Deictic verbs: Typology, thinking for speaking and SLA

This paper investigates the acquisition of the motion verbs COME and GO by Polish speakers of Spanish L2. I show that whereas these verbs encode deictic information in Spanish, in Polish their use relies on non-deictic factors. In particular, COME is preferred when a goal-oriented perspective is adopted, while GO implies an source-oriented conceptualization of the motion event. Following Slobin (1996), I demonstrate that these typological contrasts yield different patterns of thinking for speaking, which influence L2 acquisition even at advanced stages.