Book review

Space in Languages

Hickmann, Maya and Stephane Robert. 2006. Space in Languages: Linguistic Systems and Cognitive Categories. Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins.

Reviewed by Engin Arik, Purdue University.

The study of linguistic expression of space is of particular interest because spatial relations among entities are one of the basic domains of human experience and cognition (Bloom et al. 1999). From a linguistic point of view, this topic is also very interesting since languages vary in how they represent locative relations in their lexicalization and grammaticalization patterns. Space in Languages: Linguistic Systems and Cognitive Categories [Typological Studies in Language 66] is one of the most recent compilations of articles from linguistic, psycholinguistic, and philosophical views on the specific issue of linguistic systems involved in spatial expressions. This book is especially valuable to scholars who investigate this aspect of space.

This book has three main parts. Part 1 consists of six articles which investigate spatial-linguistic systems from a mainly typological point of view. In Chapter 1, Creissels proposes a typology of the contribution of adpositions / case affixes to the encoding of the distinction among localization, the source of motion, and the destination of motion. This paper argues that locative adpositions / case affixes in Niger-Congo languages are not sensitive to these distinctions. Instead, the motion verbs mark the source and destination of motion.

In Chapter 2, Grinevald examines the crosslinguistic variation of basic locative constructions from a functional-typological perspective with a special emphasis on Amerindian languages. She proposes a typology of five different types of locative predicates. For example, a Type 0 predicate carries no locative information (zero or existential copula), for which she offers Turkish as an example. However, although there is no copula in Turkish locatives, the NP used predicatively is obligatorily marked with locative case.

In Chapter 3, Slobin revises Talmy's (2000) dichotomy of verb-framed and satellite-framed languages for encoding manner of motion by adding "equipollently-framed languages", i.e. serial verb, bipartite verb, and generic verb languages. He further argues that speakers of distinct languages encode manner differently in morphosyntax, attention, and mental imagery of motion events.

Kopecka, in Chapter 4, argues that French is both verb-framed and satellite-framed language, again contrary to Talmy's classification, which views French as a Romance language is a verb-framed language. She gives convincing examples from French prefixes that encode manners of motion. She also provides diachronic change from Old French (predominantly satellite-framed) to Modern French (predominantly verb-framed).

In Chapter 5, Marchello-Nizia discusses how demonstratives historically change in French by arguing that Latin "personal deictic expressions" evolved into Old French "pragmatic interpretations" of these expressions. From there French developed "spatial deictic" expressions.

Peyraube, in Chapter 6, discusses historical change in Mandarin Chinese with respect to representations of motion events. It is argued that Chinese has undergone a change from a verb-framed to satellite-framed language, which contradicts Slobin's classification of Chinese as an equipollently-framed language.

Part 2 is entitled "the nature and uses of space in language and discourse". In Chapter 7, Vandeloise argues that spatial prepositions exist but the conceptualization of space involved in a language is not a static topological / geometric representation but a dynamic representation linked to the use of space that hosts our daily experience in the world. He further argues that dynamic representations are linked to each other by providing evidence from simple (in)transitive verbs and many uses of directionals.

Robert, in Chapter 8, examines deictic suffixes in Wolof (a Niger-Congo language) and their functions in definiteness, demonstratives, relative clauses, temporal reference, predication, subordinate clauses, negation among others. Robert shows that in Wolof spatial anchoring is found in the entire grammatical system.

In Chapter 9, Cadiot et al. present a rather different view on space in particular and language in general. They argue that language reflects human perceptual experience in that space is constantly reconstructed from the perspective of an active subject. Their main thesis is that "the meaning of motion verbs is critically comprised of praxeologic, qualitative, and assessive anticipations" (p. 176).

In Chapter 10, Talmy (reprinted version of his 2003 paper) compares the representations of spatial structure in spoken and signed language. He argues that signed language representations systemically differ from that of spoken language. According to Talmy, signed spatial representations are largely iconic, have more structural elements, more categories, and more elements per category when compared to spoken spatial representations.

Sallandre, in Chapter 11, surveys the use of space in French Sign Language (LSF). The main contribution of this paper is that it shows several "classifier" handshapes may be used in referring to a single referent in LSF. This paper also argues that LSF signers use space (horizontal vs. sagittal) "syntactically".

Part 3 presents papers on the issues concerning the relationship between spatial language and cognition. In Chapter 12, Dokic and Pacherie argue from a philosophical point of view that perception is perspective-free therefore perception does not have any "explicit" reference frames contra to Levinson's neo-Whorfian hypothesis (cf. Levinson, 2003). They claim that perspective-free perception is at the most basic level but reference frames are part of higher level cognitive processing.

In Chapter 13, Hickmann presents results from developmental studies on the description of "voluntary" motion events in French and English. Hickmann argues that English speakers (adult and child) express manner and path whereas French speakers (adult and child) focus more on path. She concludes that apart from typological characteristics, i.e. verb-framed or satellite-framed, of a given language "discourse relations, event properties, cognitive development" may be concomitant factors in talking about motion events.

In Chapter 14, Landau and Lakusta examine spatial language in people who suffer from Williams Syndrome (WS). They argue that despite severe impairment in "nonlinguistic" spatial representations, much of the semantic and syntactic structure of spatial language is preserved in WS children and adults.

In Chapter 15, Denis et al. investigate spatial discourse, i.e. familiar and unfamiliar environmental descriptions, in people who suffer from Alzheimer having impairment in spatial navigation. They show that spatial discourse of Alzheimer patients contains little information and is less coherent compared to a control group. But they also found that when the patients are allowed to use a map, their spatial and route descriptions are significantly enhanced.

Given that this book is published in Benjamins' TSL series, it is surprising to find so many editing problems. Of them, typographical and grammatical errors abound especially in Chapter 9. Morphological glosses are not given while literal translations are sometimes given as footnotes. Thus, the reader may have some difficulty in determining whether a given lexical unit is an affix or an adposition; this distinction is very important, for example, in discussing Talmy's typology throughout several chapters. Even though Bowerman does not contribute to this book, a reference is given to her (Bowerman, … this volume) (p. 283). Chapter 10 has a reference to Talmy 2006 (p.238) despite the fact that the article is a reprinted version of Talmy 2003. In Chapter 9, Cadiot et al. examine the "inergative / inaccusative distinction" from their own perspective (pp. 199-203). From their discussion, it is clear that they mean the "unergative / unaccusative" distinction (cf. Burzio, 1986; Perlmutter, 1978). Despite the problems noted above, this volume is a new contribution to the field of spatial language and those interested in space and language will find fresh ideas in this book.

References

Bloom, P., Peterson, M. A., Nadel, L. and Garrett, M. F. (eds.) (1999). Language and Space. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press.

Burzio, L. (1986). Italian Syntax : A Government-binding Approach. Hingham, Mass.: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

Levinson, S. (2003). Space in Language and Cognition: Explorations in Cognitive Diversity. Cambridge: CUP.

Perlmutter, D. (1978). Impersonal Passives and the Unaccusative Hypothesis. In J. Jaeger et al. (eds.), Proceedings of the Fourth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistic Society, 157-189.

Talmy, L. (2000). Toward a Cognitive Semantics - Volume 1, 2. Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press.

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