Abstract

A cross linguistic study into the use of spatial locatives in a motion context: Is there a linguistic difference in reference frame assignment?

Spatial adpositions are necessary to be able to describe where an object is in relation to another. In conceptual semantics a figure/theme is located relative to a reference object [Ground] in a spatial region or PLACE (Nikanne, 2003). Directional prepositions/prepositional phrases/postpositions such as left, right, above, below, in front of or behind a given object [Ground] depend on the use of reference frames (e.g., Jackendoff, 1996; Levinson, 1996, 2003; van der Zee & Slack, 2003). In English and Swedish, prepositions refer to relationships between static objects, although this does not preclude them from describing a motion situation ( front/behind). Finnish has postpositions that also refer to static/neutral situations analogous with those in English and Swedish (edessä/takana), however there are some postpositions (edellä/jäljessä) that can only be used when applied to two moving objects. To investigate the influence of this variation in spatial language on spatial reasoning, experiments were conducted using native English, Swedish (living in Åbo, Finland) and Finnish speakers.
Using a forced choice of spatial prepositions/postpositions, in the appropriate language, participants were asked to describe the spatial location of a ball in relation to a helicopter. This forced choice resulted in one of three frames of reference being chosen, the Deictic[viewer centred], Intrinsic [object centred] or Motion [direction of travel based] frame.
Data was analysed by LOCATION of object, with reference to the frame used to describe the relationship of the located object to the reference object. There was no significant difference between languages in the use of either the Deictic or Intrinsic frame, however there was a significant difference for the Motion frame. Further analysis revealed a significant difference in the use of the motion frame between Swedish and Finnish speakers, but not between Finnish and English speakers, with Finnish speakers showing more use of the Motion frame. It would appear from these results that there is some evidence to support the theory that language does have an impact on spatial reasoning.

References

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Nikanne, U. (2003). How Finnish postpositions see the axis system. In E. van der Zee & J. Slack (Eds.), Representing direction in language and space (pp. 191-208). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press

van der Zee, E and Slack, J. (2003). The representation of direction in language and space. In E. van der Zee & J. Slack (Eds.), Representing direction in language and space (pp. 1-17). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press