Granularity in the Verbalization of Events and Objects:A Cross-Linguistic Study (Studies in Language Companion, 233)

by: Katerina Stathi (Author)

Publisher: John Benjamins Pub Co

Language: English

Print Length: 536 pages

ISBN-10: 9027213828

ISBN-13: 9789027213822

Book Description

The study departs from the observation that in expressing ideas, some languages encode more details than others. It investigates whether languages encode events and/or objects at a coarse-grained (e.g., put, glass) as opposed to a fine-grained (e.g., lay, wine glass) level systematically. The level of detail is termed granularity, which is viewed as a cline from fine-grained (semantic specificity) to coarse-grained meaning (semantic generality). Four languages are investigated:German, English, Greek, and Turkish. The study draws on elicited data from a naming task. The verbalization of events is based on event and object descriptions in selected semantic domains. The results reveal significant granularity effects between languages and language types (satellite-framed vs. verb-framed). The study is relevant for scholars interested in linguistic typology, lexical and semantic typology, contrastive linguistics, event representation, psycholinguistics, and cognitive semantics.

About the Author

The study departs from the observation that in expressing ideas, some languages encode more details than others. It investigates whether languages encode events and/or objects at a coarse-grained (e.g., put, glass) as opposed to a fine-grained (e.g., lay, wine glass) level systematically. The level of detail is termed granularity, which is viewed as a cline from fine-grained (semantic specificity) to coarse-grained meaning (semantic generality). Four languages are investigated:German, English, Greek, and Turkish. The study draws on elicited data from a naming task. The verbalization of events is based on event and object descriptions in selected semantic domains. The results reveal significant granularity effects between languages and language types (satellite-framed vs. verb-framed). The study is relevant for scholars interested in linguistic typology, lexical and semantic typology, contrastive linguistics, event representation, psycholinguistics, and cognitive semantics.