9. Linguistic manifestations of the space-time (dis)analogy

Ronald W. Langacker

As facets of interpreted experience, space and time are highly variable in their linguistic manifestation. Universal aspects of language structure reflect a more basic level of apprehension. Space and time have a foundational role in grammar. Objects and events, the prototypes for nouns and verbs, are primarily conceived, respectively, as spatial and temporal entities. The extensive noun-verb parallelism suggests that space and time merit unified treatment. However, certain asymmetries suggest that time has a special status. Time has multiple roles in language. It is always the medium of conceptualising activity and serves in various capacities as an object of conception. The dynamic conception of space, through time, makes possible the metaphorical conception of time itself, in terms of space.

Keywords: conceptualisation, dynamicity, grammar, noun, verb

Published online: 24 July 2012
https://doi.org/10.1075/hcp.37.15lan

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