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The overall objective of the present thesis was to investigate the semantic underpinnings of a selection of spatial prepositions in Norwegian and French, to assess sources of difficulties for the use and comprehension of such prepositions in an L2, and to investigate how knowledge of the meaning of spatial preposition in a second language changes with increasing proficiency. This was studied within the Functional Geometric Framework, FGF (Coventry & Garrod, 2004), which permits for a finegrained study of underlying semantic features relevant for spatial preposition usage; geometric routines, dynamic-kinematic routines and object knowledge. Data consisted of preposition production and acceptability judgments, and were collected from five participant groups: one L1 Norwegian group, one L1 French group, and three different L2 French groups. An important finding in the present thesis is that geometric and functional information underlie comprehension prepositions in both Norwegian and French in similar ways to those theoretically studied by Vandeloise (1986) and to those established in a large body of experimental work for English prepositions. Despite some typological differences in the expression of space in Norwegian and French, native speakers of Norwegian and French make meaning distinctions based on geometry and function in analogous ways. Differences in preposition usage between the two languages stem primarily from language-specific ways of combining object labels and prepositions. Such combinations are sometimes arbitrary, and language conventions may override strong geometric or functional cues for preposition choice. The consequence of the findings for L1 Norwegian and L1 French is that Norwegian learners of L2 French should be able to rely on their intuitions about the semantics of preposition in Norwegian for a native-like comprehension of French prepositions. However, findings in the present thesis are that while L2 users with relatively high L2 proficiency are able to make native-like distinctions based on functional information for prepositions denoting location on the vertical axis, they differ from native speakers in the meaning-distinctions they make based on geometrical information. These findings are directly comparable to findings from a large study of the L2 acquisition of prepositions in English and Spanish (Coventry, Guijarro-Fuentes, & Valdés, 2011). It is therefore likely that the weighting of geometric information for the meaning of spatial prepositions in the L2 takes longer to readjust than the weighting of functional information, at least for prepositions denoting location on the vertical axis. Moreover, findings in the thesis are that both preposition production and judgments about the acceptability of preposition usage are more consistent in the L2 user groups with the highest L2 proficiency. This indicates that the semantic network for spatial prepositions undergoes structuring and tightening as proficiency in the L2 increases, and that lexical knowledge continues to develop in depth also after a preposition has entered into the L2 user’s productive vocabulary.

Cross-linguistic variation is incredibly prevalent and has led to various questions regarding human language and cognition. Such variation predominantly reflects differences in lexicalization strategies across languages, and investigating these patterns is a useful tool for researchers to examine what is possible in the languages of the world, i.e., ‘thinking for speaking’ patterns. An interesting avenue to explore these topics is through the study of human locomotion. Talmy proposed a typological classification of motion events, separating languages in terms of where the element of Path is encoded in a language’s structure. However, many authors criticized this typology, including Vulchanova and colleagues who suggested that languages should instead be addressed through a set of parameters and conceptual features. Further, cross-linguistic variation begs the question of how the acquisition of second languages may be impacted, for which there is no current consensus. The present thesis reviews some of the most prevailing research surrounding these issues and assesses their validity with a behavioural free naming task. The aim of the present study is to determine (i) whether speakers employ the naming patterns predicted in previous research, and (ii) to what extent different encoding strategies between the L1 and L2 impact second language acquisition. Six L1 Norwegian speakers of beginner-intermediate L2 French were recruited and asked to describe 20 videos of human locomotion in both languages. L2 descriptions were compared to labels provided by six native French speakers. L1 Norwegian descriptions were compared to those provided by two native Norwegian pilot participants. Results from both native speaking control groups indicated that speakers primarily employed patterns predicted by previous research. No evidence of transfer was confirmed amongst L2 speakers, perhaps attributed to the L1’s more complex lexical inventory relevant to the patterns of motion in this study. L2 speakers tended to behave similar to native speakers in basic patterns of human locomotion; however, when presented with more complex patterns, L2 labels displayed more errors, and significantly more variation in general. Those with higher L2 proficiency levels performed closer to L1 speakers overall, indicating that some lexicalization patterns in this domain may be acquired in later stages of second language acquisition.