Semantic Clusters Combined with Kinematics: The Case of English and Modern Greek Motion Verbs

Abstract

We combine corpus driven linguistic knowledge with experimentally obtained sensorimotor data in an effort to better specify the minimum conceptual representation of a motion event that distinguishes it from all other events, which still are largely presented in a vague and not objectively calculated quantitative method. We use American English and Modern Greek data as a case study, in order to focus on the clustering of motor actions and its correspondence to previous linguistic classifications of both languages.

Relations Among MOCAP and Textual Data of Motion Verbs

“…Table 2. Visualized plots of path, direction and velocity (Sionti, 2016) Inthiswork,wedrawonthementionedtheoriesoflexicalaspecttoannotateourlinguisticdata; furthermore,wecollectmocapdataforthecorrespondingverbs.Theextensiveliteratureprovides support to our choice to use raw kinematic data for the intended grounding, while the graphical presentationoftheactionsisinthespiritoftheaspectualgraphicalrepresentationsthathavebeen suggestedbyTalmy (2000), Narayannan(1997),Malaia&Wilbur(2010)andSionti(2016.Wedraw ontheseanalysesandextendthemwithnewcalculationsinordertofurtherunderstandthenatureof therelationbetweenkinematicsandlinguistics.…”