Cognitive research on metaphoric concepts of time has focused on differences between moving Ego and moving time models, but even more basic is the contrast between Ego- and temporal-reference-point models. Dynamic models appear to be quasi-universal cross-culturally, as does the generalization that in Ego-reference-point models, FUTURE IS IN FRONT OF EGO and PAST IS IN BACK OF EGO. The Aymara language instead has a major static model of time wherein FUTURE IS BEHIND EGO and PAST IS IN FRONT OF EGO; linguistic and gestural data give strong confirmation of this unusual culture-specific cognitive pattern. Gestural data provide crucial information unavailable to purely linguistic analysis, suggesting that when investigating conceptual systems both forms of expression should be analyzed complementarily. Important issues in embodied cognition are raised: how fully shared are bodily grounded motivations for universal cognitive patterns, what makes a rare pattern emerge, and what are the cultural entailments of such patterns?

Perhaps we keep finding iconicity because there is no other way for a semiotic system to be created and used by human beings without a close fit between form and function. After all, is it possible to make a mold for a statue that does not conform to the shape and dimensions and substance of the statue? Dan I. Slobin (2005, p. 321) In this paper I would like to reexamine some of the traditional dichotomies between language and gesture. In order to do so, it will be necessary to consider a three-way contrast—spoken languages, signed languages, and gesture. Without this three-way comparison, we risk collapsing contrasts between visual and auditory media with contrasts between linguistic structure and co-linguistic gestural structure. Such a comparison clearly belongs in this volume because Dan Slobin’s work on Thinking for Speaking has provided a crucial impetus to the research which feeds my new evaluation—both his own work on spoken and signed language, and the new perspectives on co-speech gesture which have been inspired by that work, not to mention his general intellectual influence on my work for the last 30 years. Dan has never been never afraid to cross boundaries between modalities—or to be skeptical about accepted dichotomies. So I hope readers will see this

Verb classes are sets of semantically-related verbs sharing a range of linguistic properties, such as: — possible realizations of their arguments — interpretation associated with each possible argument realization A big question posed by the Valency Project: Which facets of verb classification are universal and which language particular? Overview: — Review my general perspective on verb classes. — Introduce a development in my work on verb classes. — Consider its implications for future crosslinguistic studies of verb classes. 1 Introduction: The

Rappaport Hovav and Levin (in press) argue that verbs fall into (at least) two classes: those encoding result (e.g. break, smash, crush) and those encoding manner (e.g. run, walk, swim). No verb encodes both, so that the manner in which something comes to be broken is underspecified for break verbs, while the result is underspecified for run verbs. Through critical examination of this proposal, we show that there are two ways of interpreting it: truth conditionally and representationally. Truth conditionally, a critical issue is isolating appropriate diagnostic tools for manner and result. We develop and review a number of such diagnostics, showing that from this perspective there are at least three classes of English verbs (manner of killing verbs, ballistic motion verbs of the throw type, and manner of cooking verbs) that do encode both manner and result meaning, in violation of a categorical reading of the manner/result complementarity hypothesis (which, we go on to argue, may well hold statistically). Representationally, drawing on scope diagnostics, we show that in these verbs, both manner and result meaning are packaged not into separate roots, but rather into a single root, thus vindicating the hypothesis from this perspective.