PROTOTYPICAL SPACIAL CONCEPTS OF THE UP-REGION AND THEIR COMBINATIONS IN THE LANGUAGES OF THE WORLD

PROTOTYPICAL SPACIAL CONCEPTS OF THE UP-REGION AND THEIR COMBINATIONS IN THE LANGUAGES OF THE WORLD

Author:  J.V. Mazurova

Affiliation:  Institute of Linguistics of Russian Academy of Sciences

Abstract: 
In this paper I study the linguistic encoding of the static spatial relations on the vertical axis and propose the description of the fragment of «the universal semantic set of localizations». The elements of this set are the conceptually salient concepts that in some languages may be expressed by special grams. In other languages these concepts combine with each other in different ways. The most typical combinations of the concepts are presented here. The proposed set of localizations is a convenient instrument for the typological research of the semantics of the spatial grams: it can show the difference between the grams that denote the same topological region in a language, and it can help to compare the grams with similar meaning in different languages.

Keywords:  grammar of space, universal semantic set of localization, typology, cognitive theories of space