bee TOP PFV-AF-go.down LOC tree LIN PFV.PF-RED-shake GEN dog
ka-pi-asa-salap da no tapipi.
CON-VF-RED-fly 3P.GEN GEN bee
The dog shook the tree, so the beehive fell down and the bees flew
everywhere.

3.2 YAMI MANNER AND PATH VERBS IN SERIAL VERBCON-

STRUCTIONS. Besides pure Path and Manner verb patterns, Yami speakers also use
a linker a to connect two different verb phrases to represent one motion event in serial
verb constructions (SVCs). Examples (14) and (15) represent the Path-a-Manner
sequence and Manner-a-Path sequence, respectively.
8 OCEANIC LINGUISTICS, VOL. 51, NO. 1

(14) Ya ko ni-tahem do obo-wbot-an am,

AUX 1S.GEN PA.PFV-immerse LOC RED-feces-NF PAR
angay rana parios do wawa, koan ko am,
IMP.go already IMP.bathe LOC sea say 1S.GEN PAR
I punished him by making him stay in the sewage tank, then when I
told him to get a bath,
(15) Karaan am, to na rana nalp-an a ma-ngay do pasalan.
then PAR AUX 3S.GEN already SUB.fly-IF.SUB LIN AF-go LOC harbor
He flew (her) back to the harbor.

3.3 HOW TO DISTINGUISH NONPROTOTYPICAL PATH OR

MANNER VERBS. There is another category of verbs that cannot be classified eas-
ily as either pure path verbs or pure manner verbs, some examples being m-tad-an SUB-
put.down-IF.SUB, mi-agag AF-pull.out, rasay-in press.down-PF, and oso-en
gouge.out-PF . In fact, if we examine these verbs closely, we can observe that both man-
ner and path meanings are present in the verbs. We decided to distinguish them by the
saliency of their properties. Conceptual saliency is mainly determined by the informa-
tiveness (that is, not the default setting) of the path or manner interpretations of the sen-
tence containing the verb in question. For example, we classified m-tad-an SUB-
put.down-IF.SUB and mi-agag AF-pull.out as path verbs because the Path (or direction)
seems to be more informative than the default manner (put or pull) when the agent causes
the Figure to move to the Ground with the down and out path, respectively. On the other
hand, rasay-in press.down-PF and oso-en gouge.out-PF are totally the opposite. The
manner meaning seems to be more informative than the path, because, with rasay-in,
when one presses some object, the default path is down; thus, the path is not as salient.
The same reasoning applies to the verb oso-en, as the manner gouge is the focus and the
path out is the default. Thus, these nonprototypical examples were classified as either
path verbs or manner verbs, based on the comparison of conceptual saliency. This
ensures consistency in the assignment of path and manner verbs and avoids adding an
element of path into an event based on the English translation of the text, for example, the
owl left (rendered as flew away) the tree. In addition, this decision has also completely
excluded the category of M=P (manner=path) used by Huang and Tanangkingsing
(2005). The M=P verbs are defined as motion verbs that imply a path interpretation, as
illustrated in examples (16)(17) in Squliq Atayal.
(16) SQULIQ
Memaw m-laka m-ong squ hngyan na hozil.
even AF-fly AF-hear OBL sound GEN dog
Even the bees flew out to hear the dogs voice. (Frog 1:98.100)
(17) SQULIQ
M-laka yaya-nya
AF-fly bee-3S
The bees are flying around. (Frog 3:108)
Since motion verbs in Yami can be assigned to either path or manner verbs following
our definitions of conceptual saliency, we did not include the M=P category.
INVESTIGATING MOTION EVENTS IN AUSTRONESIAN LANGUAGES 9

3.4 WHAT IS EXCLUDED IN CODING OF MOTION EVENTS? Two

types of verbs are excluded from coding motion events. First, all the grammaticalized
go in expressions, such as go swimming in (18), were excluded because this kind of
verb does not encode the real path in the sentences. The main verb go, on the other
hand, was counted as a path verb and included in our analysis.
(18) To na rana angay mi-ttattaw do dang a,
AUX 3S.GEN already SUB.go AF-swim LOC then PAR
to na mi-rams-i ori no wawa ori a.
AUX 3S.GEN SUB.VF-drown-LF.SUB that GEN sea.water that PAR
He went to swim and took his life by drowning.
Second, verbs with clear Path or Manner but without Motion were also excluded: for
example, ka-langa-langay VF-RED-face.upward, pa-talirong-a VF-turn.back.to.look-
PF.SUB, and i-cingi IF-appear (= stretch forward). However, there is an interesting
example in (19). Although eat is not a typical manner verb, it has to be interpreted with
i-sovo IF-enter as moving something into the mouth. Thus, we coded kan-en eat-PF
as a manner verb in this special case.
(19) O ma-nakaw so i-sovo a kan-en am, ori o ma-lahet am.
NOM AF-steal OBL IF-enter LIN eat-PF PAR that NOM SV-bad PAR
Only people who steal food and put into their mouths are bad.

4. A COMPARISON BETWEEN YAMI AND OTHER WESTERN

AUSTRONESIAN LANGUAGES IN THE FROG STORY. Much of the
research on the motion event has been conducted by analyzing the Frog story (for exam-
ple, Slobin 2004, Huang and Tanangkingsing 2005), because the Frog story contains
many movements of the main character of the story. In our study, we elicited one spoken
and one written form of the Frog story from the same speaker. The written version was
elicited from our consultant, Esther Dong, via email by showing her sequenced pictures
of the story. The Yami narrative was thus written next to each picture to represent a writ-
ten style. A week later, the same consultant was asked to do a verbal performance of this
story for a small group of students who took the field methods course. The story was tape
recorded and transcribed to represent a spoken style.
Table 2 shows the number and percentages (in parentheses) of the components of
motion events. The categories follow Huang and Tanangkingsing (2005) for ease of com-
parison. The total number of motion verbs in the Yami written style is 24, and in the spoken

TABLE 2. THE TOKEN FREQUENCIES OF PATH AND MANNER VERBS

IN WRITTEN AND SPOKEN VERSIONS OF THE FROG STORY IN YAMI
Path Manner MP P#M M#P M=P M#P#D*
WRITTEN 14(58.3%) 8(33.3%) 0(0%) 0(0%) 2(8.3%) 0(0%) 0(0%)
SPOKEN 11(68.8%) 3(18.7%) 0(0%) 1(6.3%) 1(6.3%) 0(0%) 0(0%)

* The pattern M#P#D is illustrated in the Chinese example (4). The former M means a
manner verb, middle P is a path verb, and latter D is deixis.
10 OCEANIC LINGUISTICS, VOL. 51, NO. 1

style it is 16. As a preliminary observation, we noticed that the path verbs are much more
frequent than either manner verbs or serial verbs M#P or P#M in the Frog story.
In tables 3 and 4, the percentages of path expressions and manner expressions in
seven Austronesian languages are presented. The percentages in Yami were calculated
by combining the written with the spoken forms. Thus, the percentages are not the same
as shown in table 2. The Path expressions included Path verbs, MP, M#P, P#M, M=P and
M#P#D patterns, as categorized in Huang and Tanangkingsing (2005). The six patterns
all contain a Path component with the manner verbs excluded. The total number of the
Yami path expressions in table 3 is 29 (72.5 percent), with 25 Path verbs (62.5 percent), 1
P#M (2.5 percent), and 3 M#P (7.5 percent).
Table 4 presents manner expressions, including all six types with a manner component,
that is, Manner verbs, MP, M#P P#M, M=P and M#P#D. The path verbs were excluded
from the table. The total number of the Yami manner expression in table 4 is 15 (37.5 per-
cent), with 11 Manner verbs (27.5 percent), 1 P#M (2.5 percent) and 3 M#P (7.5 percent).
Comparing Yami with the six WAN languages of Huang and Tanangkingsings study
(2005), we find that Yami is a path-salient language based on the very small data set from
the Frog story. However, the limited tokens with skewed distribution from the seven lan-
guages do not allow us to generalize to any of these languages, let alone to all Austronesian
languages. Therefore, our next step was to code motion events from a Yami corpus with
texts on various topics to investigate whether Yami is really path-salient.

5. A QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS OF 20 YAMI NARRATIVES. A quan-

titative analysis of 20 published Yami texts (Rau and Dong 2006) was carried out using
the GOLDVARB program (Sankoff, Tagliamonte, and Smith 2005) to investigate the
factors governing the occurrence of path verbs and manner verbs in Yami motion events.
The Yami texts with both Chinese and English annotationstotaling 315 pages were care-

TABLE 3. PERCENTAGES OF PATH EXPRESSIONS IN THE FROG STORY

Path MP P#M M#P M=P M#P#D Total
Yami 62.5 0 2.5 7.5 0 0 72.5
Saisiyat 63.6 8.4 0.4 1.6 6.3 0 80.3
Squliq 57.1 0 0.4 0 10.0 0 67.8
Tsou 39.0 35.0 0 0 0 0 74.0
Tagalog 72.2 0 0 0 5.2 0 77.4
Cebuano 60.7 0 0 0 11.9 0 72.6
Malay 49.2 14.2 0 5.6 10.8 0 60.6

TABLE 4. PERCENTAGES OF MANNER EXPRESSIONS IN THE FROG STORY

Manner MP P#M M#P M=P M#P#D Total
Yami 27.5 0 2.5 7.5 0 0 37.5
Saisiyat 19.7 8.4 0.4 1.6 6.3 0 36.4
Squliq 32.1 0 0.4 0.4 10.0 0 42.9
Tsou 25.6 35.0 0 0 0 0 60.6
Tagalog 34.4 0 0 0 5.2 0 39.6
Cebuano 27.4 0 0 0 11.9 0 39.3
Malay 25.9 14.2 0 0 10.8 0 90.3
INVESTIGATING MOTION EVENTS IN AUSTRONESIAN LANGUAGES 11

fully selected from texts collected by Rau and Dong since 1995. The 20 texts were gath-
ered from 4 males and 5 females in Yayo and Iranomilek villages. The transcription and
annotation of the texts are very reliable, as they are based on over a decade of collabora-
tive work between a linguist and a Yami language consultant.
The dependent and independent variables used for the logistic regression to account
for the variation of Yami path and manner verbs are as follows:
(20) Dependent Variable:
FG1: Production of path and manner verbs
1 = path verb
0 = manner verb
Independent Variable:
FG2: Figure
f = Figure marking
z = Non-figure marking
FG3: Ground
d = Locative marker do and deictic dang there
n = Personal pronoun Locatives (e.g., jimo 2S.LOC)
z = No
As mentioned earlier, the basic motion event consists of the Motion and Path of the
moving FIGURE to the located object, that is, GROUND (Talmy 2000: 25). We would
like to know (i) what type of motion verb is most frequent in Yami, and (ii) to what extent
FIGURE and GROUND can account for the choice between path and manner verbs.
Based on our preliminary observations, we noted that path verbs were more frequent than
manner verbs in the Yami Frog story. In addition, the Ground tends to be marked by the
locative case marker do. We wonder if the nature of the location might trigger the use of
different motion event, as proposed by Iacobini & Vergaro (2010).5 However, the deter-
mination of Yami semantic categorization of GROUND is a topic beyond the scope of
this research. We decided to limit our study to the encoding of GROUND by different
forms. Thus, this quantitative study tested the following hypotheses:
(i) Yami is a path salient language because the use of path verbs is more frequent than
manner verbs.
(ii) The occurrence of FIGURE and GROUND is related to the choice between path
and manner verbs.
(iii) The encoding of GROUND is related to the choice between path verbs and manner
verbs.

5.1 DATA AND CODING. The study focused only on clauses that contain motion
events (that is, path verbs or motion verbs).6 In other words, all the non-SVC clauses that
are motion events were labeled either Path or Manner and included in the analysis. Table
5 summarizes the distribution of the four constructions of motion events we identified

5. There are many culturally different ways to categorize the GROUND. For example, Nikitina
(2008) divided GROUND into two categories: (1) containers locations with a well-
defined boundary (for example, rooms, boxes, buildings), and (2) areaslocation that lacks
a clear boundary (for example, forests, sea).
6. Constructions with other verbs were excluded.
12 OCEANIC LINGUISTICS, VOL. 51, NO. 1

among Yami narratives. The total number of tokens is 709 clauses. We decided to focus
only on the 339 path verbs and 282 manner verbs, excluding the 59 occurrences of go
and 29 serial verbs with the linker a from the VARBRUL analysis. Strictly speaking, the
grammaticalized go verb can be analyzed as a type of SVC with the linker a optionally
deleted. Although it was suggested by one anonymous reviewer that the grammaticalized
go be included in the analysis as the motion event denoted by the second verb may still
be assigned either Manner or Path, the inclusion of the limited tokens of SVCs would
complicate the current research design without much gain. Future studies need to investi-
gate motion events in SVCs separately.
Some might think it better to run a VARBRUL analysis with all the excluded catego-
ries (that is., go verbs, serial verbs, and nonprototypical path or manner verbs) included
for an additional full VARBUL analysis. But this would not meet the requirement of a
logistic regression, where confounding variables should be identified, controlled, and/or
excluded before any VARBRUL runs to avoid interpretation problems.

5.2 RESULTS. After the first VARBRUL run was performed, there was no knock-
out group, and a binomial up-and-down run for path/manner verb application suggested
all groups are significant factors. The results of numbers and percentages of the construc-
tions of motion events in Yami are shown in table 6.
As indicated in table 6, path verb tokens constitute 55 percent of the total 621 tokens,
while manner verb tokens constitute 45 percent. Path verbs with Figure marking (56 per-
cent) are slightly higher than manner verb with Figure marking (44 percent). As for the

TABLE 5. CONSTRUCTIONS OF MOTION EVENTS IN 20 YAMI

NARRATIVES
TOTAL TOKENS = 709 TOKENS EXAMPLE
Path verb 339 ya arala-en am
AUX pull.ashore-PF PAR
Manner verb 282 ta no t-om-iknoz ko am
because when <AF>collide.with 1S.NOM PAR
Grammaticalized 59 ka-ngay namen rana mi-vate-vatek a
mi/ngay go CON-go 1EXCL.P.GEN already AF-RED-go.to.school PAR
Serial verb with 29 to malyo a m-ai* jiamen a
linker a AUX SUB.AF.run LIN AF-come 1EXCL.P.LOC PAR

* The second verb in this example happens to be a deictic verb functioning only to indicate
whether the motion is toward or away from a person. But as shown in examples (14) and
(15), the two verbs in SVCs can have either a Manner or Path assignment.

TABLE 6. VARBRUL OUTPUT: DISTRIBUTION OF PATH

AND MANNER VERBS
FACTOR GROUP PATH VERB MANNER VERB
1: Figure Figure marking 263 (56%) 204 (44%)
Nonfigure marking 76 (49%) 78 (51%)
2: Ground Location marker do 108 (70%) 46 (30%)
Personal pronoun locatives, 33 (51%) 32 (49%)
such as jimo 2S.LOC
No Ground 198 (49%) 204 (51%)
Total = 621 339 (55%) 282 (45%)
INVESTIGATING MOTION EVENTS IN AUSTRONESIAN LANGUAGES 13

Ground group, path verbs tend to cooccur with Locative marker do (70 percent) more
frequently than do the manner verbs (30 percent).
The final inferential statistics from the VARBRUL analysis are presented in table 7,
which shows that the input probability of path verbs has a value of 0.55. This means that
our first hypothesis that Yami is a path-salient language can be supported, but note that
path verbs are only slightly more frequent than manner verbs (55 percent vs. 45 percent).
As the total Chi-square (goodness-of-fit) has a value of 3.19, less than 7.82 (df = 3, p <
0.05), it indicates the two independent variables, Figure and Ground, are independent
from each other. Furthermore, both Figure and Ground account for the choice between
path and manner verbs. This result supports our second hypothesis, confirming that Figure
and Ground are two significant factor groups that form the most parsimonious model to
account for the variation between path and manner verbs.
We can further interpret the VARBRUL weights (values) from table 6 to find out the
influence of the factors.7 Overall, Ground has a slightly higher impact (Range = 22) on
the choice of path verbs than does Figure (Range = 8). While explicit Figure marking
only slightly favors path verb production, with a value of 0.52, zero Figure marking
favors manner verbs. Furthermore, location marker do or deictic dang there as Ground
marking favors the path verb production with a value of 0.66. On the other hand, Ground
with personal pronoun locatives such as jimo toward you and zero GROUND marking
slightly disfavor the production of path verbs (Pi = 0.46 and Pi = 044, respectively).
Alternatively, it also means that manner verbs are slightly favored in pronominal and zero
Ground marking. Overall, these results also support the third hypothesis, confirming the
importance of Ground marking with a locative marker do or deictic dang to account for
the choice of path verbs.
From the quantitative analysis, we confirm that Yami is a path-salient language,
although path verbs are only slightly more frequent than manner verbs. Most of the patterns
in motion events (87.5 percent) are either marked with pure path verbs or pure manner
verbs. When path verbs are used, they almost never cooccur with manner. When manner
follows a path verb, it is usually the second verb of a serial verb construction.8 Contrary to a

TABLE 7. VARBRUL RESULTS FOR PATH VERBS (Input probability = .55)

FACTOR GROUP WEIGHT
1: Figure Explicit figure marking 0.52
Zero figure marking 0.44
Range 8
2: Ground Location marker do or dang 0.66
Personal pronoun locatives, such as jimo 2S.LOC 0.46
Zero ground marking 0.44
Range 22

7. Note that there is a standard formula to interpret the VARBRUL weights. For each factor, there
is a value/weight ranging from 0.00 to 1.00. VARBRUL factor values of more than 0.5 indicate
a favorite factor while values of less than 0.5 signify a disfavorite factor. A value of 0.5
denotes that the factor has no significant effect on the choice between path and manner verbs.
8. A serial verb construction can either involve or not involve grammaticalized go, as demon-
strated in examples (14) and (19), respectively. There are also SVCs in Yami not involving
motion events, for example Ya mateneng a maganam o mavakes ito That woman is good at
dancing. As they do not pertain to motion events, no further discussion is provided.
14 OCEANIC LINGUISTICS, VOL. 51, NO. 1

prototypical V-language where the manner is encoded in gerund or in a separate clause,

Yami manner marking with a serial verb construction in path verbs is neither as compact as
a gerund nor as independent as a separate clause. Although path verbs are only slightly
more frequent than manner verbs, we cannot consider Yami as an E-language either, as the
serial verb construction only constitutes 12 percent of the data. Therefore, we can conclude
that although Yami is slightly path-salient, it is not a prototypical V-language.

6. CONCLUSION. This paper has addressed the methodological issue of investi-

gating motion events in Austronesian languages. We began by defining motion events as
consisting of potential realizations of Figure, Ground, Motion, and Path. After comparing
our Yami Frog story with the other six languages that Huang and Tanangkingsing (2005)
investigated, we conducted a quantitative analysis on 20 texts to explore whether Yami is
really path-salient and to identify the most parsimonious model to account for the choice
between path verbs and manner verbs. As our VARBRUL analysis is sensitive to treating
small, unbalanced tokens, it provided us with a useful tool to test the constraints on the
variation between path and manner verbs.
Our quantitative analysis indicates that Yami is a path salient language in that (i) path
verbs are slightly more frequent than manner verbs; (ii) although path verbs favor cooccur-
rence of figure and ground more than manner verbs, the locative marker encoding ground
has a very important role to play in marking path verbs; and (iii) manner is usually not
expressed after the path verb. If it is expressed, it is coded as a serial verb construction.
In conclusion, we found that Yami is a path-salient language, in support of Huang and
Tanangkingsings hypothesis (2005) that the WAN languages are path-salient. However,
Yami path verbs are only slightly more frequent than manner verbs (55 percent vs. 45
percent). As a path-salient language, it is not surprising that the Ground marking locative
do is mainly used whenever path verbs occur, whereas pronominal and zero Ground
marking are associated with manner verbs. However, Yami is not a prototypical verb-
framed language, in that it does not downplay the marking of manner with a gerund but
uses a serial verb construction as an equivalent grammatical category.
With the effort to make a clear distinction between path and manner verbs and a detailed
quantitative analysis of 20 texts, this study has paved the way for further studies on motion
events in other Austronesian languages. However, a quantitative study cannot escape its
inherent dilemma of precision vs. reductionism by excluding fuzzy categories and/or bad
examples from its research design. Although our study did not include macroevents and
serial verb constructions because the former do not occur in Yami and the latter constitute
only a negligible portion of our data, the same logistic regression analysis can still be
applied to those cases in other languages as long as a clear definition of motion events is
systematically applied in coding the data, as clearly demonstrated in this paper.
This study does not claim that the results obtained from investigating another lan-
guage using a different methodology can either confirm or reject the findings of previous
studies, but we hope it has demonstrated that a set of reliable data of a reasonable size can
offer a clear operational definition of motion verbs, which would be valuable to future
research on motion events in other languages.
INVESTIGATING MOTION EVENTS IN AUSTRONESIAN LANGUAGES 15

APPENDIX 1. A COMPARISON OF PATH VERBS IN SEVEN AUSTRONESIAN

LANGUAGES

SQULIQ SAISIYAT CEBUANO TAGALOG TSOU MALAY YAMI

12 18 17 15 14 8 57 (#types)
mhtuw kasoehaz gawas labas yuyafo keluar makowbot move out
mzyup sulod lusob/ masuk sdep enter
pasok
mkhoyaw mohaeoe kanaog/ baba/ osok descend
tumba tumba
taiitol saka akyat bangun ascend
mhotaw sahae hulog hulog supeohu jatuh zsi/lektek fall
hagbong bagsak su zkem/akas fall
musa osa adto/ punta (uh) pergi mi/ngay go
padulong
wayal rima pa-ingon tungo go
mzinas lobih balik yuoevei balik return
uli uwi pulang return
mge: ra:iw hawa/ alis mongoi karo leave
lakaw
takas takas pkaako saway/ escape
niomahas
palayo go far
maray/ agi avas/atay/ pass by
may ngonong
dulog beside
kahul inaray iima from
mtuliq minitol yucu vangon arise
mwah mwa:i (uh) i come
tehok potngor esmi sasnad/ arrive
ranes/
rateng
ila move to
miusnu menuju toward
sanabih look
around
hinkosizaeh look
toward
mokakaso iso step back
kasoemaeh to land
mousnu go toward
mainee oli go home

The following path verbs are found only in Yami:

songay go forward awa/siay separate
gcin go down cilamon go through underneath
sibo go to the mountains taid leave behind
angaz/tanang/sakay go up sngen near
aong catch up zagpit step on
sovo put food into the mouth paangnan place underneath
ptad put down arala pull ashore
sivoz slip into palada move off shore
agag take out ajey give to me
yot pull out wani remove the inside
toaw/cngi appear zomtad let off
tango raise talihodhod go around
misonong/igen straighten baba take out
16 OCEANIC LINGUISTICS, VOL. 51, NO. 1

langay move/face upwards araw spread out the log

powpaw gradually rise from water alio squeeze into a gap

APPENDIX 2. A COMPARISON OF MANNER VERBS IN SEVEN

AUSTRONESIAN LANGUAGES

SQULIQ SAISIYAT CEBUANO TAGALOG TSOU MALAY YAMI

16 16 7 7 16 6 45 (#types)
pknyan manra:an lakaw lakad coeconu menjalan walk
qzinah aeaeaew dalagan takbo melari palayo run
hyagun somowaw habol habol peobanga dikejar ciwciw chase
mtakay malben oefuu stumble
mstopu tomkaw ambak talon tovoz jump
lmuyaw omakama crawl
mlaka hoemayap lupad lipad salap fly
qluy measko- float
skopu
lmngiq langoy langoy yuhnguzu awat swim
snyan askan/inleb butang lagay sia/teapha pangay put
tpanga/ maras dala hafa membawa apid carry
galun
pstpak ciha hurl
mkaraw capo memanjat kalat/ climb
savava
tuopopa spill
smopayo mialeleh ride
smehao tiptoe
aemou voak scatter
pataboe/ yuoeva burrow
muiti
tanisowaw lolo follow
tmrok/ mintani tosvo seyked stop
kinslip
maykonkonai terguling roll

The following manner verbs are found only in Yami:

hap take betbet fling
sazisi run quickly ciknoz collide with
toro/panta give pehes grab
vawa open mapazeveng close the door
kozong pack kabkab tear
toyo drive out kan eat
telem/walit/gsah throw cilcil stuff
avang board savat collect
agnat lift mangnong walk along
vozas/nginanda pick netnet drag
mingit/vozcina/alak tear down sagpian distribute
savongit pull hair rra take along
vakong row eza do together in a group of two
INVESTIGATING MOTION EVENTS IN AUSTRONESIAN LANGUAGES 17

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lngrau@ccu.edu.tw s0943779@mail.ncyu.edu.tw ann.ronald@msa.hinet.net