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
Full text
- Available as PDF - 269 kB
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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