Chilton Paul. Language, Space and Mind: The Conceptual Geometry of Linguistic Meaning

Cambridge University Press. Cambridge, UK. 2014. — 325 pages. Includes references and index. — ISBN: 1107010136.The idea that spatial cognition provides the foundation of linguistic meanings, even highly abstract meanings, has been put forward by a number of linguists in recent years. This book takes this proposal into new dimensions and develops a theoretical framework based on simple geometric principles.All speakers are conceptualisers who have a point of view both in a literal and in an abstract sense, choosing their perspective in space, time and the real world. The book examines the conceptualising properties of verbs, including tense, aspect, modality and transitivity, as well as the conceptual workings of grammatical constructions associated with counterfactuality, other minds and the expression of moral force. It makes links to the cognitive sciences throughout and concludes with a discussion of the relationship between language, brain and mind.Introduction: space, geometry, mind
Language and mind
Formalisation
Using geometry
Space, situation and deixis
Viewpoint, reference frames and transformations
Physical space: prepositions, deixis and reference frames
The abstract deictic space
Further characteristics of the deictic space
Distance, direction and verbs
Vectors, discourse entities and reference frames
Displacement vectors and verbs of motion
Force vectors and transitivity
Event types and cognitive operators
Temporal aspects of happenings: event types
Tense forms as cognitive operators: instancing and presencing
Instancing and presencing in the past
Times, tenses and reference frames
A present of present things
A present of past things
A present of future things
The putative future: a reference frame solution
Counterfactual reflections
Counterfactuality
If-sentences and counterfactual conceptions
Tense in the modal mirror
The geometry ofif-sentences
Through the looking glass: counterfactualif-sentences
Concluding reflections
Reference frames and other minds
Epistemic reference frames
That-ness and other-ness
Other minds as reference frames
Connections and disconnections across parallel worlds
Mental distance and complement clauses
Verb meanings and clausal complements
The meaning ofthat, to, ing and zero
Constructions with the verbseem
Further notes on seeming
Verbs, complements and their conceptual effects
to constructions and grammatical subjects
Modellinging constructions
Modelling zero constructions
Overview of alternations and restrictions
The deontic dimension
Deontic meanings presuppose epistemic meanings
Deontic reflections
The deontic source
Thoughts onought
Concluding perspectives
Questions
Space, the brain and language
Deictic Space Theory and the brain
Deictic Space Theory and the mind
In conclusion: Deictic Space Theory and metaphor