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3 - The macro-event property
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- By Jürgen Bohnemeyer, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, N. J. Enfield, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, James Essegbey, University of Florida at Gainesville, Sotaro Kita, University of Birmingham
- Edited by Jürgen Bohnemeyer, University at Buffalo, State University of New York, Eric Pederson, University of Oregon
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- Book:
- Event Representation in Language and Cognition
- Published online:
- 01 March 2011
- Print publication:
- 23 December 2010, pp 43-67
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Summary
Towards a semantic typology of event segmentation
Semantic typology is the study of semantic categorization. In the simplest case, semantic typology investigates how an identical perceptual stimulus is categorized across languages. The problem examined in this article is that of event segmentation. To the extent that events are perceivable, this may be understood as the representation of dynamic stimuli in chunks of linguistic code with categorical properties. For illustration, consider an example from a classic study on event cognition (Jenkins, Wald and Pittenger 1986): a woman prepares a cup of tea. She unwraps a tea bag, puts it into the cup, gets a kettle of water from the kitchen, pours the water into the cup, etc. This action sequence can be diagrammed schematically as in fig. 3.1.
It is conceivable that at some level of “raw” perception – before the onset of any kind of categorization – the action sequence is represented as a continuous flux. But it is hard to imagine how higher cognitive operations of recognition and inference could operate without segmenting the stream of perceived activity into units that are treated as instances of conceptual categories. Let us call the intentional correlates of such categories ‘events.’ Regardless of whether or not one assumes internal representations of the action sequence to operate on event concepts, linguistic representations of it do require segmentation into units that can be labeled as instances of unwrapping a tea bag, pouring water into a cup, and so on.
10 - Elements of the grammar of space in Ewe
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- By Felix K. Ameka, Leiden University, James Essegbey, University of Florida, Gainesville
- Edited by Stephen C. Levinson, Max-Planck-Institut für Psycholinguistik, The Netherlands, David P. Wilkins, San Francisco State University
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- Book:
- Grammars of Space
- Published online:
- 22 September 2009
- Print publication:
- 14 September 2006, pp 359-399
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Summary
The language and its relevance for spatial language research
Ewe is a major dialect cluster of the language cluster that has come to be known as Gbe or Tadoid (Capo 1991, Duthie 1996). It is spoken in the south-eastern part of Ghana across to parts of southern Togo as far as and just across the Togo–Benin border by about two and a half million people. Ewe, and for that matter Gbe, belongs to the Kwa family of Niger-Congo (Stewart 1989, Williamson and Blench 2000).
Dialect variation in Ewe is quite enormous where groups of villages that are two or three kilometres apart from one another use distinct varieties. Nevertheless, the local dialects may be grouped geographically into coastal or southern dialects, e.g. Aŋlɔ,Tɔŋú etc., central, e.g. Ho, Kpedze, Dodóme, and northern dialects, e.g. Hohoe, Peki, Kpando, Fódome, etc. The central and northern dialects are collectively characterized indigenously as Ewedomegbe and may be referred to as the inland or northern dialects as opposed to the coastal or southern dialects (see Agbodeka 1997, Ansre 2000, Gavua 2000). Speakers from different localities understand each other and are aware of the peculiarities of the different areas. Add to these, a written standard that was developed in the nineteenth century based on the regional variants of the various sub-dialects (Ansre 1971, 2000, Adzomada 1979). With it has also emerged a standard colloquial variety (spoken usually with local accent), that is very widely used in cross-dialectal contact situations such as in schools, markets and churches.