Spatial Frames of Reference in Traditional Negev Arabic: Language-to-Cognition Correlation

Area of Science:

• Linguistics
• Cognitive Science
• Anthropology

Background:

• Traditional Negev Arabic (TNA) exhibits referential promiscuity, utilizing Intrinsic, Relative, and Absolute spatial Frames of Reference (FoRs).
• FoR selection in TNA is context-dependent, influenced by culture-specific features of the ground.
• Absolute FoR in TNA is anchored by cardinal directions, with geocentric subtypes also observed.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the use and characteristics of spatial Frames of Reference (FoRs) in Traditional Negev Arabic (TNA).
• To define and explore the phenomenon of
• Absolute Referential Modularity (ARM)
• in TNA's cognitive and linguistic practices.
• To examine the cultural salience of cardinal directions within Nomadic Arabic varieties and their relation to spatial cognition.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of linguistic and cognitive tasks involving spatial Frames of Reference (FoRs) in Traditional Negev Arabic (TNA).
• Comparison of TNA's FoR usage with other Mesoamerican and Arabic language varieties.
• Examination of lexical items and cultural associations related to cardinal directions.

Main Results:

• TNA exclusively uses the Absolute FoR in cognitive tasks, similar to Mesoamerican languages.
• Absolute Referential Modularity (ARM) is observed in TNA's cognitive tasks and some lexical items, but not in linguistic tasks.
• Cardinal directions are culturally salient in Nomadic Arabic, encoding topological relations and symbolic meanings.

Conclusions:

• The findings support a bias for absolute cognition in referentially promiscuous systems, potentially preceding linguistic strategies.
• TNA's linguistic promiscuity represents an innovation, suggesting semantic structures may influence cognitive representations.
• Despite linguistic innovations, the independence of cognitive and linguistic spatial representations in TNA is evident.