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1、FactorsAffectingSpatialDeicticCommunication:AComparisonofGermanandAmericanEnglishPetraWeiss,JoachimGrabowskiandGeorgeA.MillerUniversityofMannheimandCognitiveScienceLaboratory,PrincetonUniversityAbstractThespatialprepositions”infrontof”or”behind”canbeusedindifferentframesofre
2、ference;somedeterminantsoftheirdeicticandintrinsicusesarediscussed.Aseriesofexperimentsshowsthatboththeintrinsicorientationofthereferenceobjectandthesocialcharacteristicsofthesituationsignificantlyaffecttheproductionofutterancescontaining”infrontof”or”behind”,orrespectively,t
3、heGermanprepositions”vor”or”hinter”.ThesetwofactorsinteractdifferentlyinEnglishandinGerman.Inparticularsituations,thecommunicativecorrespondencebetweenthereferencetoanintendedspace(production)andtheinterpretationofsuchanutterance(com-prehension)isstrongerinEnglishthaninGerma
4、n.Theresultsarediscussedintermsofthedifferentprepositionalinventoriesofthetwolanguages.1IntroductionPointingoutalocationoranobjectisaneverydaytaskforspeakersofnaturallan-guages.Frequentlythisisdonebyestablishingaspatialrelationbetweentheintendedlocationorobjectandanotherobje
5、ct(oranindividual).ThiskindofrelationcanbeexpressedinEnglishbytheuseofspatialprepositions:”Thereusedtobeastatueinfrontofthedepartmentstore”,or”ThelibraryisoppositeGreenHall”,or”Putthebottleonthetable”.Asubcategoryoftheseprepositionsservestodescribespatialre-lationsalongtheth
6、reedimensionsofEuclideanspace([Ehrich,1985]);”above”and”below”fortheverticalline,”infrontof”and”behind”fortheprimaryhorizontal,orsagittal,axis,and”totherightof”and”totheleftof”forthesecondaryhorizontal,ortransversal,axis.Theseprepositionsarealsocalledprojectiveprepositions([
7、Her-skovits,1986])ordimensionalprepositions,incontrasttoprepositionssuchas”in”,”on”or”at”whichdescribetopologicalrelations([Retz-Schmidt,1988]).Thispaperexaminesthereferencetoalocation(onthepartofaspeaker)andtheidentificationofthislocation(onthepartofthelistener)bymeansofverb
8、alexpres-sionsofspatialrelationsalongtheprimaryhorizontalaxis.Inparticular,
