Principles of Event Segmentation in Language: The Case of Motion Events

Bornemeyer, J. ; Enfield,N. J. ; Essegbey, J. ; Ibarretxe-Antuñano, I. (Universidad de Zaragoza) ; Kita, S. ; Luepke, F. ; Ameka ,F. K.

Resumen: We examine universals and crosslinguistic variation in constraints on event segmentation. Previous typological studies have focused on segmentation into syntactic (Pawley 1987) or intonational units (Givo´n 1991). We argue that the correlation between such units and semantic/conceptual event representations is language-specific. As an alternative, we introduce the MACRO-EVENT PROPERTY (MEP): a construction has the MEP if it packages event representations such that temporal operators necessarily have scope over all subevents. A case study on the segmentation of motion events into macro-event expressions in eighteen genetically and typologically diverse languages has produced evidence of two types of design principles that impact motion-event segmentation: language-specific lexicalization patterns and universal constraints on form-to-meaning mapping.

Idioma: Inglés

Año: 2007

Publicado en: LANGUAGE 83, 3 (2007), 495-532
ISSN: 0097-8507

Factor impacto JCR: 1.976 (2007)

Categ. JCR: LINGUISTICS rank: 4 / 55 = 0.073 (2007) - Q1 - T1

Tipo y forma: Artículo (Versión definitiva)

Área (Departamento): Área Lingüística General (Dpto. Lingüíst. Gral. e Hisp.)