Semantic typology

Semantic typology (ST) is the cross-linguistic study of linguistic categorization. ST aims to elucidate the workings of the syntax-semantics interface and the broader cognitive embedding of language by studying variation and universals in the constraints languages impose on semantic representations in particular conceptual domains. ST is a field of linguistic inquiry still very much in its infancy. Although the pioneering work of the Cognitive Anthropologists in the 1960s and 1970s has demonstrated the enormous potential of empirical studies in crosslinguistic semantics for shaping theoretical approaches on the interface between language and cognition, few broad-based and methodologically sound investigations have been carried out to date. An explicit research program for ST has been formulated by the members of the Language and Cognition Research Group at the Max Plank Institute for Psycholinguistics. The Nijmegen methodology involves the following steps:

  • Preliminary determination of parameters of variation on the basis of previous research
  • Construction of an etic grid that captures the possible value combinations of these parameters
  • Exhaustive encoding of the cells of the etic grid in sets of nonverbal stimuli
  • Collection of preferred descriptions and ranges of possible descriptions in a typologically broadly varied sample of unrelated languages with multiple speakers per language according to a standardized protocol
  • Additional elicitation aimed at probing the full semantic extension of the collected expressions
  • Tests to filter out pragmatically generated meaning components and isolate lexical (and constructional) semantic representations
  • Statistical analysis of correlations
  • Formulation of implicational generalizations.

 

arrow Dr. Bohnemeyer recently submitted a white paper to the National Science Foundation's SBE 2020: Future Research in the Social, Behavioral & Economic Sciences. The paper, Semantic typology as an approach to mapping the nature-nurture divide in cognition, discusses the unique challenges in the field of ST and the reasons for funding research in this field.

Major ongoing activities in Semantic Typology at the University at Buffalo Linguistics Department include the Semantic Typology Lab and the MesoSpace Project. The Semantic Typology Lab serves as an incubator for research ideas from faculty and students. Current topics of discussion include projects on eye-tracking studies of motion events, dispositionals in Yucatec, the interface of spatial semantics and clause structure in MuNgBAM, and continued research on spatial language and cognition beyond Mesoamerica.

Selected publications on ST:

Bohnemeyer, J. Under review. Space in semantic typology: Object-centered geometries.(With Randi Tucker.) In Proceedings of the FRIAS Language and Space Workshops. Space in language and linguistics: Geographical, interactional, and cognitive perspectives. Abstract.

Bohnemeyer, J. Under review. Vectors and frames of reference: Evidence from Seri and Yucatec. (With Carolyn O'Meara.)

Bohnemeyer, J. Under review. Spatial frames of reference in Yucatec: Referential promiscuity and task-specificity. Special issue in Language Sciences

Bohnemeyer, J. Under review. Uniformity and variation in Tseltal reference frame use. (With Gilles Polian.) Special issue in Language Sciences.

Bohnemeyer, J. 2010. The language-specificity of Conceptual Structure: Path, Fictive Motion, and time relations. In B. Malt. & P. Wolff (Eds.), Words and the mind: How words capture human experience. 111-137.Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Bohnemeyer, J. 2010. The macro-event property: The segmentation of causal chains. (With N. J. Enfield, J. Essegbey, and S. Kita.) In Jürgen Bohnemeyer & Eric Pederson (Eds.), Event representation in language. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. 43-67.

Bohnemeyer, J. 2008. Thinking-for-speaking: evidencia a partir de la codificación de disposiciones espaciales en español y yucateco. [Thinking for speaking: Evidence from the encoding of spatial dispositions in Spanish and Yucatec]. With V. Belloro, D. Gentner, and K. Braun. Memoria del IX Encuentro Internacional De Lingüística En El Noroeste. Vol. 2. Hermosillo: Editorial UniSon. 175-190.

Bohnemeyer, J. 2008. Complex landscape terms in Seri. (With Carolyn O'Meara.) Language Sciences 30(2-3): 316-339.

Bohnemeyer, J. 2007. Principles of event representation in language: The case of motion events. (With N.J. Enfield, J. Essegbey, I. Ibarretxe-Antuñano, S. Kita, F. Lüpke, and F. K. Ameka.)Language 83(3): 495-532.

Bohnemeyer, J. 2007. Morpholexical transparency and the argument structure of verbs of cutting and breaking. Cognitive Linguistics 18(2): 153-177.

Bohnemeyer, J. 2006. Ways to go: Methodological considerations in Whorfian studies on motion events. (With S. Eisenbeiss and B. Narasimhan.) Essex Research Reports in Linguistics 50: 1-20. 

Bohnemeyer, J. 2003. The unique vector constraint: The impact of direction changes on the linguistic segmentation of motion events. In E. van der Zee and J. Slack (eds.), Representing direction in language and space. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 86-110.

Bohnemeyer, J. 2001. Prinzipien der Ereignisrepresentation am Beispiel von Bewegungsereignissen [Principles of event representation, with reference to motion events.] In: Jahrbuch 2001. Edited by the Max Planck Society. Goettingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht. 359-363.