Much research has focused on the expression of voluntary motion (Slobin, 2004; Talmy, 2000). The present study contributes to this body of research by comparing how children (three to ten years) and adults narrated short, animated cartoons in English and German (satellite-framed languages) vs. French (verb-framed). The cartoons showed agents displacing themselves in variable Manners along different Paths (Path saliency and variance were specifically manipulated in four item types). Results show an increase with age across languages in how much information participants expressed. However, at all ages, more motion information was encoded in English and German than in French. Furthermore, language-specific features impacted the content and its organization within utterances in discourse, showing more variation within and across Path types in French than in the satellite-framed languages, resulting in later achievement of adult-like descriptions in this language. The discussion highlights the joint impact of cognitive and typological features on language development.

许多研究都集中在自主运动的表达上（Slobin，2004；Talmy，2000）。本研究通过比较儿童（三到十年）和成人如何用英语和德语（卫星框架语言）与法语（动词框架）。漫画显示代理以不同的方式沿着不同的路径移动自己（路径显着性和方差在四种项目类型中被专门操纵）。结果显示，参与者表达的信息量随着年龄的增长而增加。然而，在所有年龄段，用英语和德语编码的运动信息都比用法语编码的多。此外，语言特定的特征会影响话语中话语的内容及其组织，与卫星框架语言相比，法语路径类型内部和路径类型之间的变化更多，导致后来在这种语言中实现了类似成人的描述。讨论强调了认知和类型学特征对语言发展的共同影响。