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How similar are semantic categories in closely related languages? A comparison of cutting and breaking in four Germanic languages

Author

Summary, in English

Are the semantic categories of very closely related languages the same? We present a new methodology for addressing this question. Speakers of English, German, Dutch and Swedish described a set of video clips depicting cutting and breaking events. The verbs elicited were then subjected to cluster analysis, which groups scenes together based on similarity (determined by shared verbs). Using this technique, we find that there are surprising differences among the languages in the number of categories, their exact boundaries, and the relationship of the terms to one another[--]all of which is circumscribed by a common semantic space.

Publishing year

2007

Language

English

Pages

179-194

Publication/Series

Cognitive Linguistics

Volume

18

Issue

2

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Mouton de Gruyter

Topic

  • General Language Studies and Linguistics

Keywords

  • categorization
  • verb semantics
  • Swedish
  • Dutch
  • German
  • English
  • Germanic languages
  • cut and break
  • separation events
  • cluster analysis
  • semantic map

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1613-3641