Buch, Englisch, Band 12, 34 Seiten
Reihe: Languages of the World
From Grammar to Mind
Buch, Englisch, Band 12, 34 Seiten
Reihe: Languages of the World
ISBN: 978-3-89586-917-4
Verlag: LINCOM
The analysis of this newly defined subset of Tongan nouns, ‘spatial‘ nouns, is conceptual, that is, based on a set of primitive (and possibly universal) spatial concepts suggested by Lehman & Bennardo (1992) and Bennardo (1993, 1996). The conceptual apparatus is the result of extensive analyses conducted on both English and Tongan spatial prepositions. Further analyses regarded representations of spatial relationships in other languages like Burmese, Thai and Italian.
Following Lucy’s suggestion, grammatical features of the Tongan language represent the path along which the conceptual analysis moves. In fact, five structural contexts in which the ‘spatial‘ nouns appear represent the starting point of the analysis. The analysis will weave through the grammatical and conceptual levels and will end up in sorting the nouns into three separate groups according to a combination of their conceptual content and grammatical possibilities. Finally, the results of this analysis call for an interesting modification of the conceptual apparatus.