Resumen: This study investigates sematic categorization of the meaning of placement verbs by Danish and Spanish native speakers and two groups of intermediate second language (L2) learners (Danish learners of L2 Spanish and Spanish learners of L2 Danish). Participants described 31 video clips picturing different types of placement events. Cluster analyses revealed considerable differences in the semantic categorization of these events in Danish and Spanish as well as learning difficulties for the two learner groups. When Danish and Spanish differ in the number and nature of semantic distinctions, L2 verb meaning reconstruction becomes challenging when moving from a more to a less complex system and vice versa. Both learner groups used noncaused motion verbs, overgeneralized given placement verbs, and tended to use L2 verbs haphazardly. Idioma: Inglés DOI: 10.1111/lang.12153 Año: 2016 Publicado en: LANGUAGE LEARNING 66, 1 (2016), 191-223 ISSN: 0023-8333 Factor impacto JCR: 2.079 (2016) Categ. JCR: LINGUISTICS rank: 13 / 180 = 0.072 (2016) - Q1 - T1 Categ. JCR: EDUCATION & EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH rank: 33 / 233 = 0.142 (2016) - Q1 - T1 Factor impacto SCIMAGO: 2.359 - Education (Q1) - Linguistics and Language (Q1) - Language and Linguistics (Q1)