FACTORS THAT DETERMINE THE INTERPRETATION OF DIMENSIONAL SPATIAL EXPRESSIONS - EXPERIMENTS IN 5 LANGUAGES

The cognitive conception of dimensional relations between objects and the associated use of dimensional prepositions requires the instantiat ion of a space-dimensioning Origo and the determination of a point of view. We firstly develop a psycholagical-anthropocentric approach that allows for the homogeneous treatment of the alternatives of an Origo' s instantiation. Hearers try to repeat the speaker's Origo when interp reting dimensional expressions; however, alternatives may arise. With the example of spatial relations between objects on the first horizont al axis (in English expressed by <<in front of>> and <<behind>>), a se ries of experiments conducted in German, Dutch, French, Italian and En glish shows that several factors interact when hearers try interpret d imensional expressions: (I) the preposition that is used; (2) the refe rence object being intrinsically oriented or not; (3) the social chara cteristics of the situation in which spatial communication occurs; (4) the prepositional inventory of the language in use, especially the re lation between spatial and temporal expressions. With factors (3) and (4) in particular, a comparatively high degree of determination of the hearers' interpretations is achieved.