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From Event Representation to Linguistic Meaning
Author(s) -
Ünal Ercenur,
Ji Yue,
Papafragou Anna
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
topics in cognitive science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.191
H-Index - 56
eISSN - 1756-8765
pISSN - 1756-8757
DOI - 10.1111/tops.12475
Subject(s) - event (particle physics) , conceptualization , representation (politics) , cognition , event structure , linguistics , cognitive science , psychology , mental representation , computer science , meaning (existential) , cognitive psychology , artificial intelligence , philosophy , physics , quantum mechanics , neuroscience , politics , political science , law , psychotherapist
A fundamental aspect of human cognition is the ability to parse our constantly unfolding experience into meaningful representations of dynamic events and to communicate about these events with others. How do we communicate about events we have experienced? Influential theories of language production assume that the formulation and articulation of a linguistic message is preceded by preverbal apprehension that captures core aspects of the event. Yet the nature of these preverbal event representations and the way they are mapped onto language are currently not well understood. Here, we review recent evidence on the link between event conceptualization and language, focusing on two core aspects of event representation: event roles and event boundaries. Empirical evidence in both domains shows that the cognitive representation of events aligns with the way these aspects of events are encoded in language, providing support for the presence of deep homologies between linguistic and cognitive event structure.