A Cognitive And Semantic Study Of Space

Space is a basic concept in Cognitive Linguistics and Embodiment Philosophy, functioning as a meta-concept in metaphor, for it is used to understand time and other abstract concepts. This dissertation is entitled as A Cognitive and Semantic Study of Space, which aims at finding out the common cognitive mechanism towards space in the different languages, and confirms the important and basic role of Space in Human cognition. In order to illustrate this question, Chinese, English and Russia examples are quoted in the discussion, among which Chinese is the main source. The study of Space is conducted from the following three aspects: l)the corresponding relationship between spatial semantic meaning and syntax, 2)spatial metaphor and 3)the subjectivity of space cognition.This dissertation starts with the definition of Space. It is found that Space can be seen as [unlimited] or [limited] and that Space can refer to the place where an substance exits or to the substance itself (we call entity in this dissertation), so that the subjectivity of space cognition is deduced. It is also found that space can be understood both in terms of science and from ordinary life; space is not only a concept of physical world but also one of language world. In this sense, the conclusion is drawn that space cognition is realized in topological sense, and not in geometrical sense. The study of space is thus based on the realization. As far as the research content is concerned, the space category is composed of entity, location and displacement. As for the research angle, space cognition shows its subjectivity, and its research routine may be from reality to cognition and to language or the routine may also be taken from reality to language and to cognition. Focused on human common ability to cognize, this dissertation takes the former one.According to the Categorization and Prototype Theory, Space category is divided into three subcategories: entity category, location category and displacement category. The three subcategories are originated from physical world, which is reflected by language. Then there exist linguistic categories, such as noun, verb, adjective, adverb, deixis and so on. In other words, the semantic categorization of the physical world space is attainable by means of linguistic categorization. So the two types of categorizations are closely related to each other: the structural and relational iconicities are to be found. Secondly it verifies that people perceive time and other abstract concepts on the basis of spatial concept by the discussion of spatial metaphor. In this case, as a source domain, space maps project to other target domains. At last it discusses about the subjectivity of space cognition, which is found in the misuse of locatives (prepositions), in self-embodiment in discourses and in the subjectivity of the Chinese word order.The dissertation falls into six chapters.Chapter One introduces the important roles of space in Cognitive Linguistics and Embodiment Philosophy, according to which human categories, concepts, mind, reasoning are formed on the basis of human physical experiences and the basic perception comes from physical body, spatial relationship and movement action. This chapter also makes a general survey of space studies home and abroad. The foreign studies of space are carried out in various perspectives, producing many terms, while the Chinese studies of space are reflected by the following features: 1) more translations and introductions of foreign studies; 2) generalization of metaphor and image schema; 3) multi-dimensional studies, which include the studies of locative polysemy, symmetry and asymmetry, markedness and unmarkedness, grammaticalization and iconicity; and 4) studies combined with Chinese. In the word, the Chinese studies of space are performed on the basis of semantic level and from language to cognition. On the contrary, this dissertation develops in another way from cognition to language, verifying that there is ubiquitous space of fundament and importance, and dealing with such questions as whether there is correspondence between spatial semantic meanings and syntactic elements, the differences and similarities between spatial metaphors of different languages, subjectivity of spatial cognition, and so on.Chapter Two starts with the definition of "space" and its nature. On one hand, space concept is simple, as we can see or touch it; on the other hand, it is complicated, for it involves human subjectivity. Space includes the entity as well as the place where the entity exists. The nature of space is its relationship with entity; its cognition is closely related to the perspective choice to recognize, i.e. its cognition is subjective and space is one of the most important concepts in metaphor. So the realization of space reveals the difference between spatial concept, spatial relationship and space issues. Based on this, the dissertation constructs the space category, which includes the following subcategories: entity, location and displacement. This dissertation expounds the foundation of space in human cognition: l)spatial metaphor, 2)the influence of spatial meaning to grammatical functions and 3)the perspectives and references spatial cognition both of which form the subjectivity of space category. The three linked aspects reflect the characteristics of human cognition: foundation, metaphor, polysemy, and subjectivity.Chapter Three describes the corresponding relationship between the physical world categorization and linguistic categorization. It reaches a conclusion that entity category is related to noun, location category is related to locatives (propositions or adverbs in English) and displacement category is related to verb. In Chinese classifier and locatives can represent spatial shape category. In the section of "Entity category and Noun" it proves that entity is a covert category, which only show up in the course of the combination of syntactic functions, such as anaphora, reference, collocation, entrance into a certain syntactic form, etc. Besides, this chapter makes clear the three types of meaning of noun spatiality: [entity]\ [containing]\ [place], with entity noun being a typical one, place consisting to locative one (esp. naming place ones) and containing noun existing between the two. The spatiality of containing noun is just its functional [containing], i.e. its applicative function. The above three types of meaning change with the structural transformation. The section of "Location category and Locatives" , based on the figure-ground theory, emphasizes the semantic features of target object and reference object through and points out the difference between location category and place category: target object and reference object in location category are absolutely motionless while in location category they are relatively motionless. The section Displacement category and verb shows that displacement is a basic domain to deduce other abstract domains such as social relationship in Jackendoff's conceptual semantics. Displacement can also explain the Chinese typical "Ba-structure".Chapter Four starts with explaining why space is the basic concept for human being to understand time and the other abstract concepts from anthropology and psychology. It also explains why spatial concept is one of the earliest developed ones in human evolution. To do so, this chapter redefines the spatial metaphor, which includes entity metaphor, container metaphor, locative metaphor and displacement metaphor, all of which are consistent with entity, containing, location and displacement discussed in Chapter Three. Metaphor is one of the effective means to explain the lexical polysemy. Specifically speaking, metaphor can explain why people tend to use "shang (up)", "xia (down)", "qian (front)" and "hou (behind)" in terms of their practical experience of the word. Among these words, "shang (up)" and "qian (front)" are even more frequently used, for the two words, esp. "shang (up)", are the most complicated and polysemous in modern Chinese. Armed with grammaticalization, this chapter proves the relationship between container metaphor and "li (in)" and between displacement metaphor and the following displacement words: "lai or guolai (come)", "qu or guoqu (go)", "qilai (up)", etc. so as to conclude the process of words' grammaticalization, that is, production of polysemy appears by means of metaphor, word meaning changes from specific space to implicit meaning, and finally grammaticalization occurs. The cognitive mechanism of topological space meaning to spatial metaphor meaning is grammatical metaphors and the changes from topological space meaning to spatial metaphor meaning is based on grammaticalization. And it is found out that the words that tend to be grammaticalized are usually the space ones that are most frequently used and most polysemous.Chapter Five first introduces the theory of subjectivity proposed by Loyns, which implies that people are unevitablely influenced by their points of views and perception of the object when they use their languages. Then the theory is used to explain the misuse of locatives and spatial deixis in discourses so that the subject of cognition can have various perspectives of the object, such as its functions, cultures, psychological factors, visual angles, etc. In this way, the use of locatives, the choice of reference and the location of "self are analyzed in terms of discourse. This is the indication of cognitive subjectivity. The change of Chinese word order can also be interpreted by the subjectivity of spatial cognition. This is because experience and humanity are emphasized in Embodied Philosophy. Thus, subjectivity is one of humanistic representations.Chapter Six summarizes the main views and findings of the study, points out its innovativeness as well as its limitation.