Hickmann Maya, Robert Stéphane (Editors). Space in Languages: Linguistic Systems and Cognitive Categories

John Benjamin, 2006. — x, 361 pages. — (Typological Studies in Language). — ISBN: 90-272-2977-5; ISBN: 90-272-2978-3.Space is presently the focus of much research and debate across disciplines, including linguistics, anthropology, psychology, and philosophy. One strong feature of this collection is to bring together theoretical and empirical contributions from these varied scientific traditions, with the collective aim of addressing fundamental questions at the forefront of the current literature: the nature of space in language, the linguistic relativity of space, the relation between spatial language and cognition. Linguistic analyses highlight the multidimensional and heterogeneous nature of space, while also showing the existence of a set of types, parameters, and principles organizing the considerable diversity of linguistic systems and accounting for mechanisms of diachronic change. Findings concerning spatial perception and cognition suggest the existence of two distinct systems governing linguistic and non-linguistic representations, that only partially overlap in some pathologies, but they also show the strong impact of language-specific factors on the course of language acquisition and cognitive development.Introduction: Space, language, and cognition: Some new challenges
Typology of linguistic systems: Universals, variability, and change
Encoding the distinction between location, source and destination: A typological study
The expression of static location in a typological perspective
What makes manner of motion salient? Explorations in linguistic typology, discourse, and cognition
The semantic structure of motion verbs in French: Typological perspectives
From personal deixis to spatial deixis: The semantic evolution of demonstratives from Latin to French
Motion events in Chinese: A diachronic study of directional complements
The nature and uses of space in language and discourse
Are there spatial prepositions?
Deictic space in Wolof: Discourse, syntax and the importance of absence
The semantics of the motion verbs: Action, space, and qualia
The representation of spatial structure in spoken and signed language
Iconicity and space in French Sign Language
Space, language, and cognition
On the very idea of a frame of reference
The relativity of motion in first language acquisition
Spatial language and spatial representation: Autonomy and interaction
Deficits in the spatial discourse of Alzheimer patients