Spatial Prepositions Research Articles

L'apprentissage du français par des travailleurs arabophones et la genèse des créoles « français »

Véronique, Daniel - "The Acquisition of French as a Second Language by Arabic speaking Workers and the Genesis of French Creoles". Language acquisition, which can be studied through the analysis of interlanguages, is a factor often mentioned to explain the formation of creoles and pidgins. Three explanatory hypotheses relating to creolization take more or less into account the acquisition factor: the Universal Grammar perspective, the Bioprogram hypothesis and Chaudenson's auto-regulation hypothesis. This paper attempts a comparison between features of creolization and features of interlanguages. This is inspired by the comparative approach which is the basis of Chaudenson's hypothesis. Despite the fact that the social matrices leading to creole genesis and to the learning of the second languages by foreign workers differ, the identities and similarities between creole systems and interlanguage are described and compared to the corresponding domains in creolization : Utterance structure, Modalisation, Negation, Nominal Reference, Spatial Prepositions, Motion Verbs and Verb Phrase.

Various views on spatial prepositions

In this article, principles involving the intrinsic, deictic, and extrinsic use of spatial prepositions are examined from linguistic, psychological, and AI approaches. First, I define some important terms. Second, those prepositions which permit intrinsic, deictic, and extrinsic use are specified. Third, I examine how the frame of reference is determined for all three cases. Fourth, I look at ambiguities in the use of prepositions and how they can be resolved. Finally, I introduce the natural language dialog system CITYTOUR, which can cope with the intrinsic, deictic, and extrinsic use of spatial prepositions, and compare it with the approaches dealt with in the previous sections as well as to some other AI systems.

Various views on spatial prepositions

Various views on spatial prepositions

GRAFLOG: Understanding Drawings through Natural Language

AbstractThis paper describes an experimental interactive graphics interface, GRAFLOG, in which drawings receive linguistic interpretations. It is possible to emulate linguistic interaction in situations where graphics is thought to be necessary. The paper presents examples of such a kind of dialogue and the architecture of the implementation. The paper explains how representations of drawings can be constructed by treating graphical symbols as “objects”, and how a parallel linguistic interpretation for these symbols can be constructed. It highlights the relevance of “deictic expressions” and “spatial prepositions” in building the interface mechanisms between these two kinds of representations. Lastly, it shows how a reasoning component is constructed for making deductions from premises that are found in both the graphical and linguistic domains. Using GRAFLOG, it is possible to represent knowledge through words and pictures. GRAFLOG is implemented, using an object oriented programming style, in PROLOG and GKS.

DISCOURSE MODELS AS INTERFACES BETWEEN LANGUAGE AND THE SPATIAL WORLD

This paper outlines an argument that the meaning of spatial terms depends critically upon our mental models of space. We argue that such models capture the functional geometry of spatial scenes to represent various control relations between the objects in the scene. The discussion centres around two analyses. First, an analysis of the spatial descriptions taken from task oriented dialogue, which seem to reflect a number of distinct mental models of the same visual scene, and secondly an analysis of simple English spatial prepositions. We argue that these prepositions express control relations rather than simple spatial relations and depend for their interpretation on the model of space assumed by speaker and listener. This analysis suggests that mental models whould be seen as interfaces between the language and the world of discourse rather than simply surrogates for that world.

Constructing Favourable Conditions for Measuring the Young Child's Understanding of the Terms in, on and under

Recent research has indicated that young children's responses to requests containing the prepositions in, on and under are strongly influenced by the context in which they are made, but that they probably understand the terms in and on before the term under. However, these studies employed contextual manipulations that bias the child towards one particular placement. In this study, the contextual manipulation involved a pre-test activity aimed at equating the likelihood of all three placements. Children from 1 year 6 months to 3 years old showed markedly better comprehension of the terms than children who were not exposed to such pre-test activity. This superiority cannot be put down to contextual bias towards a particular placement, and hence performance under these conditions may give a better measure of actual comprehension. It is suggested that the conditions in real life that force a clear distinction between spatial prepositions are those similar to the present experimental manipulation, in which one object commonly enters into more than one relationship with another.

Selected Polish Spatial Prepositions and their Russian Counterparts in Form and Meaning

This article examines some Modern Standard Russian semantic equivalents for certain Polish expressions of spatial relationships and compares the usage of the Russian (R) formal equivalents of Polish (P) prepositions (i.e., P na versus R na + L, Pprzy versus Rpri + L, etc.). The purpose is to point to the semantic differences between the formal equivalents in the two languages. The Polish data consist of a group of the most commonly used prepositions for expressing location as well as their counterparts which express motion. The group expressing location, the starting point of this comparative analysis, will be limited to the following ten: na + L, w + L, miedzy + ',przy + L, u + G9przed+ 1, za + 1, poza + 1, nad+ l,pod+ 1. These prepositions will not be considered devoid of the cases with which they occur (as Jakobson, van Schooneveld, and sometimes Klebanowskadid1). In a few places, cases used without prepositions to express spatial meaning will be considered as well, namely the accusative and instrumental (isc polem, for example). The genitive case will be represented here by G, dative by D, accusative by Ace, instrumental by I, and locative (prepositional) by L.

LINGUISTIC AND COGNITIVE DETERMINANTS OF LEXICAL ACQUISITION IN A SECOND LANGUAGE*

The meaning ascribed to select English spatial prepositions by adult English speakers was compared to that of advanced adult ESL learners. Two measures were used: a semantic‐relatedness test and a cloze‐type/sentence‐completion test. The ESL learners differed substantially from the native speakers in the semantic boundaries they ascribed to the words. The differences derived from a different weighting of the words' semantic dimensions. The weighting of the words'semantic dimensions by the ESL learners was influenced by native‐language transfer. The words' usage was related to the degree of similarity in the linguistic classification of corresponding meanings in the L1 and the L2 and the consequent conceptual restructuring required in the acquisition of the L2 words. The meaning ascribed to central members of the semantic category investigated more closely approximated that of native speakers than the meaning assigned to noncentral ones. The findings are shown to be related to the similar linguistic classification of central concepts of semantic categories across languages and the language‐specific classification of noncentral ones. The findings are interpreted as evidence that the principle of prototypicality underlies the structure of all languages as well as the cognitive processes involved in language acquisition.

Spatial term use and its relation to language function at two developmental stages

In this investigation we (a) looked at the relation between spatial terms and the functions of utterances and (b) documented children's use of spatial prepositions and adverbs. Ten children were studied playing with their mother and then an experimenter in two 30 minute play sessions held when the children were 2;0 - 2;6 and 3;6 - 4;0. At both ages about 30% of utterances had a spatial term. Descriptions of child activity functions had the greatest percentage of terms at both ages, though this percentage dropped from the younger to older samples while the percentage of terms in environmental references increased. The most frequent spatial terms used at 2;0 - 2;6 were in, here, down, there and out, whereas at 3;6 - 4;0 in, there, where, here, and up were most frequent. Interactions between function and term use were found. These suggested that structured tasks which do not allow for descriptions of child activity functions are limited in generalizability.

Reasoning about scene descriptions

When a scene is described by means of natural language sentences, many details are usually omitted, because they are not in the focus of the conversation. Moreover, natural language is not the best tool to define precisely positions and spatial relationships. The process of interpreting ambiguous statements and inferring missing details involves many types of knowledge, from linguistics to physics. This paper is mainly concerned with the problem of modeling the process of understanding descriptions of static scenes. The specific topics covered by this work are the analysis of the meaning of spatial prepositions, the problem of the reference system and dimensionality, the activation of expectations about unmentioned objects, the role of default knowledge about object positions and its integration with contextual information sources, and the problem of space representation. The issue of understanding dynamic scenes descriptions is briefly approached in the last section.

Semantics and pragmatics of locative expressions

The paper examines locative expressions and shows that an adequate account of their meaning must be based on two essential understandings: First, the simple spatial relation, often given as the meaning of the spatial prepositions, is only an “ideal” from which there are deviations in context; second, a level of “geometric conceptualization” mediates between “the world as it is” and language. Pragmatic “near principles” are formulated to explain some deviations from the ideal and several other apparent irregularities of prepositional use. A set of “use types” of the ideal meaning is proposed to account for conventional aspects of locative meaning. The paper concludes with a discussion of the consequences of this description of locative expressions for artificial intelligence and linguistics.

Semantics and Pragmatics of Locative Expressions*

The paper examines locative expressions and shows that an adequate account of their meaning must be based on two essential understandings: First, the simple spatial relation, often given as the meaning of the spatial prepositions, is only an “ideal” from which there are deviations in context; second, a level of “geometric conceptualization” mediates between “the world as it is” and language. Pragmatic “near principles” are formulated to explain some deviations from the ideal and several other apparent irregularities of prepositional use. A set of “use types” of the ideal meaning is proposed to account for conventional aspects of locative meaning. The paper concludes with a discussion of the consequences of this description of locative expressions for artificial intelligence and linguistics.

Au-Dela des Descriptions Geometriques et Logiques de L'espace

Which is the best way of describing spatial prepositions? Even though geometry and logic provide rigorous and useful tools for this undertaking, I will show that they fall short from describing completely these prepositions. A complete description must take into consideration the movement and the function of their prepositional terms as well as cognitive notions like access to perception, potential meeting, the relationship container/ contained, etc. General orientation, a family resemblance concept whose main features are the frontal direction, the direction of movement and the line of sight, is also needed.

The relationship of spatial concept development to the acquisition of locative understanding.

A cross-sectional study of children in the preoperational period was conducted to investigate the potential constraints of spatial concept development on children's understanding of spatial prepositions. A battery of Piagetian tasks and a locative comprehension measure were administered to 60 children, ranging in age from 2 to 7 years. In general, children were functioning in Stage II on the Piagetian spatial tasks before they comprehended the prepositions, in front of and behind, in terms of their own perspective using nonfronted objects. The findings also indicated that the children were functioning in Stage III--i.e., they had projective/Euclidean understanding--before they could comprehend in front of and behind when these terms involved projective/Euclidean spatial notions. The majority of children accounted for the front/back features of the object in placing an object in front of or behind a fronted object. The results suggest that as the child's conception of space changes, his comprehension of spatial prepositions also changes.

A Cross-Cultural Study of Young Children's Understanding of Spatial Prepositions

Bengali-, English and Hindi-speaking children aged 5 to 9 years were asked to place an object 'in front of or 'behind' a frontedor nonfronted-object. All children responded on the basis of an inherent object cue when the fronted-object was used. When a nonfronted-object was used all children treated it as if it was a fronted-object facing towards themselves. These results were compared with those of Hausa-speakers who also use the inherent object cue for fronted-objects but treat nonfronted-objects as if they are facing away from themselves.

Interpretation of the Spatial Prepositions 'in front of' and 'behind'

Children aged 4 to 9 years and adults were asked to place a cube or a ball 'in front of or 'behind' a featuredor a nonfeatured-object. Although most children and adults responded on the basis of the inherent features of the object, a significant number of adults responded to the observer orientation cue. As expected, the nonfeatured-object task was difficult for the children, but they did not respond randomly; like the adults, most of them used the observer orientation cue. The results were discussed with reference to an analogy with over-extensions resulting from a child's unfamiliarity with linguistic alternatives, Piaget's theory of the development of spatial concepts, and the preferred explanation of responses determined by a prominent cue masking competing cues.

Where is under: From memories of instances to abstract featural concepts

Recent research on perceptual development in children and on concept development has resulted in a model of concept development: from iconic or integral percept/concept to featural or analytic. Findings from three experiments on comprehension of spatial prepositions by children are reported in this paper which are consistent with a three stage theory ofverbal concept development. The verbal concept as memories of instances is the earliest stage followed by verbal concept as iconic abstraction and last by the verbal concept as featural abstraction. All but 3 in a sample of 50 preschool children were dependent on extralinguistic reality for abstract-featural, concept use. The remaining 47 children displayed no evidence of having, in the absence of extralinguistic support, the semantic networks implied by their comprehension when it was supported by extralinguistic reality.

The word order problem in agrammatism: I. Comprehension

The results of a picture-pointing comprehension test show that agrammatic aphasics have difficulty understanding sentences in which the underlying semantic roles are marked by the order of noun phrases around a verbal element. Agrammatic patients performed poorly on reversible constructions involving spatial prepositions (e.g., “The square is above the circle”) and verbs (e.g., “The dancer applauds the clown”). These results have significance for the interpretation of the underlying disturbance in agrammatism—whether the deficit is syntactic or purely phonological.

Children's use of spatial prepositions in two- and three-dimensional tasks.

This study evaluates children's performance on selected spatial prepositions and determines the age levels these prepositions are acquired in both receptive and expresive language, as revealed in tasks involving both two- and three-dimensional objects. Subjects were 80 children (40 males and 40 females), ranging in age from three years to four years and eleven months. All were native English speakers with no speech, hearing, or neurological disorders, and with normal intelligence. Results indicated a significant difference in test scores according to age (older children perform better than younger), task (comprehension scores higher than production scores), referent (three-dimensional tasks showing higher scores than two-dimensional tasks), and preposition. Children's use of selected spatial prepositions is dependent on the semantic complexity of the preposition. Prepositions whose meanings can be described in terms of simple topological notions are understood and used with greater facility than those involving dimensional or Euclidean spatial notions. When the prepositional variable interacts with age, dimension, task, age + dimension, age + task, dimension + task, and age + dimension + task, overall differential response are likely to occur.

On the child's acquisition of semantic structure underlying the wordfield of prepositions.

Spontaneously produced prepositional phrases of 115 preschoolers, 2.7-5.11 years old and of 22 first-graders are analysed. Our main interest lies in anomalous combinations since these allow us to establish which features and selection restrictions responsible for the anomaly the children have not yet acquired. The main results are as follows: (a) the development sequence of spatial prepositions concurs with the development of spatio-geometric properties shown by Piaget. This is suggested by the distribution of frequencies of used prepositions as well as by the systematic replacements of complex by simple prepositions. (b) Temporal prepositions are much rarer than spatial ones. Only such temporal prepositions occur which are also used in a locative sense. Substitutions among prepositions indicate a still incomplete distinction between concrete-local and abstract-temporal notions. (c) Purely grammatical prepositions are acquired within a gradual process of voiding of semantic meaning. The general validity of resulting rules and the existing interrelation between structural changes in language and cognition is dealt with in the discussion.