Event Representation (22 entries)
The Event Representation project explores event packaging across languages and in language acquisition.
(10 entries)
‘Logical’ Connectives in Natural Language: A First Questionnaire
It has been hypothesised that human reasoning has a non-linguistic foundation, but is nevertheless influenced by the formal means available in a language. For example, Western logic is transparently related… More →
Motion Elicitation: “Moving ‘in(to)’” and “Moving ‘out (of)’”
How do languages encode different kinds of movement, and what features do people pay attention to when describing motion events? This task investigates the expression of “enter” and “exit” activities,… More →
Background Questions for the “Enter”/”Exit” Research
How do languages encode different kinds of movement, and what features do people pay attention to when describing motion events? This document outlines topics concerning the investigation of “enter” and… More →
Posture Verb Survey
Expressions of human activities and states are a rich area for cross-linguistic comparison. Some languages of the world treat human posture verbs (e.g., sit, lie, kneel) as a special class… More →
Story Book Stimulus for The Elicitation of External Possessor Constructions and Dative Constructions (“The Circle of Dirt”)
How involved in an event is a person that possesses one of the event participants? Some languages can treat such “external possessors” as very closely involved, even marking them on… More →
Motionland Films (v. 2): Referential Communication Task with Motionland Stimulus
How do languages express ideas of movement, and how do they package different components of moving, such as manner and path? This task supports detailed investigation of motion descriptions. The… More →
Put Project: The Cross-Linguistic Encoding of Placement Events
How similar are the event concepts encoded by different languages? So far, few event domains have been investigated in any detail. The PUT project extends the systematic cross-linguistic exploration of… More →
Reciprocal Constructions and Situation Type
Expressions like ‘John and Mary embraced (each other)’ represent complex situations where symmetry entails that each participant plays each of the two semantic roles (John embraced Mary, and Mary embraced… More →
Kids’ Cut & Break
Kids’ Cut & Break is a task inspired by the original Cut & Break task (see MPI L&C Group Field Manual 2001), but designed for use with children as well… More →
Folk Theories of Objects in Motion
There are three main strands of research which have investigated people’s intuitive knowledge of objects in motion. (1) Knowledge of the trajectories of objects in motion; (2) knowledge of the… More →