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Related Experiment Video

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The (Spatial) Memory Game: Testing the Relationship Between Spatial Language, Object Knowledge, and Spatial Cognition
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Published on: February 19, 2018

Prescribed spatial prepositions influence how we think about time.

Alexander Kranjec1, Eileen R Cardillo, Gwenda L Schmidt

  • 1Neurology Department and the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Pennsylvania, PA 19104, USA. akranjec@mail.med.upenn.edu

Cognition
|October 23, 2009
PubMed
Summary

Prepositions used with abstract concepts, like time, retain meaning. Specific prepositions influence how we conceptualize and represent temporal relations, demonstrating their semantic, not just grammatical, role.

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Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Linguistics
  • Psycholinguistics
  • Philosophy of Time

Background:

  • Prepositions exhibit flexible semantics for concrete spatial relations (e.g., 'in the box').
  • However, prepositions paired with abstract concepts (e.g., 'on time') often appear to serve primarily grammatical functions.
  • The semantic content of these 'grammaticalized' prepositions is often assumed to be lost.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate whether prepositions rigidly paired with abstract temporal concepts retain underlying semantic content.
  • To determine if the semantics of prescribed prepositions influence cognitive representations of time.

Main Methods:

  • Utilized ambiguous questions to probe participants' mental representations of temporal relations.
  • Focused on prepositions commonly used with abstract concepts, specifically time (e.g., 'on', 'in', 'at').
  • Analyzed how the choice of preposition modulated responses related to temporal understanding.

Main Results:

  • Found that the specific prepositions used significantly modulated participants' conceptualization of time.
  • Demonstrated that 'grammaticalized' prepositions associated with temporal relations do carry semantic weight.
  • Results suggest that the semantics of locative prepositions constrain abstract temporal thought.

Conclusions:

  • The semantic content of prepositions is not lost when they are applied to abstract domains like time.
  • Prescribed prepositions play a role in shaping our cognitive representations of abstract concepts.
  • This challenges the notion that such prepositions function solely grammatically, highlighting their contribution to meaning-making.