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

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.

[1]  A. Majid,et al.  The cross-linguistic categorization of everyday events: A study of cutting and breaking , 2008, Cognition.

[2]  John Price-Wilkin,et al.  Oxford English Dictionary (2nd ed.) , 1991 .

[3]  N. van der Sijs,et al.  Etymologisch woordenboek : de herkomst van onze woorden , 1997 .

[4]  Richard B. Dasher,et al.  Regularity in Semantic Change , 2002 .

[5]  A. Hughes.  Oxford English Dictionary. , 2008, Isis; an international review devoted to the history of science and its cultural influences.

[6]  M. Bowerman.  Why Can’t You “Open” a Nut or “Break” a Cooked Noodle? Learning Covert Object Categories in Action Word Meanings , 2005 .

[7]  Jürgen Bohnemeyer,et al.  Cut and break clips , 2001 .

[8]  A. D. Groot.  Bilingual lexical representation : a closer look at conceptual representations , 1992 .

[9]  M. Aldenderfer,et al.  Cluster Analysis. Sage University Paper Series On Quantitative Applications in the Social Sciences 07-044 , 1984 .

[10]  J. Grainger,et al.  Recognition of Cognates and Interlingual Homographs: The Neglected Role of Phonology , 1999 .

[11]  M. Aldenderfer.  Cluster Analysis , 1984 .

[12]  L. Talmy.  Toward a Cognitive Semantics , 2003 .

[13]  Robert J Hill.  A Dictionary of False Friends , 1982 .

[14]  Miriam Van Staden,et al.  The semantic categories of cutting and breaking events: A crosslinguistic perspective , 2007 .

[15]  I. Lehiste,et al.  Principles and Methods for Historical Linguistics , 1979 .

[16]  Nan Jiang,et al.  Lexical representation and development in a second language , 2000 .