A cross-linguistic comparison of Spanish and English semantic norms: Looking at core features

Abstract

AbstractIt has been suggested that human communities that share their basic cultural foundations evince no remarkable differences concerning the characterization of core concepts. However, the small but existing differences among them reflect their sociocultural diversity. This study compares 219 concrete concepts common to both Spanish and English semantic feature norms in order to assess whether core features of concepts follow a universal or cultural language-specific pattern. Concepts were compared through a geometric technique of vector comparison in the Euclidean n-dimensional space alongside the calculation of the network’s degree of centrality. The role of cognate status was also explored by repeating the former analysis separating cognate from noncognate words. Taken together, our data show that languages are structurally similar independent of the cognate status of words, further suggesting that there are some sort of core features common to both languages.