Space project (36 entries)
The Space project investigates how people talk about and understand space in large-scale space for navigation and small-scale space for locating objects, and how space structures our understanding of other domains, such as time.
(10 entries)
General Questions About Topological Relations in Adpositions and Cases
The world’s languages encode a diverse range of topological relations. However, cross-linguistic investigation suggests that the relations IN, AT and ON are especially fundamental to the grammaticised expression of space.… More →
Topological Relations (BowPed)
This task is designed to elicit expressions of spatial relations. It was originally designed by Melissa Bowerman for use with young children, but was then developed further by Bowerman in… More →
Hypotheses Concerning Basic Locative Constructions and the Verbal Elements Within Them
Languages differ widely in terms of how they encode the fundamental concepts of location and position. For some languages, verbs have an important role to play in describing situations (e.g.,… More →
Route Descriptions: Interactive Games with Eric’s Maze Task
What are the preferred ways to describe spatial relationships in different linguistic and cultural groups, and how does this interact with non-linguistic spatial awareness? This game was devised as an… More →
Enter/Exit Animation for Linguistic Elicitation
This task investigates the expression of “enter” and “exit” events, and is a supplement to the Motion Elicitation task. Consultants are asked to describe a series of animated clips where… More →
Bloxes: An Interactive Task for the Elicitation of Dimensional Expressions
“Dimensional expressions” single out and describe one symmetric axis of a 1D, 2D, or 3D object (e.g., The road is long). “Bloxes” is an interactive, object-matching task that elicits descriptions… More →
Background Questions for the “Enter”/”Exit” Research
How do languages encode different kinds of movement, and what features do people pay attention to when describing motion events? This document outlines topics concerning the investigation of “enter” and… More →
Suggestions for Field Research on Dimensional Expressions
The aim of this task is to explore the linguistic expression of “dimensions” — e.g., the height, width or depth — of objects in the world around us. In a… More →
Pilot Questionnaire to Investigate Social Uses of Space
Day-to-day interpretations of “space” are enmeshed in specific cultural and linguistic practices. For example, many cultures have an association between vertical height and social standing; more powerful people may be… More →
Motion Verb Stimulus (Moverb)
How do languages express ideas of movement, and how do they package different components of this domain, such as manner and path of motion? This task uses one large set… More →