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Abstract
We examined the conceptual and pragmatic factors that influence memory (Experiment 1) and language (Experiment 2) for the conceptually core elements of simple source-goal motion events – the goal, or endpoint of motion. In Experiment 1, we presented animate or inanimate events to separate groups of participants and found that animate events were remembered more accurately than endpoints of inanimate events. In Experiment 2 we examined the influence of pragmatic factors related to audience design on participants’ linguistic choices using an elicited production paradigm. We found that, unlike with sources or starting points of motion, the choice to mention or omit the goal was not affected by whether the goal was already known or unknown to the interlocutor. But the way that speakers talked about the goals did vary as a consequence of the pragmatic status of the goal. Our results shed light on the representation of inanimacy in the context of source-goal motion events and in conceptual representations of animacy, more generally. They also shed light on the way in which pragmatic factors related to audience design can affect language for conceptually core versus conceptually peripheral elements of events. We discuss the implications of our findings for theories of event cognition and language production.