Jürgen Bohnemeyer

Morpholexical Transparency and the argument structure of verbs of cutting and breaking

Abstract Guerssel et al.s (1985) generalizations regarding the argument structure of verbs of cutting and breaking (C&B, hereafter) are reanalyzed based on the principles of Morpholexical Transparency and Complete Linking. A working hypothesis according to which the C&B domain is universally exhaustively partitioned into argument structure classes of C&B verbs is proposed and tested against a corpus of data from 17 languages. Counterevidence to the hypothesis includes bipolar verbs that are semantically specific both on the state change and its cause and a language that lacks cut verbs, framing severance as state change. The survey suggests that universals of argument structure include the principles of Morpholexical Transparency and Complete Linking, but not specific verb classes.

Standing divided: Dispositional verbs and locative predications in two Mayan languages

Abstract The Mayan languages Tzeltal and Yucatec have large form classes of “dispositional” roots which lexicalize spatial properties such as orientation, support/suspension/blockage of motion, and configurations of parts of an entity with respect to other parts. But speakers of the two languages deploy this common lexical resource quite differently. The roots are used in both languages to convey dispositional information (e.g., answering “how” questions), but Tzeltal speakers also use them in canonical locative descriptions (e.g., answering “where” questions), whereas Yucatec speakers only use dispositionals in locative predications when prompted by the context to focus on dispositional properties. We describe the constructions used in locative and dispositional descriptions in response to two different picture stimuli sets. Evidence against the proposal that Tzeltal uses dispositionals to compensate for its single, semantically generic preposition (Brown 1994; Grinevald 2006) comes from the finding that Tzeltal speakers use relational spatial nominals in the “Ground phrase” — the expression of the place at which an entity is located — about as frequently as Yucatec speakers. We consider several alternative hypotheses, including a possible larger typological difference that leads Tzeltal speakers, but not Yucatec speakers, to prefer “theme-specific” verbs not just in locative predications, but in any predication involving a theme argument.

Event Representation in Language and Cognition

1. On representing events Eric Pederson and Jurgen Bohnemeyer 2. Event representation in serial verb constructions Andrew Pawley 3. The macro-event property: the segmentation of causal chains Jurgen Bohnemeyer, Nick Enfield, James Essegbey and Sotaro Kita 4. Event representation, time event relations and clause structure: a cross linguistic study of English and German Mary Carroll and Christiane von Stutterheim 5. Event representations in signed languages Asli Ozyurek and Pamela Perniss 6. Linguistic and non-linguistic categorization of complex motion events Jeff Loucks and Eric Pederson 7. Putting things in places: developmental consequences of linguistic typology Dan I. Slobin, Melissa Bowerman, Penelope Brown, Sonja Eisenbeiss and Bhuvana Narasimhan 8. Language-specific encoding of placement events in gestures Marianne Gullberg 9. Visual encoding of coherent and non-coherent scenes Christian Dobel, Reinhild Glanemann, Helene Kreysa, Pienie Zwitserlood and Sonja Eisenbeiss 10. Talking about events Barbara Tversky, Jeffrey M. Zacks, Julie Bauer Morrison and Bridgette Martin Hard 11. Absent causes, present effects: how omissions cause events Phillip Wolff, Matthew Hausknecht and Kevin Holmes.

NSM without the Strong Lexicalization Hypothesis

Abstract I would like to begin by briefly reviewing the assumptions and hypotheses the NSM approach is based on. The goal of this exercise is to understand how these are interrelated, what hinges on every one of them, and what consequences arise from discarding an assumption or disproving a hypothesis. This process defines a number of projects which all agree up to some point and then depart. Prima facie, all of these constitute legitimate avenues of inquiry. My aim is to evaluate the decisions made within the NSM program vis-à-vis these alternatives, and to do so from a particular perspective – that of a field worker dedicated to the study of semantics in Non-Indo-European languages and of a semantic typologist interested in variation and universals of semantic representations across languages. It should be clear from the outset that NSM has made contributions to the crosslinguistic perspective in semantics unsurpassed by those of any other framework (in particular, Goddard & Wierzbicka (eds.) 1994, 2002; Goddard (ed.) 1997) – so my interest should not come as a surprise.

The Contact Diffusion of Linguistic Practices

We examine the extent to which practices of language use may be diffused through language contact and areally shared, using data on spatial reference frame use by speakers of eight indigenous languages from in and around the Mesoamerican linguistic area and three varieties of Spanish. Regression models show that the frequency of L 2-Spanish use by speakers of the indigenous languages predicts the use of relative reference frames in the L 1 even when literacy and education levels are accounted for. A significant difference in frame use between the Mesoamerican and non-Mesoamerican indigenous languages further supports the contact diffusion analysis.

Event Representation in Language and Cognition: Contents

1. On representing events Eric Pederson and Jurgen Bohnemeyer 2. Event representation in serial verb constructions Andrew Pawley 3. The macro-event property: the segmentation of causal chains Jurgen Bohnemeyer, Nick Enfield, James Essegbey and Sotaro Kita 4. Event representation, time event relations and clause structure: a cross linguistic study of English and German Mary Carroll and Christiane von Stutterheim 5. Event representations in signed languages Asli Ozyurek and Pamela Perniss 6. Linguistic and non-linguistic categorization of complex motion events Jeff Loucks and Eric Pederson 7. Putting things in places: developmental consequences of linguistic typology Dan I. Slobin, Melissa Bowerman, Penelope Brown, Sonja Eisenbeiss and Bhuvana Narasimhan 8. Language-specific encoding of placement events in gestures Marianne Gullberg 9. Visual encoding of coherent and non-coherent scenes Christian Dobel, Reinhild Glanemann, Helene Kreysa, Pienie Zwitserlood and Sonja Eisenbeiss 10. Talking about events Barbara Tversky, Jeffrey M. Zacks, Julie Bauer Morrison and Bridgette Martin Hard 11. Absent causes, present effects: how omissions cause events Phillip Wolff, Matthew Hausknecht and Kevin Holmes.

Event Representation in Language and Cognition: Contributors

1. On representing events Eric Pederson and Jurgen Bohnemeyer 2. Event representation in serial verb constructions Andrew Pawley 3. The macro-event property: the segmentation of causal chains Jurgen Bohnemeyer, Nick Enfield, James Essegbey and Sotaro Kita 4. Event representation, time event relations and clause structure: a cross linguistic study of English and German Mary Carroll and Christiane von Stutterheim 5. Event representations in signed languages Asli Ozyurek and Pamela Perniss 6. Linguistic and non-linguistic categorization of complex motion events Jeff Loucks and Eric Pederson 7. Putting things in places: developmental consequences of linguistic typology Dan I. Slobin, Melissa Bowerman, Penelope Brown, Sonja Eisenbeiss and Bhuvana Narasimhan 8. Language-specific encoding of placement events in gestures Marianne Gullberg 9. Visual encoding of coherent and non-coherent scenes Christian Dobel, Reinhild Glanemann, Helene Kreysa, Pienie Zwitserlood and Sonja Eisenbeiss 10. Talking about events Barbara Tversky, Jeffrey M. Zacks, Julie Bauer Morrison and Bridgette Martin Hard 11. Absent causes, present effects: how omissions cause events Phillip Wolff, Matthew Hausknecht and Kevin Holmes.

Landscape terms and place names questionnaire

Landscape terms reflect the relationship between geographic reality and human cognition. Smith and Mark (2001, 2003) explore universals in the ontology underlying landscape terms. Are ‘mountains’, ‘rivers, ‘lakes’ and the like universally recognised in languages as naturally salient objects to be named? Smith and Mark have conducted cross-linguistic elicitation in European languages which suggested strong universal conceptualisations of landscape features. However, recent work by Mark and Turk (ms) on landscape categorisation in Yindjibarndi (northwestern Australia) points to considerable cross-cultural variation.

Martin Pütz & Marjolijn H. Verspoor (eds.), Explorations in linguistic relativity . Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2000. Hb

The past decade has seen a remarkable resurgence of interest in the possible influences of language on “thought” – that is, relativism, the “Whorf Theory Complex” (cf. Lee 1996), or the Linguistic Relativity Hypothesis (LRH). On the occasion of the Whorf centenary in 1997, a number of international conferences, workshops, and symposia were dedicated to the topic. This volume presents a collection of papers from the 26th International LAUD Symposium held at Gerhard Mercator University in Duisburg, Germany, April 1–5, 1998, under the title “Humboldt and Whorf Revisited: Universal and Culture-Specific Conceptualizations in Grammar and Lexis.