Here and Now: Mapping Space and Time in a Four-Part Frame of Reference Typology

Abstract

I will apply the distinctions of a four-part spatial frame of reference typology (Danziger 2010) to the language of temporal sequence, arguing that the two intersecting conceptual dichotomies which make up the four cells of the spatial typology have precise analogies in the literature which discusses the language of time. This means that the two-by-two matrix of the four-part spatial typology can also be used to delineate four types of temporal reference, which in turn should have logical and cognitive properties that parallel the four types of spatial reference. I’ll look at an example of the gestures that accompany speech in a Mayan language, literally to see that the proposed analogies hold. I’ll conclude that in the relational analogy between space and other domains, space itself does not emerge as primary or basic relative to the others. Instead it is the social-subjective situation of speech which plays this pivotal role.