Actions

Abstract

This chapter explores how typological findings about action concepts can inform neuroscientific work on their cortical implementation. Because common representational patterns in the cross-linguistic treatment of actions are likely to reflect fundamental properties of this intricate semantic sphere, they provide neuroscientists with important “targets” to search for in the brain. And because less frequent and downright rare patterns reveal the scope of cultural variation, they show neuroscientists how much conceptual diversity must ultimately be accommodated by any comprehensive brain-based theory. The first section concentrates on motion events. Then the next section discusses events of cutting, breaking, and opening. After that, the chapter turns to events of putting and taking. Finally, the last two sections deal with serial verb constructions and verbal classification systems.