A Panchronic Study Of Spatial Grams

Spatial grams are grammatical forms of language which express primarily spatial relations. They are crucial to our cognition since on the one hand spatial grams primarily serve to structure and organize the rest of language, and on the other hand, they are deemed by the majority to reflect the organization of thought of speakers of the language. The thesis adopts a panchronic approach to demonstrate one of the most important properties of spatial grams—their embodiment. Here the notion panchronic means the study exhibits simultaneously a synchronic and diachronic dimension which can not be separated artificially, since all synchronic states are the result of a long chain of diachronic developments. It is true that, as other grammatical categories, spatial grams are products of the evolution of linguistic material and their property is manifested at any particular synchronic point.Embodiment is the bodily and sensorimotor basis of phenomena such as meaning, mind, cognition and language. Lakoff and Johnson (1999) demarcated embodiment into three levels. Neural embodiment concerns the structures that characterize concepts and cognitive operations at the neurophysiological level. The cognitive unconscious consists of all the mental operations that structure and make possible conscious experience, including the understanding and use of language. The phenomenological level consists of everything we can be aware of. Lakoff and Johnson further proposed that spatial grams are embodied on the neural level. Not only the spatial grams depend on the neural structures in the brains'visual system, but also the peculiar nature of our bodies and brains are used in characterizing spatial grams. What the thesis proves is that on the level of cognitive unconscious spatial grams are embodied as well.The thesis investigates the nature of spatial grams from three aspects. Morphologically, spatial grams are found to be primarily derived from three classes: body-part terms, environmental landmark terms and relational object-part terms. Body-part terms are the most commonly found lexical sources for spatial grams. The discovery that many of the lexical sources for spatial grams are body-part terms or environmental landmarks shows that normally we understand spatial relations in terms of concrete entities which are closely related to our bodies and our interactions with the physical environment. It is in this sense that the thesis claims spatial grams are embodied on the morphological level. Then, the thesis proposes the argument that the semantic basis of spatial grams is image schema and spatial grams derive their meaning by metaphorical transformations of image schemas. Image schemas are recurring dynamic patterns of our perceptual interactions and motor programs that gives coherence and structure to our experience. Image schemas are embodied in the first place they arise from our sensorimotor experiences and their nature is shaped by our biological makeup. Secondly, image schemas are found to have their neurobiological grounding in the sensorimotor cortex performing sensorimotor and multimodal imagery tasks. Because image schemas are embodied, we conclude that spatial grams are embodied on the semantic level. Finally, the thesis investigates the mechanism that motivates the grammaticalization of spatial grams. It turns out that the processes of body-part terms, environmental landmark terms and relational-object terms are derived to denote spatial relations are metaphorical in nature. They are all concerned with the kind of cognitive activity leading from concrete objects to express abstract spatial relations. Metaphor is explored to be embodied on the one hand it is grounded in our experience and our everyday interaction with the world, and on the other hand it is neural correlation resided in our neural system. Since spatial grams are morphologically and semantically embodied together with the fact the mechanism of the grammaticalization of spatial grams is embodied, the thesis arrives at the conclusion spatial grams are embodied on the level of cognitive unconscious.The embodiment of spatial grams is of great significance. Because spatial grams are formed via the sensorimotor system, they fit the way we function in the world and they allow us to function well in our physical environment. The very properties of spatial grams are created as a result of the way the brain and body are structured and the way they function in interpersonal relations and in the physical world. Not only spatial grams, but also the whole conceptual system is grounded in and is crucially shaped by our perceptual and motor systems.