How Nouns and Prepositions Fit Together: An Exploration of the Semantics of Locative Sentences

Processing the presence, placement, and properties of a distractor in spatial language tasks

“…It is typically assumed that a reference object is selected on the basis of properties that make it salient relative to other surrounding objects, and therefore easy to find (de Vega, Rodrigo, Ato, Dehn, & Barquero, 2002;Miller & Johnson-Laird, 1976;Talmy, 1983). Such an assumption is consistent with work in communication that argues that referential descriptions that include distinct attributes that make an object stand out in contrast to surrounding objects are particularly helpful in disambiguating the intended referent (Brown-Schmidt, Byron, & Tanenhaus, 2005;Eberhard, Spivey-Knowlton, Sedivy, & Tanenhaus, 1995;Olson, 1970).…”

“…Previous theoretical work has suggested that the salience of an object is an important criterion for reference object selection, usually defining salience by virtue of perceptual features such as color, shape, size, or mobility (de Vega et al, 2002;Miller & Johnson-Laird, 1976;Talmy, 1983). Yet the results across the experiments consistently show that it is the placement of the object, rather than its features, that are critical.…”

“…In addition to size and stability, Talmy argued that reference objects may have greater geometric complexity. In addition, using a corpora of spatial descriptions, de Vega et al (2002) found that reference objects were more likely to be (1) inanimate, (2) solid in their consistency, and (3) whole entities or mass objects (e.g., a beach or an ocean) rather than parts of an object. Blocher and Stopp (1998) defined salience with respect to color, shape, and size.…”

Describing spatial locations from perception and memory: The influence of intrinsic axes on reference object selection

“…Alternatively, you could describe their location with respect to other reference objects, such as ''by the coffee pot" or ''next to the phone." It is typically assumed that a reference object is selected on the basis of properties such as perceptual, conceptual and/or spatial features that make it salient relative to other surrounding objects, and therefore easy to find (e.g., De Vega, Rodrigo, Ato, Dehn, & Barquero, 2002;Miller & Johnson-Laird, 1976;Talmy, 1983). In the sunglasses example, the microwave may be considered perceptually salient because of its large size.…”

On doing two things at once: Temporal constraints on actions in language comprehension

“…Thus, while is an instruction to simulate how two actions can be performed simultaneously, after is an instruction to simulate the current clause and then the next, and before is an instruction to simulate the first clause, simulate the second clause, and then to check that the simulation of the first clause (temporally, the second event) will mesh with the end-state of the simulation of the second clause (temporally, the first event). This general approach of considering language as instructions for simulation can be applied to other components of language as well, such as negation (Glenberg, Robertson, Jansen, & Johnson-Glenberg, 1999), specificity of articles (Robertson, Gernsbacher, & Guidotti, 2000), and locative prepositions (de Vega, Rodrigo, Ato, Dehn, & Barquero, 2002).…”