Patterns of Possibility: 1 The Cognitive Horizon of Process

In our typological deep dive, we saw that languages cut processes differently:

• Linear, agent-focused events (English)

• Multi-dimensional aspectual unfolding (Japanese)

• Event-as-entity constructions (Salishan languages)

• Spatially co-actualised processes (ASL)

These are not stylistic differences. They are ontological choices — patterns that shape how experience is structured. This post explores the cognitive horizon these choices create: how habitual process construal tunes attention, memory, expectation, and narrative anticipation.

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1. Process and Attention

• English: verbs foreground agents and chronological unfolding.

  • Speakers habitually attend to “who does what, when.”

• Japanese: aspectual morphology highlights completion, persistence, and potentiality.

  • Speakers attend to event internal structure, not just sequence.

• Salishan languages: events are nominalised; agents are optional.

  • Speakers attend to relations and outcomes, rather than actors.

• ASL: spatially encoded, simultaneous processes.

  • Speakers attend to whole gestalt — multiple participants, actions, and results at once.

Cognitive payoff: habitual exposure to a language’s process construal primes attention to particular facets of events, influencing what is noticed, predicted, and remembered.

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2. Process and Memory

• Event segmentation varies by construal:

  • Linear-focused languages encode sequences as discrete chunks.

  • Aspectual or nominalised systems encode events as relational nodes or multi-phase structures.

  • Embodied languages encode simultaneous event dimensions in memory traces.

Effect: The granularity and relational salience of remembered events is shaped by habitual construal patterns.

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3. Process and Expectation

• Event structure informs narrative anticipation:

  • English speakers predict agent-driven consequences.

  • Japanese speakers predict phase transitions, completions, or habitual recurrence.

  • Salishan speakers anticipate relational outcomes.

  • ASL users anticipate multi-dimensional spatial trajectories.

Insight: Process construal preconfigures what counts as a plausible next step in both perception and storytelling.

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4. Process and Narrative

• Narratives in each construal system highlight different facets of reality:

  • Linear agentive narratives: heroes, villains, causal chains.

  • Aspectually nuanced narratives: evolving states, habitual patterns.

  • Nominalised events: relationships, consequences, outcomes.

  • Spatially embodied narratives: co-occurring actions, relational dynamics, environmental context.

Takeaway: The way a language structures process determines the narrative horizons available to speakers, shaping both plot and perspective.

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5. Concluding Reflection

Languages are cognitive affordances, not mirrors. Process construal:

• Tunes attention to agent, outcome, phase, or gestalt

• Structures memory according to segmentation and relational prominence

• Shapes expectation of event trajectories

• Opens distinct narrative possibilities

In short, the habitual patterns of process construal are cognitive horizons, providing a scaffold for how speakers inhabit and interpret their worlds.