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1、FactorsAffectingSpatialDeicticCommunication:AComparisonofGermanandAmericanEnglishPetraWeiss,JoachimGrabowskiandGeorgeA.MillerUniversityofMannheimandCognitiveScienceLaboratory,PrincetonUniversityAbstractThespatialprepositions”infrontof”or”behind”canbeusedindifferentframesofreference;some
2、determinantsoftheirdeicticandintrinsicusesarediscussed.Aseriesofexperimentsshowsthatboththeintrinsicorientationofthereferenceobjectandthesocialcharacteristicsofthesituationsignificantlyaffecttheproductionofutterancescontaining”infrontof”or”behind”,orrespectively,theGermanprepositions”vor
3、”or”hinter”.ThesetwofactorsinteractdifferentlyinEnglishandinGerman.Inparticularsituations,thecommunicativecorrespondencebetweenthereferencetoanintendedspace(production)andtheinterpretationofsuchanutterance(com-prehension)isstrongerinEnglishthaninGerman.Theresultsarediscussedintermsofthe
4、differentprepositionalinventoriesofthetwolanguages.1IntroductionPointingoutalocationoranobjectisaneverydaytaskforspeakersofnaturallan-guages.Frequentlythisisdonebyestablishingaspatialrelationbetweentheintendedlocationorobjectandanotherobject(oranindividual).Thiskindofrelationcanbeexpres
5、sedinEnglishbytheuseofspatialprepositions:”Thereusedtobeastatueinfrontofthedepartmentstore”,or”ThelibraryisoppositeGreenHall”,or”Putthebottleonthetable”.Asubcategoryoftheseprepositionsservestodescribespatialre-lationsalongthethreedimensionsofEuclideanspace([Ehrich,1985]);”above”and”belo
6、w”fortheverticalline,”infrontof”and”behind”fortheprimaryhorizontal,orsagittal,axis,and”totherightof”and”totheleftof”forthesecondaryhorizontal,ortransversal,axis.Theseprepositionsarealsocalledprojectiveprepositions([Her-skovits,1986])ordimensionalprepositions,incontrasttoprepositionssuch
7、as”in”,”on”or”at”whichdescribetopologicalrelations([Retz-Schmidt,1988]).Thispaperexaminesthereferencetoalocation(onthepartofaspeaker)andtheidentificationofthislocation(onthepartofthelistener)bymeansofverbalexpres-sionsofspatialrelationsalongtheprimaryhorizontalaxis.Inparticular,
