book on space

[Stephane Robert]

New book:

Title: Space in Languages: Linguistic Systems and Cognitive Categories
Series Title: Typological Studies in Language 66
Editor: Maya Hickmann & Stéphane Robert Publication Year: 2006
Publisher: John Benjamins Book

URL:http://www.benjamins.com/cgibin/t_bookview.cgi?bookid=TSL%2066
Hardback: ISBN: 9027229775 Pages: x, 362 Price: Europe EURO 120.00
Paperback: ISBN: 9027229775 Pages: x, 362 Price: Europe EURO 55.00

Abstract:  Space is presently the focus of much research and debate across 
disciplines, including linguistics, anthropology, psychology, and 
philosophy. One strong feature of this collection is to bring together 
theoretical and empirical contributions from these varied scientific 
traditions, with the collective aim of addressing fundamental questions at 
the forefront of the current literature: the nature of space in language, 
the linguistic relativity of space, the relation between spatial language 
and cognition. Linguistic analyses highlight the multidimensional and 
heterogeneous nature of space, while also showing the existence of a set of 
types, parameters, and principles organizing the considerable diversity of 
linguistic systems and accounting for mechanisms of diachronic change. 
Findings concerning spatial perception and cognition suggest the existence 
of two distinct systems governing linguistic and non-linguistic 
representations, that only partially overlap in some pathologies, but they 
also show the strong impact of language-specific factors on the course of 
language acquisition and cognitive development.

Table of contents

  Introduction: Space, language, and cognition: Some new challenges
  Maya Hickmann and Stéphane Robert 1-15

  Part I -- Typology of linguistics systems: Universals, variability, and
  change

  Encoding the distinction between location, source, and destination: A
  typological study
  Denis Creissels 19-28

  The expression of static location in a typological perspective
  Colette Grinevald 29-58

  What makes manner of motion salient? Explorations in linguistic typology,
  discourse, and cognition
  Dan I. Slobin 59-81

  The semantic structure of motion verbs in French: Typological perspectives
  Anetta Kopecka 83-101

  From personal deixis to spatial deixis: The semantic evolution of 
demonstratives from Latin to French
  Christiane Marchello-Nizia 103-120

  Motion events in Chinese: A diachronic study of directional complements
  Alain Peyraube 121-135

  Part II -- The nature and uses of space in language and discourse

  Are there spatial prepositions?
  Claude Vandeloise 137-154

  Deitic space in Wolof: Discourse, syntax and the importance of absence
  Stéphane Robert 155-174

  The semantics of motion verbs: Action, space, and qualia
  Pierre Cadiot, Franck Lebas and Yves-Marie Visetti
  175-206

  The representation of spatial structure in spoken and signed language
  Leonard Talmy 207-238

  Iconicity and space in French sign language
  Marie-Anne Sallandre 239-255

  Part III -- Space, language, and cognition

  On the very idea of a frame of reference
  Jérôme Dokic and Elisabeth Pacherie 259-280

  The relativity of motion in first language acquisition
  Maya Hickmann 281-308

  Spatial language and spatial representation: Autonomy and interaction
  Barbara Landau and Laura Lakusta 309-333

  Deficits in spatial discourse of Alzheimer patients
  Michel Denis, Karine Ricalens, Véronique Baudoin and
  Jean-Luc Nespoulous
  335-349

  Index  351-361