1st Edition
Saying, Seeing and Acting The Psychological Semantics of Spatial Prepositions
216 Pages
by
Psychology Press
214 Pages
by
Psychology Press
216 Pages
by
Psychology Press
Also available as eBook on:
Our use of spatial prepositions carries an implicit understanding of the functional relationships both between objects themselves and human interaction with those objects. This is the thesis rigorously explicated in Saying, Seeing and Acting. It aims to account not only for our theoretical comprehension of spatial relations but our ability to intercede with efficacy in the world of spatially... Read more
Part 1: Saying, Seeing and Acting. Background to the Domain. Introduction to the Domain. Saying Spatial Prepositions and Lexical Semantics. Grounding Language in Perception - From "Saying" to "Seeing and Acting". Part 2: Saying, Seeing and Acting: Constructing an Account. Introducing the Functional Geometric Framework. Experimental Evidence for the Functional Geometric Framework. The So-called Topographical Prepositions. Experimental Evidence for the Functional Geometric Framework. Which Way up is up? The Projective Prepositions. Experimental Evidence for the Functional Geometric Framework. Other Prepositions: Proximity, Coincidence and Being between. Part 3: Putting Saying, Seeing and Acting Together. The Functional Geometric Framework in Action. Putting It all Together. Cross-linguistic and Developmental Implications. Extensions, Links and Conclusions. References.
Biography
Kenny R. Coventry is the Reader in Cognitive Science at the University of Plymouth. He co-ordinates the Spatial Language Group, and is a member of the Centre for Thinking and Language.
Simon C. Garrod is a Professor in Psychology at the University of Glasgow. He holds the Chair in Cognitive Psychology and is Director of the Human Communication Research Centre project in Glasgow.
It has increasingly become clear that functional information is necessary in addition to geometric information in explaining spatial semantics, and this book provides an excellent synthesis of developments in the literature. The authors point out that while early accounts are untenable due to their heavy reliance on geometry, more recent accounts too often merely catalogue the flaws of these systems, and do not clearly describe alternative systems that could generate a wide variety of behaviours with relatively little machinery. The authors' notion of location control is compelling in that it appears to address the concerns of recent work with the simplicity found in earlier geometry accounts. I found it a pleasure to read. - Ed Munnich, University of California, Berkeley
This book nicely covers a wide scattering of ideas that have appeared in the literature over a great number of years, pulling them all together into a unified account. - Laura Carlson, University of Notre Dame
