The author examines the difference between English and Kalam (spoken in the highlands of Papua New Guinea), with respect to the conventions which lead speakers of either language customarily to report similar objective events in different ways. It is argued that, while both languages do share a body more or less isomorphic conceptual events, namely those which both languages express by a single clause, this is only a fairly small core, indicating that, while there is some connnection between events in nature, conceptual events, and clause structure, it is a loose and indirect connection.