The interpretation of spatial relations through a horizontal axis
- Autores: Nuria Flor Fabregat
- Localización: Fòrum de Recerca, ISSN-e 1139-5486, Nº. 24 (XXIII Jornades de Foment de la Investigació en Ciències Humanes i Socials), 2019, págs. 87-89
- Idioma: inglés
- Enlaces
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Resumen
The principal aim of this research is to compare the semantics of prepositions by and at to provide an overview of their meaning in context.
A corpus of instances of these prepositions in excerpts from the book The Hobbit by Tolkien is regarded. This story is appropriate for the analysis of spatial language because of the relevance of spatial environments and situations in facilitating comprehension of this imaginary world, its senses and movements through objects, animals or characters in a scene. The research focuses on the theoretical notions of frames of reference (Levinson, 2004), image schemas (Johnson, 1987) and the three dimensions of semantic parameters in which the trajector and the landmark are the entities for the construal of a particular scene (Navarro i Ferrando, 2000, 2006; Vandeloise, 1991). The methodology used consists in the contextual analysis of a corpus of examples of each preposition, by and at, and a comparison of the main definitions from two dictionaries (Cambridge dictionary and Oxford dictionary) with the purpose of describing semantic dimensions. Subsequently, the analysis incorporates frames of reference and perceptual dimensions (topology, force-dynamics and function) onto the meanings of these prepositions, which are not usually explained in dictionaries. Finally, as a conclusion, a comparison of these two prepositions –by and at– is displayed for the description of their semantic contrast.
