Soroli Efstathia
Laboratoire Structures Formelles du Langage, CNRS and University of Paris 8, 5 rue Pouchet, Paris, 75017, France.
Cogn Process. 2012 Aug;13 Suppl 1:S333-7. doi: 10.1007/s10339-012-0494-4.
Languages differ strikingly in how they encode spatial information. This variability is realized with spatial semantic elements mapped across languages in very different ways onto lexical/syntactic structures. For example, satellite-framed languages (e.g., English) express MANNER: in the verb and PATH: in satellites, while verb-framed languages (e.g., French) lexicalize PATH: in the verb, leaving MANNER: implicit or peripheral. Some languages are harder to classify into these categories, rather presenting equipollently framed systems, such as Chinese (serial-verb constructions) or Greek (parallel verb- and satellite-framed structures in equally frequent contexts). Such properties seem to have implications not only on the formulation/articulation levels, but also on the conceptualization level, thereby reviving questions concerning the language-thought interface. The present study investigates the relative impact of language-independent and language-specific factors on spatial representations across three typologically different languages (English-French-Greek) combining a variety of complementary tasks (production, non-verbal, and verbal categorization). The findings show that typological properties of languages can have an impact on both linguistic and non-linguistic organization of spatial information, open new perspectives for the investigation of conceptualization, and contribute more generally to the debate concerning the universal and language-specific dimensions of cognition.
不同语言在编码空间信息的方式上存在显著差异。这种变异性通过空间语义元素以非常不同的方式映射到词汇/句法结构上得以体现。例如，卫星框架语言（如英语）将方式（MANNER）表达在动词中，将路径（PATH）表达在卫星成分中，而动词框架语言（如法语）则将路径（PATH）词汇化在动词中，使方式（MANNER）隐含或处于次要地位。有些语言更难归入这些类别，而是呈现出等效框架系统，如中文（连动结构）或希腊语（在同样频繁的语境中，动词框架和卫星框架结构并行）。这些特性似乎不仅对表达/发音层面有影响，而且对概念化层面也有影响，从而再次引发了有关语言与思维界面的问题。本研究结合各种互补任务（产出、非语言和语言分类），调查了与语言无关和特定于语言的因素对三种类型不同的语言（英语 - 法语 - 希腊语）空间表征的相对影响。研究结果表明，语言的类型特性可以对空间信息的语言和非语言组织产生影响，为概念化研究开辟新的视角，并更广泛地为有关认知的普遍性和特定于语言的维度的辩论做出贡献。
