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Journal Article

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

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Majid,  Asifa
Language and Cognition Group, MPI for Psycholinguistics, Max Planck Society;
Categories across Language and Cognition, MPI for Psycholinguistics, Max Planck Society;

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Gullberg,  Marianne
Language Acquisition Group, MPI for Psycholinguistics, Max Planck Society;
Categories across Language and Cognition, MPI for Psycholinguistics, Max Planck Society;

Van Staden,  Miriam
Language Acquisition Group, MPI for Psycholinguistics, Max Planck Society;
Categories across Language and Cognition, MPI for Psycholinguistics, Max Planck Society;

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Bowerman,  Melissa
Language Acquisition Group, MPI for Psycholinguistics, Max Planck Society;
Categories across Language and Cognition, MPI for Psycholinguistics, Max Planck Society;

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Citation

Majid, A., Gullberg, M., Van Staden, M., & Bowerman, M. (2007). How similar are semantic categories in closely related languages? A comparison of cutting and breaking in four Germanic languages. Cognitive Linguistics, 18(2), 179-194. doi:10.1515/COG.2007.007.


Cite as: https://hdl.handle.net/11858/00-001M-0000-0013-175C-A
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.