Eve Sweetser

With the Future Behind Them: Convergent Evidence From Aymara Language and Gesture in the Crosslinguistic Comparison of Spatial Construals of Time

Cognitive research on metaphoric concepts of time has focused on differences between moving Ego and moving time models, but even more basic is the contrast between Ego- and temporal-reference-point models. Dynamic models appear to be quasi-universal cross-culturally, as does the generalization that in Ego-reference-point models, FUTURE IS IN FRONT OF EGO and PAST IS IN BACK OF EGO. The Aymara language instead has a major static model of time wherein FUTURE IS BEHIND EGO and PAST IS IN FRONT OF EGO; linguistic and gestural data give strong confirmation of this unusual culture-specific cognitive pattern. Gestural data provide crucial information unavailable to purely linguistic analysis, suggesting that when investigating conceptual systems both forms of expression should be analyzed complementarily. Important issues in embodied cognition are raised: how fully shared are bodily grounded motivations for universal cognitive patterns, what makes a rare pattern emerge, and what are the cultural entailments of such patterns?

Viewpoint in language : a multimodal perspective

Introduction: viewpoint and perspective in language and gesture, from the ground up Eve Sweetser Part I. Intersubjectivity and Subjectification: 1. Irony as a viewpoint phenomenon Vera Tobin and Michael Israel 2. Subjectivity and upwards projection in mental space structure Lilian Ferrari and Eve Sweetser 3. Negation, stance verbs, and intersubjectivity Barbara Dancygier Part II. Gesture and Processing of Visual Information: 4. Interactions between discourse status and viewpoint in co-speech gesture Fey Parrill 5. Maybe what it means is he actually got the spot: physical and cognitive viewpoint in a gesture study Shweta Narayan Part III. Multiple Viewpoints in American Sign Language: 6. Reported speech as an evidentiality strategy in American sign language Barbara Shaffer 7. Two ways of conceptualizing space: motivating the use of static and rotated vantage point space in ASL discourse Terry Janzen Part IV. Constructions and Discourse: 8. The constructional underpinnings of viewpoint blends: the Past+now in language and literature Kiki Nikiforidou 9. Evoking discourse spaces in speech and thought representation Lieven Vandelanotte Conclusion: multiple viewpoints, multiple spaces Barbara Dancygier.

Thenin conditional constructions

in if-then conditionals, the different parts of the construction and of the context make differing contributions to Interpretation. It is here argued that if sets up a mental space wherein the apodosiss content (or speech act, or conclusion) is taken äs existing. Then refers uniquely and anaphorically to the mental space set up in the protasis, and may contextually have a contrastive deictic function which requires some other mental space to be postulated äs the contrasied entity. The relationship between clause order and the use o/then falls out ofthis anaphoric Interpretation o/then, which is not interpretable without preceding establishment of a referent mental space. The demands of relevance allow a hearer to conventionally give a predictive Interpretation to a conditional construction marked by appropriate verb forms; this Interpretation in turn requires the setting up of alternative spacesfor the purpose ofprediction (and thus gives rise to an iff implicature). The restrictions on the use o/then with even if conditionals, generic conditionals, and only if conditionals, also fall out of semantic and pragmatic aspects of these particular classes of constructions. In general, conditional constructions in English are more compositional in meaning than has previously been observed; this compositionality emerges when the analyst is willing to map meaning onto syntactic constructions, and not solely onto morphemes.

Causal categories in discourse and cognition

All languages of the world provide their speakers with linguistic means to express causal relations in discourse. The book discusses parameters of categorization that shape the use of causal connectives and auxiliary verbs across languages like English, Dutch and Polish. Convergence of linguistic, corpus-linguistic and psycholinguistic methodologies appears crucial in determining cognitive categories of causality.

Metaphor, mythology, and everyday language

Abstract It has long been a familiar fact that mythologies involve metaphorical and symbolic structures. This paper will attempt to expose some of the relationships between those structures and the metaphorical structures commonly found in everyday language. Although this is part of a project which will eventually involve more crosscultural comparison, I intend to focus here on one particular and well-documented mythological tradition within the Indo-European linguistic and cultural community: namely, classical Greek mythology. It will become evident that this tradition has startling parallels with everyday metaphorical structures even in such a distant branch of Indo-European as English.

Reported speech as an evidentiality strategy in American Sign Language

Speakers infuse their discourse with their personal opinion. As people speak, they convey information and simultaneously impart their perspective, opinions, and beliefs. Some utterances convey more speaker perspective than others, and warrant special consideration. When using an evidential the speaker makes an utterance and simultaneously asserts that there is evidence for what he is saying (de Haan 1999).

Mental Spaces in Grammar: The door-scraper in the Wild Wood: an informal lesson in frame metonymy

Suddenly, the Rat cried “Hooray!” and then “Hooray-oo-ray-oo-ray-oo-ray!” and fell to executing a feeble jig in the snow. “What have you found, Ratty?” asked the Mole, still nursing his leg. “Come and see!” said the delighted Rat, as he jigged on. The Mole hobbled up to the spot and had a good look. “Well,” he said at last, slowly, “I see it right enough. Seen the same sort of thing before, lots of times. Familiar object, I call it. A door-scraper! Well, what of it? Why dance jigs round a door-scraper?” “But don’t you see what it means, you – you dull-witted animal?” cried the Rat impatiently. “Of course I see what it means,” replied the Mole. “It simply means that some very careless and forgetful person has left his door-scraper lying about in the middle of the Wild Wood, just where it’s sure to trip everybody up. Very thoughtless of him, I call it. When I get home I shall go and complain about it to – to somebody or other, see if I don’t!” “O dear! O dear!” cried the Rat, in despair at his obtuseness. “Here, stop arguing and come and scrape!” And he set to work again and made the snow fly in all directions around him. After some further toil his efforts were rewarded, and a very shabby doormat lay exposed to view. “There, what did I tell you?” exclaimed the Rat, in great triumph. “Absolutely nothing whatever,” replied the Mole, with perfect truthfulness. “Well now,” he went on, “you seem to have found another piece of domestic litter, done for and thrown away, and I suppose you’re perfectly happy. Better go ahead, and dance your jig round that if you’ve got to, and get it over, and