Language and Cognitive Processes, 20(5), 617–631. How far is near? Inferring distance from spatial descriptions. The Semantics of English Prepositions Spatial Scenes, Embodied Meaning, and Cognition. The BNC Handbook: Exploring the British National Corpus with SARA. Bydgoszcz: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Kazimierza Wielkiego. Space, Time & Language: A Cognitive Analysis of English Prepositions. doi:10.1016/j.tics.2013.03.008 3 For an analysis from the perspective of spacetime representation, see: Bączkowska, A. The tangle of space and time in human cognition. 2011/01/M/HS2/03042 “Perception of Time as a Linguistic Category” 2 For an overview, see Núñez, R. This report has been carried out within COST Action TD0904 “Time In MEntal ActivityY (TIMELY)” and supported with Polish National Science Centre grant No. Although expressing distance in absolute terms is a basic way of specifying spatial extents, expressions of distance in space are not limited to information explicitly conveyed by spatial terms.6 However, the aim of this research is not to examine the entirety of ways used for denoting 1 “fifteen miles from York” or “fifteen minutes from York”. one denoted in (spatial or temporal) units, e.g. The research is restricted to examining expressions specifying absolute distance, i.e. conceptualizations of geographical distance that separates one point from another in physical space5. It examines distance in the sense of topographical distance, i.e.
Methodology This research employs the British National Corpus (henceforth, the BNC), which is a 100 million word collection of samples of written and spoken contemporary British English from a wide range of texts, genres, and registers4 (see for more information).
The following research report demonstrates how frequently space and time occur in prepositional phrases used to express spatial distance in the British National Corpus.
However, spatial and temporal uses of prepositions seem to form a sort of semantic amalgamation.3 One plausible way to find more information about the spatial-temporal relations in prepositions is to gather tangible data from linguistic corpora. One linguistic context that appears to be well suited to researching this problem is the domain of prepositional expressions of distance because they are articulated both in spatial and temporal terms. Introduction There is a long lasting debate on the entanglement of space and time in cognition2. Spatial and temporal representations of topographical distance in the British National Corpusġ. 03/2012 University of Lodz, Institute of English Studies, Al.
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