TY - JOUR

T1 - Factors affecting the use of dimensional prepositions in german and american english

T2 - Object orientation, social context, and prepositional pattern

AU - Grabowski, Joachim

AU - Miller, George A.

N1 - Funding information: Preparation of this paper was supported by a grant from the German Science Foundation (DFG) to the first author and by a grant from the James S. McDonnell Foundation to Princeton University. We are grateful to Shari Landes, who conducted the English experiments, and to Klaus Kessler, Petra Weiss, and Annette Todenhöfer, who conducted portions of the German experiments. 1 Cognitive Science Laboratory, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey.

PY - 2000

Y1 - 2000

N2 - Spatial language and the use of spatial prepositions has recently been intensively investigated. We add two novel aspects to the question of which frame of reference, i.e., the deictic or the intrinsic frame, is used when communicating about dimensional relations between objects. We restrict ourselves to the use of prepositions that refer to the first horizontal axis, i.e., "in front of" and "behind" in English, and "vor" and "hinter" in German, respectively, and report on a series of 16 experiments on the connection between the use of these prepositions and the indication of particular subspaces adjacent to reference objects in a traffic environment. First, we will show that an interaction between the intrinsic orientation of the reference object, the type of social situation in which spatial communication occurs, and the used language's pattern of prepositional word forms for temporal and spatiodimensional relations contributes to the proper prediction of the use of spatial prepositions. Second, we systematically consider production as well as interpretation of prepositions in two different languages in the same experimental setting, which allows for the estimation of communicative success. Here, it turns out that in German as well as in American English there are conditions in which speakers and listeners either agree or disagree on the chosen frame of reference; however, these conditions are different in the two languages investigated.

AB - Spatial language and the use of spatial prepositions has recently been intensively investigated. We add two novel aspects to the question of which frame of reference, i.e., the deictic or the intrinsic frame, is used when communicating about dimensional relations between objects. We restrict ourselves to the use of prepositions that refer to the first horizontal axis, i.e., "in front of" and "behind" in English, and "vor" and "hinter" in German, respectively, and report on a series of 16 experiments on the connection between the use of these prepositions and the indication of particular subspaces adjacent to reference objects in a traffic environment. First, we will show that an interaction between the intrinsic orientation of the reference object, the type of social situation in which spatial communication occurs, and the used language's pattern of prepositional word forms for temporal and spatiodimensional relations contributes to the proper prediction of the use of spatial prepositions. Second, we systematically consider production as well as interpretation of prepositions in two different languages in the same experimental setting, which allows for the estimation of communicative success. Here, it turns out that in German as well as in American English there are conditions in which speakers and listeners either agree or disagree on the chosen frame of reference; however, these conditions are different in the two languages investigated.

KW - Cross-linguistic issues

KW - Spatial cognition

KW - Spatial communication

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=0344409051&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1023/A:1005124210205

DO - 10.1023/A:1005124210205

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:0344409051

VL - 29

SP - 517

EP - 553

JO - Journal of Psycholinguistic Research

JF - Journal of Psycholinguistic Research

SN - 0090-6905

IS - 5

ER -