What Does Children's Spatial Language Reveal About Spatial Concepts? Evidence From the Use of Containment Expressions

Abstract

Children's overextensions of spatial language are often taken to reveal spatial biases. However, it is unclear whether extension patterns should be attributed to children's overly general spatial concepts or to a narrower notion of conceptual similarity allowing metaphor-like extensions. We describe a previously unnoticed extension of spatial expressions and use a novel method to determine its origins. English-and Greek-speaking 4-and 5-year-olds used containment expressions (e.g., English into, Greek mesa) for events where an object moved into another object but extended such expressions to events where the object moved behind or under another object. The pattern emerged in adult speakers of both languages and also in speakers of 10 additional languages. We conclude that learners do not have an overly general concept of Containment. Nevertheless, children (and adults) perceive similarities across Containment and other types of spatial scenes, even when these similarities are obscured by the conventional forms of the language.

Containment and Support: Core and Complexity in Spatial Language Learning

“…Within each of these two spatial domains, we defined several subtypes of interest inspired by theoretical studies of spatial terms (Landau & Jackendoff, 1993;Talmy, 1983), empirical studies showing crosslinguistic distinctions in the domains of containment (e.g., Bowerman & Choi, 2003;Narasimhan & Brown, 2009) and support (e.g., Gentner & Bowerman, 2009;Levinson & Wilkins, 2006), and infant studies documenting basic distinctions at the heart of early spatial event categories (Baillargeon et al, 2012). Even though some of these subtypes have so far only been documented in languages outside our sample, we believe that a closer look at spatial encoding patterns in English and Greek might reveal sensitivity to some of these distinctions in ways that would otherwise be hard to detect (see also G€ urcanli & Landau, 2008;Johanson & Papafragou, 2014, for support of this broad point). Even though some of these subtypes have so far only been documented in languages outside our sample, we believe that a closer look at spatial encoding patterns in English and Greek might reveal sensitivity to some of these distinctions in ways that would otherwise be hard to detect (see also G€ urcanli & Landau, 2008;Johanson & Papafragou, 2014, for support of this broad point).…”

“…Crucially, our subtypes emphasized both physical/geometrical, but also functional and mechanical aspects of spatial configurations (Coventry et al, 1994;Vandeloise, 2005Vandeloise, , 2010. Even though some of these subtypes have so far only been documented in languages outside our sample, we believe that a closer look at spatial encoding patterns in English and Greek might reveal sensitivity to some of these distinctions in ways that would otherwise be hard to detect (see also G€ urcanli & Landau, 2008;Johanson & Papafragou, 2014, for support of this broad point).…”

“…Notice that, even though locative expressions such as in and on are known to appear around age two in English and across languages (Bowerman, 1996;Johnston & Slobin, 1978), we know virtually nothing about how children's meanings for these terms are structured and whether or how they are applied to a broader, adult-like range of spatial referent scenes. Moreover, we know that other aspects of the acquisition of spatial language continue through the age of 5 and beyond cross-linguistically (e.g., Johanson & Papafragou, 2014;Munnich & Landau, 2010;Papafragou, Massey, & Gleitman, 2002).…”

Choosing the Right Path: Image Schema Theory as a Foundation for Concept Invention

“…Already at five months infants can distinguish PATH-following that has an END PATH (the image schema PATH GOAL) from the initial PATH, while the START PATH is less interesting until the end of the first year of life. This is further supported by linguistic analyses in which an END PATH is initially more interesting than a START PATH (Johanson and Papafragou, 2014). …”

“…Prepositions in combination with verbs often do appear to be the key words that help identify image schemas in language (Johanson and Papafragou, 2014). Below we will discuss natural language and conceptual metaphors of the PATH-following image schema family.…”