The influence of scale, context and spatial preposition in linguistic topology

Abstract

Following a similar method to that of Mark and Egenhofer (1994), a questionnaire-based experiment tested for possible effects of scale, context and spatial relation type on the acceptability of spatial prepositions. The results suggest that the previous assumption of scale invariance in spatial language is incorrect. The physical world as experienced by humans, and described by human language, is not a fractal: scale appears to change its very physical nature, and hence the meaning of its spatial relations. The experiment demonstrated how scale influences preposition use, and how different prepositions appeared to evoke different levels of acceptability in themselves. Context, in terms of object type (solid or liquid), interacted with these factors to demonstrate specific constraints upon spatial language use. The results are discussed in terms of figure-ground relations, as well as the role of human experience and the classification of the world into 'objects' in different ways at different scales. Since this was a preliminary and artificially-constrained experiment, the need for further research is emphasized. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007.