Publications

Publication details [#1824]

Alverson, Hoyt. 1994. Semantics and Experience: Universal Metaphors of Time in English, Mandarin, Hindi and Sesotho. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. xiv, 151 pp.
Publication type
Book – monograph
Publication language
English
ISBN
0801848113

Abstract

Alverson (1994) undertook a comparison between time expressions from English, Mandarin Chinese, Hindi, and Sesotho. He reviews the different philosophical traditions of time in the West, India, and China and concludes that spatialization of time is not a Western artifact. But Tyler (1995) criticizes Alverson's use of his database and particularly his spatialization proposal. It is noted, e.g., that spatial metaphors of time are neither universal nor comprehensive as a model of time. Also, the process by which bodily experience is translated into conceptualization is too little understood at this point to allow any firm conclusion. Partial support for the universalist claim is offered by Boroditsky (2001) for the Western and Eastern ways of conceptualizing time. (René Dirven)