Representing Direction in Language and Space

by van der Zee, Emile; Slack, Jon

• ISBN13: 9780199260195
• ISBN10: 0199260192
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-10-30
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

This book considers how it is possible for people to use directions like 'above the table' or 'over the city'. How does our brain or any other information processing system represent a direction as a spatial entity? And, how is it possible to link such a representation to language, so that wetalk about a direction we have in mind? When we look at or imagine a scene, what entities can be employed for representing a direction, and what are the parts in language that can be used to talk about directions? This book brings together research from linguistics, psychology, philosophy, computerscience, anthropology, and neuroscience to answer these intriguing questions. By considering direction representation across different languages and in different information processing systems, this book gives an overview of the main issues in this area for both the interested novice and thespecialized researcher.

Author Biography

Emile van der Zee is senior lecturer in Psychology at the University of Lincoln. His publications include Cognitive Interfaces: Constraints on Linking Cognitive Information (2000, together with prof. Urpo Nikanne), also published by Oxford University Press. Jon Slack is the head of Psychology at the University of Lincoln. He
completed his PhD at Manchester University in 1976 and has held teaching
posts at the Open University and the University of Kent. His main
research interests are in neural network modeling and representational theory.

Table of Contents

The representation of direction in language and space

Spatial language and spatial cognition: the roles of axial and vector

Vectors across spatial domains: from place to size, orientation, shape and parts

Vector grammar, places, and the functional role of the spatial prepositions in English

Constraints on motion event coding: vectors or path shapes?

Defining spatial relations: reconciling axis and vector representations

Places: points, paths, and portions

Ontological problems for the semantics of spatial expressions in natural language

Change of orientation

Memory for locations relative to objects: axes and the categorization of regions

How Finnish postpositions see the axis system

Directions from shape: how spatial features determine reference axis categorization

Spatial prepositions, spatial templates, and 'semantic' versus 'pragmatic' visual representations

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