Abstract
This paper confirms that the English verb system (similar to the Finnish, Dutch, and Bulgarian verb systems (17,22)) represents path curvature at three different grain lev- els: neutral path curvature, global path curvature, and local path curvature. We show that the three-grain-level hypothesis makes it possible to formulate constraints on English sen- tence structure and makes it possible to define constructions in English that refer to path curvature. We furthermore demonstrate in an experiment that the proposed English lexi- calization pattern regarding path curvature in tandem with the spatial information shown to English speakers correctly predicts their packaging of grain levels in iconic gestures. We conclude that the data studied confirm Nikanne and Van der Zee's (22) three-grain-level hypothesis in relation to English and Kita and ¨ Ozyurek's (11) interface hypothesis in rela- tion to gesture production.
Highlights
The encoding of spatial information at different levels of spatial resolution is an important issue in spatial information science
We have seen that our three-grain-level hypothesis is able to account for verb descriptions referring to path curvature in English, that this hypothesis is able to explain constraints on sentence structure, is able to explain the form in which constructions relating to path curvature can be defined, and that this hypothesis explains clause structure for English path curvature descriptions based on visual input, and in combination with the Interface Hypothesis [11] explains that native English speakers’ gestures are influenced both by the language spoken and the local path curvature observed
The work in our paper has direct relevance for those working in spatial information science
Summary
The encoding of spatial information at different levels of spatial resolution is an important issue in spatial information science. Research in spatial language has – in addition - offered insights in how it is possible for human beings to communicate about spatial information at different levels of granularity Research in this area has shown, for example, that landmark size and object distribution – as scale setting means - have an influence on the use of near and far when describing object location [5], [30], [3]. (1) shows that it is possible to convey in a single sentence in English the global direction of a moving Figure (the skier) in relation to a Ground object (the mountain), and the more fine grained representation of a slalom-like shape of the path of the Figure.
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