Eintrag

Titel

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

Personen

Asifa Majid, Marianne Gullberg, Miriam van Staden, Melissa Bowerman

Jahr

2007

Typ

Aufsatz

Periodikum

Cognitive linguistics

ISSN

0936-5907

Seiten

179 - 194

Heft

2

Sprache(n)

Deutsch
Englisch
Niederländisch
Schwedisch

Schlagwörter

Kategorie
Kontrastiv
Semantik

Abstract

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.

https://grammis.ids-mannheim.de/bdg/35711