This project explores event encoding in the domain of placement events (putting things in and removing them from places). As with the Cut and break project, we investigate cross-linguistic patterns of categorization and the acquisition process. Project members collected data from typologically diverse languages using a standardized set of video clips sampling across a wide range of conditioning factors (e.g. whether the goal is a surface or a container, etc.). Statistical analyses of this dataset are currently under way to discover the distinctions and grouping principles in this domain. Additional research explores placement event encoding in speech and gesture in L1 and L2.

Researchers

• Iraide Ibarretxe-Antuñano on Basque and Spanish
• Asifa Majid and Melissa Bowerman on Dutch
• Tanya Stivers on English
• Christian Rapold on ≠Akhoe Hai//om
• Bhuvana Narasimhan on Hindi and Tamil
• Attila Andics on Hungarian
• Niclas Burenhult on Jahai
• Miyuki Ishibashi on Japanese
• Jan Petersen on Kalasha
• Gunter Senft on Kilivila
• Nick Enfield on Lao
• Eva Lindstrom on Kuot
• Alice Gaby on Kuuk Thaayorre
• Loretta O'Connor on Lowland Chontal
• Jidong Chen on Mandarin
• Marianne Gullberg and Niclas Burenhult on Swedish
• Anetta Kopecka on Polish
• Stephen C. Levinson on Yélî Dnye
• Raphaele Berthele on Romansch
• Penelope Brown on Tzeltal
• Nadi Nouaouri on Moroccan Arabic
• Claudia Wegener on Savosavo

Representative publications

• Narasimhan, B., & Gullberg, M. (2006). Perspective-shifts in event descriptions in Tamil child language. Journal of Child Language, 33(1), 99-124. more >

Contact person

Asifa Majid