Exploring the relationship between language and landscape, this project investigates the linguistic categories of landscape terms and place names across a range of diverse languages. It establishes landscape as a domain of central interest to the language sciences. Our results point to considerable variation within and across languages in how systems of landscape terms and place names are ontologised, with important implications for practical applications, from international law to modern navigation systems. The domain also accommodates previously unrecognised macrostructures in the lexicon, a phenomenon we refer to as 'semplates'.

Researchers

• Penelope Brown on Tzeltal
• Niclas Burenhult on Jahai
• Gaby Cablitz (University of Kiel) on Marquesan
• Nick Enfield on Lao
• Stephen C. Levinson on Yélî Dnye
• Loretta O’Connor (Radboud University) and Peter Kroefges (Universidad Autonoma San Luis Potosi, Mexico) on Lowland Chontal
• Carolyn O'Meara and Jürgen Bohnemeyer (State University of New York) on Seri
• Gunter Senft on Kilivila
• Thomas Widlok (Radboud University) on ≠Akhoe Hai//om

Representative publications

• Burenhult, N. (Ed.) (2008). Language and landscape: Geographical ontology in cross-linguistic perspective [Special Issue]. Language Sciences, 30(2/3). more >
• Levinson, S. C., & Burenhult, N. (2009). Semplates: A new concept in lexical semantics? Language, 85, 153-174. more >

Contact person

Niclas Burenhult