11.1672, Review: Bloom et al. Language and Space

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Subject: 11.1672, Review: Bloom et al. Language and Space

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1)
Date:  Sun, 16 Jul 2000 23:29:24 +0200
From:  Zouhair Maalej <zmaalej at gnet.tn>
Subject:  Review of Bloom et al (1999)

-------------------------------- Message 1 -------------------------------

Date:  Sun, 16 Jul 2000 23:29:24 +0200
From:  Zouhair Maalej <zmaalej at gnet.tn>
Subject:  Review of Bloom et al (1999)

Bloom, Paul, Mary A. Peterson, Lynn Nadel & Merrill F. Garrett
(eds.) (1999). Language and Space. Cambridge, Massachusetts/London,
England: The MIT Press (597 pages, ISBN: 9 780262 522663 90000).

Reviewed by Zouhair Maalej, University of Tunis I

The book is a collection of papers from the Tuscon, Arizona,
conference held in 1994, and edited by a team from the same
university. The collection is interdisciplinary by including papers
from verbal and signed languages, from neuropsychological and
computational approaches, from formal and cognitive perspectives.
For a complementary review, colleagues are advised to consider the
one written by Anne Reboul for the same book published in 1996 (cf.
Linguist, 10.1950, 16 December, 1999).

SYNOPSIS

1. 'The Architecture of the Linguistic-Spatial Interface'

Jackendoff proposes to ground language and spatial cognition in
Representational Modularity (RM) and Interface Modules, which are
assumed to resolve the lack of trade-off between modules in the
Fodorian model of mind. Conceptual structure (CS) is language-
independent, therefore non-propositional. In spite of the
universality of CS, languages tend to differ in (i) packaging
concepts in lexical items, (ii) spelling out concepts in syntax
(e.g. expressing social meaning in French through the tu-vous
distinction)and (iii) using some syntactic constructions to encode
specific conceptual notions. CS is different from spatial
representation (SR) in that it is image-schematic (i.e. cognitive).
The CS-SR interface contributes to economy by disallowing the
duplication of information, and assuming 'a criterion of
interfacing' that warrants a requisite overlap for modules to
intercommunicate. Other dimensions of economy include the criterion
of 'grammatical effect' and the criterion of 'non-spatial
abstraction.' Thus, word meaning is a composite of linguistic
structure (phonology & syntax) and non-linguistic knowledge (CS &
possibly SR), where linguistic structure is ancillary to the
conceptual-cum-spatial knowledge which it serves to express.
Reacting to the literature on frames of reference that postulates a
binary distinction between  an intrinsic (or object-centered frame)
and a deictic (or observer-centered) frame, Jackendoff assumes the
existence of four frames under intrinsic and four others under
deictic. Intrinsic frames include geometric, motion, canonical
orientation, and canonical encounter frames, while deictic or
environmental frames include gravitational, geographical,
contextual, and observer frames, with only the geometric and motion
frames free from the influence of the environment. Drawing on
Narissiman (1993), Jackendoff defends a SR hypothesis, whereby
spatial information is generated in SR rather than in CS.

2. 'How Much Space Gets into Language'

Bierwisch is much concerned with the natural language components
that support spatial information. Although working within a lexical
semantics framework, he observes that the same syntax can express
spatial and non-spatial contexts, and identical spatial contexts may
be expressed by different syntactic constructions, without the
further claim that phrase structure reflects spatial information.
Grounding lexical semantics in Chomsky's I-language linguistics
based, Bierwisch adopts 'semantic primes.' Unlike Jackendoff who
assumes CS to be extralinguistic knowledge, and who argues for the
autonomy of modules and for the existence of interface systems,
Bierwisch holds semantic form (SF) to be a module of I-language, and
claims going back to Chomsky's modularity, which he calls
'modularity of knowledge' (as an alternative to Jackendoff's RM). On
this model of knowledge, SR is called I-space (after I-language). SR
is assumed to interface with (i) perceptual and motor modalities,
and (ii) the conceptual system C-I. Being transmodal, depictive, and
domain-specific, SR is based on locations determined by
dimentionality, topological structure, metrical structure,
orientational structure as based on gravitation, and canonical
position or motion. Thus, SR is distinct from CS, in that it is a
level of representation drawing on different systems of mental
organization (with visual perception providing it with fundamental
support) rather than a separate module. Thus, at the level of
representation SR does not interrelate with CS but belongs in C-I.
The SR-CS interface is reduced to matters of shape, place, size, and
paths of moving objects. Bierwisch posits two hypotheses, the second
of which he believes to be more accurate: basic structures of
spatial organization must either function as 'a general schema of
conceptual knowledge,' or as 'an intrinsic condition for I-space.'
The distinction Bierwisch makes between 'implicit transfer' (where
the conceptualization of time and social hierarchy is implicit) and
'explicit transfer' of spatial structures (which is at the origin of
the blurred distinction between spatial and non-spatial terms). The
way CS relates to I-space determines (i) the shape and size of
objects, (ii) the fact that in relation to the spatial properties of
objects encyclopaedic knowledge works with basic-level categories
but not with superordinates, and (iii) which units involve only
spatial information and which ones include further conceptual
knowledge. This suggests a classification of concepts as (i)
aspatial (emotions, time), (ii) extrinsically spatial (superordinate
categories), (iii) intrinsically spatial (basic-level categories),
and (iv) strictly spatial (some of the implicitly and explicitly
spatial categories). The same classification is applied to colours
and time. Concepts correlate with different syntactic and
morphological categories and different conceptual spatial
categories. Concepts that combine spatial and encyclopaedic
knowledge (like most basic-level categories) are called 'rich
concepts,' while those involving restricted domains are called
'spare concepts.' SF relates to CS by being simply embedded in it in
order to be able 'to recruit pertinent configurations.'

3. 'Perspective Taking and Ellipsis in Spatial Descriptions'

Levelt argues that speech production involves macroplanning (i.e. an
informative content whose expression reveals intentions best) and
microplanning (i.e. a manner of lexically conceptualising content).
This process of abstraction is termed by Levelt as 'perspective
taking,' which involves: (i) focusing on some portion of the scene
('referent'), (ii) focusing on the referent's location ('relatum'),
and (iii) expressing the referent's relatum ('perspective system').
Perspective taking (PT) is multiple (deictic, intrinsic, absolute)
and language independent, with cross-cultural PT as a confirmation
for this freedom of conceptual PT and linguistic expression of the
choice of a given PT. However, rather than being randomly made, the
choice is pragmatically motivated. With regard to the converseness
and transitivity properties, the deictic and absolute systems work
but not the intrinsic one, making the latter's inferential potential
low in spatial communication. Misunderstandings (as in the case of
alignment and pre-emption) between communicators may arise when they
are not on the same wavelength as to from what perspective system
spatial communication is conceptualized, or when systems conflict
with one another. For that, Levelt posits a 'principle of canonical
orientation,' and argues for the primacy of conceptualization of a
given PT ('thinking for speaking,' borrowed from Slobin, 1987) over
the choice of a lexical item. To capture the language-cognition
interface, Levelt discusses the ellipsis of spatial expressions, and
distinguishes two types of ellipsis: deep ellipsis (DE) and surface
ellipsis (SE). The dichotomy DE (occurring before PT) and SE (taking
place after PT) only arises with the intrinsic PT. Levelt concludes
that PT systems are 'interfaces between our spatial and semantic
'modules'' in Jackendoff's sense.

4. 'Frames of Reference and Molyneux's Question: Crosslinguistic
Evidence'

 Levinson starts his paper by reviewing the notion of frame of
reference, and argues that, apart from the classical distinction
between 'intrinsic frame' and 'relative frame' which seemed to
capture spatial representations, an 'absolute frame' is also
possible in some cultures like that of Tzeltal. In a series of
experiments contrasting Dutch and Tzeltal, the Tenejapans are
described as consistently adopting the absolute frame of reference
across modalities while the Dutch adopted the relative frame, quite
in line with the 'semantics of spatial description in the two
languages.' Quite amazingly, such results confirm the long-standing
Whorfian tradition, and shake the modularity of mind theory.
Levinson distinguishes many binary frames of reference that we make
use of, namely, relative vs. absolute, egocentric vs. allocentric,
viewer-centered vs. object-centered, orientation-bound vs.
orientation-free, deictic vs. intrinsic, and the more complex
ternary distinction between viewer-centered vs. object-centered vs.
environment-centered (note that these crosscut across disciplines),
but ends up collapsing the linguistic frames of reference into the
more canonical frames of intrinsic, relative, and absolute, where
intrinsic and absolute are said to be allocentric frames, and
absolute and relative are orientation-bound frames. However, in
spite of this correlation the frames remain ''untranslatable' from
one to the other,' which leads to the question of whether spatial
perception and conceptualization are modality-bound. Levinson's
answer seems to be negative, implying that subjects use the same
frame of reference across modalities, although no evidence exists as
to how such a cross-modal transfer  takes place.

5. 'The Confluence of Space and Language in Signed Languages'

 Emmorey's thesis is that, since signed languages (SLs) combine
space and language to signify spatial locations, object orientation,
and point of view, they can be used as an index to the language-
spatial representation (SR) interface. SR is found at the
phonological level when different lexical items are signed in
relation to the body, at the morphological level when complex  forms
are signed 'by nesting a sign stem within dynamic movement contours
and planes in space.' The visual-gestural combination in SLs to
encode space enables signers to simultaneously use the intrinsic and
deictic frames. Emmorey reports on evidence whereby the right-
hemisphere, which is known  to monitor the visual-spatial function,
is more involved in processing spatial information.

6. 'Fictive Motion in Language and 'Ception.''

 Talmy focuses on fictive motion (FM), which is defined in terms of
its relation to 'the imaginal capacity of cognition.' One important
form of FM is 'emanation,' which includes four types of path: (i)
orientation path (OP), (ii) radiation path (RP), (iii) shadow path,
and (iv) sensory path. The OP of a FM is a linear intangible entity
originating in the front of some object and moving away from it, or
moving laterally with regard to it. The radiation path emanates from
an energy source, and moves away from it. The difference between a
RP and an OP is that the latter's line of motion is imperceptible.
The shadow path describes the shadow of an object as moving away
from that object. Including visual paths, the sensory path
establishes a straight path between Experiencer and Experienced or
vice versa. The most privileged cases of sensory paths in language
have to do with the senses of sight, audition, and olfaction.
Cognitively, the less dependent entity is conceptualized as source,
which is called 'active-determinative principle.' The reason why
this principle holds has to do with agency, even though the latter
cannot be ascertained to be either learned or innate. Underlying
agency are intention and its realization. Intention is reminiscent
of Searle's (1983) Intentionality, and can be captured in the
Intentional State of desire for the existence of a state of affairs,
with the realization component as the felicity condition of agency.
Agency being active and determinative, its realization depends on
matching the desire, and affecting a distal physical object, for
instance. The emanation category of fictive motion in language has
its analogue in other cognitive systems like perception, where more
psychological research is needed. There is, thus, more to cognitive
organization than the modular view, where various modules specialize
in different tasks a cognitive system not only has its own
specificity, but also shares structural properties with some or all
other systems. Talmy extends his analysis of emanation to cultural
concepts, with which they share a deeper cognitive connection.
Beside emanation, there exist five other fictive motions, which are
said to have parallels in visual perception, namely, pattern paths,
frame-relative motion, advent paths, access paths, and coverage
paths. For that, Talmy offers a general cognitive domain he calls
'ception' to account for conscious and unconscious cognitive
representations that are the output of both conception and
perception. The proposal is a mixture of cognitive and pragmatic
phenomena, and includes: palpability, clarity, strength, ostention,
objectivity, localizability, identifiability, structure, type of
geometry, accessibility, certainty, actionability, and stimulus.
Talmy establishes a relation between fictivity and the Lakoffian
theory of metaphor, where the discrepancy between target domain (TD)
and source domain (SD) accounts for factive and veridical and
fictive and less veridical, respectively. Talmy ends his paper by
arguing for 'cognitive dynamism' as a more default mode of ception
than cognitive staticism.

7. 'The Spatial Prepositions in English, Vector Grammar, and the
Cognitive  Map Theory'

 Even though O'Keefe adopted a Kantian view of space as absolute, he
grounded the prepositional system of English in physical experience.
The structure of his cognitive map theory is possible to study if
the contention that the left human hippocampus, as a spatial mapping
system, is transformed to store linguistic information. A vector
grammar realises this spatial mapping through prepositions, whose
role is to 'provide the spatial relationships among a set of places
and objects and to specify the movements and transformations in
these relationships over time.' Prepositions are defined as
essentially spatial, and their non-spatial dimensions are acquired
metaphorically. Satisfying a more nominal scale (vs. ordinal or
interval), the below relation is transitive, and allows for both
allocentric (universal gravity) and egocentric (object-centered)
uses. The down relation involves a 'reference plane' (plane or line)
and a 'reference entity' (place or object). O'Keefe explains the use
of influence, control, and social status through vertical
prepositions metaphorically.

8. 'Multiple Geometric Representations of Objects in Languages and
Language Learners'

 Landau is interested in how children represent space, and argues
that 'a crucial part of learning the mappings is properly
representing objects in terms of their distinct relevant geometrical
descriptions.' The reading of reference objects in abstract
geometric descriptions can be motivated by the preposition coercing
us into a process of schematization, where virtual volumes (e.g.
birds in a tree) or virtual lines (e.g. customers in a line) are
conceived as possible. Finding Paige's topological representation of
space too weak to account for children's spatial knowledge, Landau
adduces evidence to this effect. The representations of objects by
English children are of three types: (i) coarse , (ii) axial, and
fine-grained.  In one experiment, Landau & Stecker (1990) concluded
that three-year old children are capable of representing the figure
object in a coarse way, ignoring shape completely. In another
experiment, children tended to ignore detailed shape, and
concentrated on its principal axis. In yet other experiments, it was
evidenced that children adopted a richer perspective, where shape,
objects parts, their spatial relationships, and their motion combine
into a fine-grained account.

9. 'Preverbal Representation and Language'

 Mandler is interested in preverbal conceptual representation (PCR),
which is held to be the basis of language and learning. Her main
argument is that 'language  is structured in spatially relevant ways
because the meaning system of the preverbal language learner is
spatially structured.' PCR is spatial not in the sense of spatial
perception, but in the sense of 'meaning packages' that retain some
spatial characteristics. Unlike Talmy who uses 'ception' to unite
perception and conception, Mandler conceives of perceptual and
conceptual categories as different because they follow two different
developmental paths. Spatial information is easier for children to
use and process than temporal data, which explains their using
spatial conceptions in talking about time. In this sense, the
concept of space is a primitive one, with the concept of time
deriving therefrom in the guise of image-schemata. Other derivative
schemata are dynamics and internal feelings. PCR as encapsulating
perceptually spatial phenomena is the basis for the distinction
between basic-level categories (e.g. cat and dog), which get
linguistically differentiated by the sounds they make. Presumably,
this is a precursor for the noun-verb distinction in the grammar.
Shape at this level is not helpful for such a distinction. The
notions of agent and patient, on the other hand, are arrived at  by
perceiving in the environment objects that initiate motion in space
and other objects against which force is exerted, which underlie the
transitive-intransitive distinction. Thus, the language learner
comes to the learning task equipped  with preverbal meanings or
schemata such as containment, contact, and support. Such a
conception of language learning necessarily holds 'language to be
mapped onto a meaning system that forms an interface between analog
and digital forms.'

10. 'Learning How to Structure Space for Language: A Crosslinguistic
Perspective' Adducing cross-linguistic evidence, Bowerman argues
that nonlinguistic and linguistic understanding of space do not
entertain a one-to-one relation. While agreeing with Mandler that
the former lays the foundation for the acquisition of spatial
language, she is convinced that this is not enough. Evidence exist
in favor of the temporal primacy of nonlinguistic spatial knowledge,
of the reliance of children on this knowledge in learning spatial
words, and of the use of such knowledge as a learning strategy. What
also plays a role in reinforcing  spatial language is linguistic
input, i.e. children's exposure to adults' talk about space.
Crosslinguistic evidence from English and Korean suggests that, in
spite of the assumed preverbal cognitive spatial structures, English
children grow up expressing path notions with a separate preposition
or particle which they juxtapose  to the verb, whereas Korean
children express path in the verb itself. Disagreeing with Mandler
on the total mapping of linguistic over prelinguistic information,
Bowerman argues that image-schemata cannot be relied upon to account
for the linguistic representation of space in children if only
account is to be taken of productivity in the use of spatial
morphemes. A more likely explanation is that 'children build spatial
semantic categories in response to the distribution of spatial
morphemes across contexts in the language they hear.' This process
is not even for all children across languages as semantic packaging
of spatial notions varies from one language to another. What seems,
however, to play a more primordial role in this is semantic
primitives.

11. 'Space to Think'

 Johnson-Laird argues that spatial reasoning is model-based. Spatial
representation through models is more commonsensical than that with
formal  rules of logic. According to him, the advantages of a model
are the fact that: (i) it yields a 'decision procedure,' and (ii) it
extends 'to the informal arguments of daily life,' which resist the
application of formal rules of inference. The apparatus required to
reason model-wise includes the procedures that construct models, the
formulation of true conclusions in those models, and the testing of
conclusions in them. Extrapolating from work on spatial reasoning,
Johnson-Laird experimented with reasoning by space for time. His
conclusions point to the fact that 'reasoning about temporal
relations depends on mental models of the sequence of events.'
Contrasting work with formal rules and work with models, Johnson-
Laird concludes that subjects err because they misapply a rule;
however, reasoners with models err because they fail to apply all
the models of the premises. The time allotted for reading premises
is longer with multiple models and shorter with one-model problems.
Johnson-Laird ends his paper by pointing out the importance to
thinking of diagrams, which facilitate thinking via their iconic
nature. Reasoning from verbal information is, thus, less easy than
from diagrams. Reasoners with models not only use spatial models to
reason about space, but also use such  models to reason at large.

1 'Spatial Perspective in Descriptions'

 Tversky's paper is reminiscent of Levelt's 'perspective taking,'
but with a difference. The spatial perspective (SP) Tversky is
interested in is rather the one that the viewer borrows from other
points of view: 'Perspective in language use is of particular
interest because language allows us to use perspectives other than
those given by perception.' Experiencing the world from someone
else's perspective can be cognitively and socially rewarding.
Tversky reviews some of the views with regard to perspective taking
such as in object recognition, environmental cognition,
neuropsychological support, and spatial language. These are
cognition-dominated. The social categories of spatial reference are
no less important. They include: (i) the speaker's (ii) the
addressee's - or (iii) other's (neutral) perspective. Whatever
perspective is adopted, consistency (of a default perspective) and
order of presentation (regardless of perspective) have been noted.
The criteria for choosing one SP are pragmatic, mostly having to do
with (i) cognitive ease or difficulty for the addressee to follow
the speaker's spatial descriptions, (ii) audience (where speakers
try to adopt the addressee's perspective). To illustrate this,
Tversky describes three experiments on narratives and PT, where
subjects were asked to identify perspective(s), and reaction time
patterns were identified. Motivated by social concerns, Tversky's
conclusion is that (i) perspective subdivides into personal and
neutral perspectives, with the personal in turn subdividing into
speaker and addressee and (ii) not only is there no default
perspective, but adopting different perspectives on one occasion is
not uncommon.

13. 'A Computational Analysis of the Apprehension of Spatial
Relations'

 Gordon & Sadler present a psychological theory of apprehension of
spatial relations computationally. After reviewing basic, deictic,
and intrinsic relations, Gordon & Sadler  argue that this
distinction has two implications for computation: (i) since the
reference frame is central to the meaning of spatial relations,
therefore the reference frame is also central to the reference frame
computation in the process of apprehension and (ii) since reference
objects and located objects are distinct, spatial relations must be
individuated by adopting spatial indexing. Intrinsic relations are
computationally more complex than deictic relations. Gordon & Sadler
propose spatial templates as determining the goodness of fit of
spatial relations to spatial objects. The computational theory of
apprehension works by combining various levels of representation:
(i) perceptual (including implicit information about objects and the
spatial relations between them), (ii) conceptual (being addressable
linguistically, this representation identifies the spatial relation,
individuates its arguments, identifies its reference frame and the
relevant spatial template), (iii) reference frame (being flexible
and giving direction to perceptual space and conceptual
representation, a frame serves as a map between  the perceptual and
conceptual representations), and (iv) spatial template (taking care
of the zones of acceptability associated with a given spatial
relation). Apart from representations, a computational theory of
apprehension involves processes such as spatial indexing, reference
frame adjustment, spatial template alignment, and computing goodness
of fit. The execution of representations and processes in an ordered
combination is called 'programs or routines.' Gordon & Sadler devote
the second part of their paper to evidencing their theory through
experiments.

14. 'The Language-to-Object Perception Interface: Evidence from
Neuropsychology'

 Shallice believes that to Jackendoff's model of linguistic
representation (namely, phonological, syntactic, and
semantic/conceptual structures) should be added the level of visual
structures, which fact battles for the separability of 'visual
semantics' and 'verbal semantics.' Drawing on some pathologies,
Shallice argues through category specificity and sensory quality and
functional aspects of different categories that the semantic system
is not as unitary as many might think. Shallice reports experiments
where patients were less able to perform equally visually with
regard to identifying animals, plants, and foods. His argument is
that patients score lower on animal categories because of the less
frequent availability of animals in their environment as against
man-made objects and foods. Patients, however, tend to perform
better with functional aspects rather than sensory aspects of
biological categories. Evidence from lesioning of the 'visual'
semantic units points to the fact that 'the functional
representations of the living things were less adequately retained
than those of artifacts.' However, the living/nonliving distinction
is graded and not absolute since the pattern might be found reversed
in some patients. Evidence from category-specific pathology
indicates that 'knowledge of the characteristics of objects is based
on representations in more than one type of system.' The second
difficulty with Jackendoff's conceptual/structural description as
unitary comes from optic aphasics, who show a dislocation between
'visual semantics' and 'verbal semantics.' Optic aphasics have been
demonstrated to perform less accurately in naming from drawings than
from tactile and auditory stimuli.

15. 'Space and Language'

 Peterson et al are interested in how space is structured by humans.
Their main argument revolves around the extent to which development
and culture shape the language-space interaction and alter spatial
cognition. Drawing on Jackendoff's model of space representation
(SR) to substantiate claims about the language-space interface,
Peterson et al mention evidence  from studies of the brain and of
perception. Evidence from the former points  to the fact (i) the
existence of spatial maps in the brain makes it unlikely that a
single amodal SR determines the set of spatial primitives (ii) not
all neural representations of space include detailed representations
of objects and (iii) there is a partial separation between what an
object is and its location. Evidence from the latter, however,
points to the fact that (i) there exist independent modules for SR
and (ii) modules specialize in objects, spaces or the interaction
between both. Reacting to Jackendoff's prepositions and nouns
correlating with different sorts of SRs in language, Peterson et al,
following Bloom (1994), argue that nouns do not map onto a 'what
system that encodes objects in terms of shape,' but rather 'nouns
map onto CRs that are nonspatial (and thus can include notions like
joke and day).' Peterson et al argue that different languages and/or
cultures do have an effect on how SRs are coped with in cognition,
but insist that this is not espousing the Whorfian hypothesis
according to which language determines our manner of thinking about
space. In the same line of thought, they maintain that experience
does not alter perceptual and cognitive processes. They end their
paper by pushing for research in spatial language and its relation
with motion, recognition of spatial relationships, and inferential
system about objects in space.

CRITICAL EVALUATION

Bierwisch's proposal is too formal to be used to account for how SR
is grammaticalized. Levelt's model of SR, however, is more in line
with the attentional cognitive school (Ungerer & Schmid, 1996),
where events are conceptualized as focused and selective. Levelt is
making this attentional perspective as PT, with a systematic
characterization of spatial representation as absolute, intrinsic,
and deictic. Talmy's motion in space or 'fictive motion'  involves
the Lakoffian linguistic metaphor, which is judged in terms of truth
and falsity by assimilating the TD to factivity and the SD to the
mapping of fictivity on the TD. As is well-known, this conception of
metaphor suffers from much the same drawbacks as those of Grice's
(1975) truth vs. falsity account and Searle's (1979) word meaning
vs. speaker meaning conception. Mandler's paper echoes Talmy's 'how
space structures language.'  Tversky's pragmatic criteria for
choosing one SP, which are 'cognitive difficulty' and 'audience,'
may  be collapsed as 'cognitive difficulty' because when speakers
try to adapt their descriptions to their addressee's perspective,
they are already attending to the question of audience, which is
presupposed under 'cognitive difficulty.'

This collection of papers on SR and language is important in more
than one respect: (i) across modalities, it makes it clearer that
frames of reference are not modality-specific, (ii) across spoken
and signed languages, the recognition of SR is effected through the
sensorimotor system specialized for each type, and (iii) research in
spoken and signed languages strongly suggests that SR, although
language-specific, is not language-bound as evidenced by SLs.  The
experiments reported by Emmorey to the effect that SLs use space and
motion to encode space via the right hemisphere point to the fact
that SR is a cognitive operation rather than a linguistic one.
Talmy's 'ception' program is a shortcut to perception and
conception, where the distinction between language and other
cognitive systems almost disappears. Optic aphasics' difficulty with
keeping 'visual semantics' and 'verbal semantics' together is
another difficulty for  Jackendoff's CS-SR interface model. In her
December 1999 review of the  same book, Anne Reboul wrote that the
book could have been entitled something like: All You Need to Know
about Space.  Although the book offers an impressive variety, yet it
may be worth noting that not a single paper in this volume devoted
any space to SR and mental spaces a la Fauconnier  (1994) and
Fauconnier & Sweetser (1996), which I think have their word to say
on space, language, cognition, and culture.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
 Fauconnier, Gilles (1994). Mental Spaces: Aspects of Meaning
Construction in Natural Language. Cambridge: CUP.

Fauconnier, Gilles &  Eve Sweetser (1996) (eds.). Spaces, Worlds and
Grammar. Chicago/London: The University of Chicago Press.

Grice, H. P. (1975). 'Logic and Conversation.' In: P. Cole & J. L.
Morgan (eds.), Syntax and Semantics (vol. 3) Speech Acts. New
York/London: Academic Press, 41-58.

Landau, B. & D. Stecker (1990). 'Objects and Places: Syntactic and
Geometric Representations in Early Lexical Learning.' Cognitive
Development 5, 287-312.

Searle, John R. (1979). 'Metaphor.' In: A. Ortony (ed.), Metaphor
and Thought. London/New York: CUP, 92-123.

 (1983). Intentionality. An Essay in the Philosophy of Mind.
London/New  York: CUP. Ungerer, Friedrich & Hans-Jorg Schmid (1996).
An Introduction to Cognitive Linguistics. London/New York: Longman.

REVIEWER
Zouhair Maalej, Assistant professor of Linguistics, University of
Tunis I. Research interests include: metaphor, cognitive
linguistics, pragmatics, cognition-pragmatics interface, cognition-
culture interface, (cognitive) stylistics, (critical) discourse
analysis, functional linguistics, translation studies, etc.
Publications include voice, perception, and metaphor.

Dr Zouhair Maalej Department of English, Chair Faculty of Letters
and Human Sciences, Tunis-Manouba, 2010, Tunis, Tunisia.

Office phone: (+-216) 1 600 700  Ext. 136 Office Fax: (+-216) 1 520
910 Home Telefax: (+-216) 1 362 871 E-mail: zmaalej+AEA-gnet.tn URL:
http//:simsim.rug.ac.be/ZMaalej




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