2001 Field Manual entries
This entry has been superceded by the 2003 version! This task investigates the extensional meaning of body part terms, in particular the terms for the upper and lower limbs. Two questions are addressed, namely (i) are the boundaries of these body parts universal, guided by proposed universals of object recognition? (ii) How can we compare the extensional meanings of body part terms within and across different systems of nomenclature? Consultants receive booklets with line drawings of a body and are asked to colour in specific parts of the body., Additional info: Volume 2001, filed under Space project.
What kinds of resources do languages have for describing location and position? For some languages, verbs have an important role to play in describing different kinds of situations (e.g., whether a bottle is standing or lying on the table). This task is designed to examine the use of positional verbs in locative constructions, with respect to the presence or absence of a human “positioner”. Participants are asked to describe video clips showing locative states that occur spontaneously, or because of active interference from a person. The task follows on from two earlier tools for the elicitation of static locative descriptions (BowPed and the Ameka picture book task). A number of additional variables (e.g. canonical v. non-canonical orientation of the figure) are also targeted in the stimuli set., Additional info: Volume 2001, filed under Event Representation., How to cite this resource:, Hellwig, F. M., & Lüpke, F. (2001). Caused positions. In S. C. Levinson, & N. J. Enfield (Eds.), Manual for the field season 2001 (pp. 126-128). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.874644.
How do different languages treat a particular semantic domain? It has already been established that languages have widely varied words for talking about “cutting” and “breaking” things: for example, English has a very general verb break, but K’iche’ Maya has many different ‘break’ verbs that are used for different kinds of objects (e.g., brittle, flexible, long). The aim of this task is to map out cross-linguistic lexicalisation patterns in the cutting/breaking domain. The stimuli comprise 61 short video clips that show one or two actors breaking various objects (sticks, carrots, pieces of cloth or string, etc.) using various instruments (a knife, a hammer, an axe, their hands, etc.), or situations in which various kinds of objects break spontaneously. The clips are used to elicit descriptions of actors’ actions and the state changes that the objects undergo., Additional info: Volume 2001, filed under Event Representation. Tags: classics, grammar, lexicon, video clips, How to cite this resource:, Bohnemeyer, J., Bowerman, M., & Brown, P. (2001). Cut and break clips. In S. C. Levinson, & N. J. Enfield (Eds.), Manual for the field season 2001 (pp. 90-96). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.874626.
Demonstratives (e.g., words such as this and that in English) pivot on relationships between the item being talked about, and features of the speech act situation (e.g., where the speaker and addressee are standing or looking). However, they are only rarely investigated multi-modally, in natural language contexts. This task is designed to build a video corpus of cross-linguistically comparable discourse data for the study of “deixis in action”, while simultaneously supporting the investigation of joint attention as a factor in speaker selection of demonstratives. In the task, two or more speakers are asked to discuss and evaluate a group of similar items (e.g., examples of local handicrafts, tools, produce) that are placed within a relatively defined space (e.g., on a table). The task can additionally provide material for comparison of pointing gesture practices., Additional info: Volume 2001, filed under Space project., How to cite this resource:, Levinson, S. C., Kita, S., & Ozyurek, A. (2001). Demonstratives in context: Comparative handicrafts. In S. C. Levinson, & N. J. Enfield (Eds.), Manual for the field season 2001 (pp. 52-54). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.874663.
This entry has been superceded by the 2007 version! Pointing gestures are recognised to be a primary manifestation of human social cognition and communicative capacity. The goal of this task is to collect empirical descriptions of pointing practices in different cultural settings., Additional info: Volume 2001, filed under Gesture.
Judgments we make about how similar or different events are to each other can reveal the features we find useful in classifying the world. This task is designed to investigate how speakers of different languages classify events, and to examine how linguistic and gestural encoding relates to non-linguistic classification. Specifically, the task investigates whether speakers judge two events to be similar on the basis of (a) the path versus manner of motion, (b) sub-events versus larger complex events, (c) participant identity versus event identity, and (d) different participant roles. In the task, participants are asked to make similarity judgments concerning sets of 2D animation clips., Additional info: Volume 2001, filed under Event Representation., How to cite this resource:, Bohnemeyer, J., Eisenbeiss, S., & Narasimhan, B. (2001). Event triads. In S. C. Levinson, & N. J. Enfield (Eds.), Manual for the field season 2001 (pp. 100-114). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.874630.
Demonstratives are typically described as encoding degrees of physical distance between the object referred to, and the speaker or addressee. For example, this in English is used to talk about things that are physically near the speaker, and that for things that are not. But is this how speakers really choose between these words in actual talk? This task aims to generate spontaneous language data concerning deixis, gesture, and demonstratives, and to investigate the significance of different factors (e.g., physical distance, attention) in demonstrative selection. In the presence of one consultant (the “memoriser”), sixteen colour chips are hidden under objects in a specified array. Another consultant enters the area and asks the memoriser to recount the locations of the chips. The task is designed to create a situation where the speaker genuinely attempts to manipulate the addressee’s attention on objects in the immediate physical space., Additional info: Volume 2001, filed under Space project., How to cite this resource:, Enfield, N. J., & Bohnemeyer, J. (2001). Hidden colour-chips task: Demonstratives, attention, and interaction. In S. C. Levinson, & N. J. Enfield (Eds.), Manual for the field season 2001 (pp. 21-28). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.874636.
As for Locally-anchored spatial gestures task, version 2, a major goal of this task is to elicit locally-anchored spatial gestures across different cultures. “Locally-anchored spatial gestures” are gestures that are roughly oriented to the actual geographical direction of referents. Rather than set up an interview situation, this task involves recording informal, animated narrative delivered to a native-speaker interlocutor. Locally-anchored gestures produced in such narrative are roughly comparable to those collected in the interview task. The data collected can also be used to investigate a wide range of other topics., Additional info: Volume 2001, filed under Gesture., How to cite this resource:, Levinson, S. C., Kita, S., & Enfield, N. J. (2001). Locally-anchored narrative. In S. C. Levinson, & N. J. Enfield (Eds.), Manual for the field season 2001 (pp. 147). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.874660.
Gesture is an integral part of face-to-face communication, and provides a rich area for cross-cultural comparison. “Locally-anchored spatial gestures” are gestures that are roughly oriented to the actual geographical direction of referents. For example, such gestures may point to a location or a thing, trace the shape of a path, or indicate the direction of a particular area. The goal of this task is to elicit locally-anchored spatial gestures across different cultures. The task follows an interview format, where one participant prompts another to talk in detail about a specific area that the main speaker knows well. The data can be used for additional purposes such as the investigation of demonstratives., Additional info: Volume 2001, filed under Gesture., How to cite this resource:, Kita, S. (2001). Locally-anchored spatial gestures, version 2: Historical description of the local environment as a gesture elicitation task. In S. C. Levinson, & N. J. Enfield (Eds.), Manual for the field season 2001 (pp. 132-135). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.874647.
How do languages express ideas of movement, and how do they package different components of this domain, such as manner and path of motion? This task uses one large set of stimuli to gain knowledge of certain key aspects of motion verb meanings in the target language, and expands the investigation beyond simple verbs (e.g., go) to include the semantics of motion predications complete with adjuncts (e.g., go across something). Consultants are asked to view and briefly describe 96 animations of a few seconds each. The task is designed to get linguistic elicitations of motion predications under contrastive comparison with other animations in the same set. Unlike earlier tasks, the stimuli focus on inanimate moving items or “figures” (in this case, a ball)., Additional info: Volume 2001, filed under Space project. Tags: lexicon, motion, verbs, video clips, How to cite this resource:, Levinson, S. C. (2001). Motion Verb Stimulus (Moverb) version 2. In S. C. Levinson, & N. J. Enfield (Eds.), Manual for the field season 2001 (pp. 9-13). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.3513706.
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 specific study goals are: (a) the coding of “via” grounds (i.e., ground objects which the figure moves along, over, around, through, past, etc.); (b) the coding of direction changes; (c) the spontaneous segmentation of complex motion scenarios; and (d) the gestural representation of motion paths. The stimulus set is 5 simple 3D animations (7-17 seconds long) that show a ball rolling through a landscape. The task is a director-matcher task for two participants. The director describes the path of the ball in each clip to the matcher, who is asked to trace the path with a pen in a 2D picture., Additional info: Volume 2001, filed under Event Representation. Tags: video clips, How to cite this resource:, Bohnemeyer, J. (2001). Motionland films version 2: Referential communication task with motionland stimulus. In S. C. Levinson, & N. J. Enfield (Eds.), Manual for the field season 2001 (pp. 97-99). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.874623.
"Recognitional" words and constructions enshrine our systematic reliance on shared knowledge in dedicated morphological forms and usage patterns. For example, English has a large range of terms for use when a speaker cannot locate the word or name for something or someone (e.g., whatsit, what’s-his-name), but thinks that the interlocutor knows, or can easily work out, what the speaker is talking about. This task aims to identify and investigate these kinds of expressions in the research language, including their grammaticalised status, meaning, distribution, and productivity. The task consists of a questionnaire with examples of relevant hypothetical scenarios that can be used in eliciting the relevant terms. The researcher is then encouraged to pursue further questions in regard to these items., Additional info: Volume 2001, filed under Space project., How to cite this resource:, Enfield, N. J., Levinson, S. C., & Meira, S. (2001). Recognitional deixis. In S. C. Levinson, & N. J. Enfield (Eds.), Manual for the field season 2001 (pp. 78-81). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.874641.
The term “event” is a controversial concept, and the “same” activity or situation can be linguistically encoded in many different ways. The aim of this task is to explore features of event representation in the language of study, in particular, multi-verb constructions, event typicality, and event complexity. The task consists of a description and recollection task using film stimuli, and a subsequent re-enactment of certain scenes by other participants on the basis of these descriptions. The first part of the task collects elaborate and concise descriptions of complex events in order to examine how these are segmented into macro-events, what kind of information is expressed, and how the information is ordered. The re-enactment task is designed to examine what features of the scenes are stereotypically implied., Additional info: Volume 2001, filed under Event Representation. Tags: video clips, How to cite this resource:, Van Staden, M., Senft, G., Enfield, N. J., & Bohnemeyer, J. (2001). Staged events. In S. C. Levinson, & N. J. Enfield (Eds.), Manual for the field season 2001 (pp. 115-125). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.874668.
This entry has been superceded by the 2008 version! This entry contains: 1. An invitation to think about to what extent the grammar of space and time share lexical and morphosyntactic resources − the suggestions here are only prompts, since it would take a long questionnaire to fully explore this; 2. A suggestion about how to collect gestural data that might show us to what extent the spatial and temporal domains, have a psychological continuity. This is really the goal − but you need to do the linguistic work first or in addition. The goal of this task is to explore the extent to which time is conceptualised on a spatial basis., Additional info: Volume 2001, filed under Space project.
Place-names (toponyms) are at the intersection of spatial language, culture, and cognition. This questionnaire prepares the researcher to answer three overarching questions: how to formally identify place-names in the research language (i.e. according to morphological and syntactic criteria); what places place-names are employed to refer to (e.g. human settlements, landscape sites); and how places are semantically construed for this purpose. The questionnaire can in principle be answered using an existing database. However, additional elicitation with language consultants is recommended., Additional info: Volume 2001, filed under Space project., How to cite this resource:, Bohnemeyer, J. (2001). Toponym questionnaire. In S. C. Levinson, & N. J. Enfield (Eds.), Manual for the field season 2001 (pp. 55-61). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.874620.
Citation
Juergen Bohnemeyer, N.J. Enfield, Stephen C. Levinson, Sotaro Kita, Aslı Özyürek, Bhuvana Narasimhan, David Wilkins, Frauke M. Hellwig, Friederike Lüpke, Gunter Senft, Melissa Bowerman, Miriam van Staden, Penelope Brown, Sonja Eisenbeiss, and Sérgio Meira. (2001). Item "2001 Field Manual entries" in collection "Field Manuals". The Language Archive. https://hdl.handle.net/1839/921f7495-2978-4a5a-a191-f5c2f8ecd743. (Accessed 2023-10-02)
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