Granularity in the Verbalization of Events and Objects

The study departs from the observation that in expressing ideas, some languages encode more details than others. It investigates whether languages encode events and/or objects at a coarse-grained (e.g., put, glass ) as opposed to a fine-grained (e.g., lay, wine glass ) level systematically . The level of detail is termed granularity , which is viewed as a cline from fine-grained (semantic specificity) to coarse-grained meaning (semantic generality). Four languages are investigated: German, Engli