This paper examines the acquisition of demonstratives (e.g., that, there) from a cross-linguistic perspective. Although demonstratives are often said to play a crucial role in L1 acquisition, there is little systematic research on this topic. Using extensive corpus data of spontaneous child speech, the paper investigates the emergence and development of demonstratives in three European (English, French, Spanish) and four non-European languages (Japanese, Chinese, Hebrew, Indonesian) between age 1;0 and 6;0. The data show that, across languages, demonstratives are among the earliest and most frequent child words, but their frequency decreases with age and MLU. As children grow older, they tend to use other types of referring terms (e.g., anaphoric pronouns) and other types of spatial expressions (e.g., adpositions). Considering these results, we hypothesize that children shift from using a body-oriented strategy of deictic communication to more abstract and disembodied strategies of encoding reference and space during the preschool years.

The experiential traces account claims that language comprehension in one's first language (L1) is based on the reactivation of experiential traces that stem from experiencing the corresponding objects, states, or events. However, it remains unclear to what extent this is transferable to second language (L2) comprehension. In the present study, we compared German L1 speakers with German L2 speakers whose L1 uses similar or different spatial terms as German. In an adaptation of the Stroop paradigm, participants were instructed to respond to the font color of German spatial prepositions (e.g., auf “on,” über “above,” and unter “under/below”) by either an upward or a downward hand movement, resulting in compatible or incompatible responses. We found significant compatibility effects for all speakers, but also clear differences between speakers of different L1s. The results thereby support the assumption that experiential traces built during L1 usage play an important role in L2 processing.

In the literature on motion events, a lot of previous research can be found on the contrast between the typology of expression favoured by so-called ‘verb-framed languages’ and that favoured by so-called ‘satellite-framed languages.’ Only some of this previous research, however, has focused its attention on the reasons that ultimately bring about such contrasting fashions of speaking. The present study explores this issue in some depth by trying to identify what specific grammatical constraints lead Italian speakers to be shy of the use of manner verbs in the expression of motion events (at least when compared with speakers of a typical satellite-framed language such as English). The outcome of an interpretation task and a grammatical judgement task conducted with some Italian native speakers suggests that this phenomenon ultimately originates from features exhibited by the Italian system of spatial prepositions, as well as from features exhibited by a certain kind of Italian manner verbs. The constraints caused by the verbs appear to be particularly significant.