Talk:Spatial tense

Doubts

I have grave doubts about this article. First, it doesn't succeed in explaining the concept of spatial tense. All it seems to say is things like 'English does not have it', 'it is like this, but not quite', and 'Sapir-Whorf thought something about it, but he was wrong'. The reader searching for an explanation is left with more questions than answers.

Secondly, why is the reader informed that several languages have spatial tense, but 'English does not'? Wouldn't it be more appropiate to state unambiguously which languages do have spatial tense? And wouldn't it be really cool to cite some real examples?

Furthermore, I doubt whether spatial tense is a relevant concept. It might be that I'm overlooking something here, but I am inclined to think that the fact that a search in the Cambridge Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts database (spanning articles and books from 1973 to 2004) does return only one result, does say something about the relevance of the concept. (That particular result is a review of a 1945 work by G. Guillaume.)

I also doubt the accuracy of the concept of spatial tense as it is defined in the article: it doesn't make much sense cross-linguistically to define tense in terms of 'something modifying the verb'. In a lot of languages (case in point: the Gbe languages), what one might call 'tense' is not a verbal inflectional category as it is in English. Even in English, tense is not expressed by verbal inflection only. It reminds me of medieval grammarians putting Latin-inspired grammatical labels on only vaguely related grammatical concepts in totally unrelated languages. ¶ Mark Dingemanse (talk) 15:38, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I understand your doubts. I am no linguist, so I admit I've written this article without having any background knowledge, and am unable to judge relevancy (I admit the fact there are only __ Google results - some of which are Wikipedia mirrors - and 11 Google Groups results is a testament of a concept rarely used), much less answer your concerns. It does seem to exist, however, at least in some contents (as attested by the fact that there are results; see [1], for instance). Revamping the article may be in order, but with a scarcity of online resource this will be difficult. -- Itai 11:41, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Thank you for your kind reply. Judging from the sources I have, I think the concept of spatial tense is only relevant in the context of the artificial language Lojban. The statement that several natural languages have spatial tense as defined in the article is still an unsubstantiated claim, so imho it should be pulled out pending evidence. Part of the problem is the very name of the concept. 'Tense' has the connotation of 'time'. In fact, grammatical tense is frequently (if loosely) defined as 'location in time'. Thus, it doesn't really make sense to talk about 'spatial tense'; it would be like talking about 'temporal place'.

Since the only relevant use of the concept stems from Lojban grammar, I think it would be best to start the article out of the Lojban perspective, defining spatial tense as Lojban grammar defines it. And since spatial tense (according to Lojban grammar) is merely 'obligated expression of location', the broader context of the article should be the expression of space in language. And this is where observations about the connection between language and the way we perceive the world come in. The way I see it, the spatial cases of the Hopi language (one of the many languages that do very interesting things with space) don't really belong in an article about an invented, English-inspired, grammatical category. What we are really missing is a decent article about the way languages deal with location and space. Which is something I added to my to do list. ¶ Mark Dingemanse (talk) 16:55, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

No problem. I've checked Dictionary.com, and it backs your definition of tense, so it could be that this article has the wrong title. (It could very well be, by the way, that there is some proper linguistic term for this that alludes us.) Anyway, feel free to commit whatever changes you feel proper. This article is not high on my priority list, but I'll be glad to help if help is required. (Using Google, I've found another artificial language which uses spatial tense, another references to the peculiarities of Hopi and even what I think is Whorf's original article. None of this is very helpful, I'm afraid. I've also found [2], which begins: 'After long and careful study and analysis, the Hopi language is seen to contain no words, grammatical forms, constructions or expressions that refer directly to what we call "time."'.) -- Itai 20:45, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Note that I don't think that the title is wrong, but rather that the article is written from the wrong perspective. The concept of spatial tense is something from Lojban grammar and as such could have its own article (of course, it could be noted in this article that spatial tense may be considered a misnomer in Lojban grammar). The link with the temporal tense system of natural languages remains interesting, but it should not be presupposed that languages which do not express time in the same manner as English do have something like spatial tense instead. In fact, I see no reason to expect a beautiful symmetry between time and space in language; the two concepts are conceptualized in very different ways by humans.

Some additional notes. The other artificial language you are linking to (Viku) clearly borrowed the term 'spatial tense' from Lojban, but applies it to the expression of location and distance in general, muddling up things even more. The proper linguistic term we are searching for does not exist because of the many ways languages deal with space, distance, location and position. The closest we get is 'locative' in general, and a load of terms with the adjective 'spatial' (including spatial language, spatial locative, spatial perspective, spatial deixis).

Concluding. I must say that this article, its problems notwithstanding, has made me think about a lot of interesting things — so thank you! This article is not very high on my priority list either, but I'll see if I can come up with some improvements. In any case, this discussion will stay here and will function as a 'to do'. ¶ Mark Dingemanse (talk) 09:24, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Rewriting from a Lojban POV

Folks, I hope you don't mind, but I've rewritten a good part of the article. I took a look at the Lojban grammar and started from that. I need to get some Hopi into my head now, and see if I can make room for it, since I only reworded that part -- I have no idea if it's right at all. --Pablo D. Flores 01:26, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Superb! Thanks for doing this! — mark ✎ 08:47, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

more on space & time

I havent read the article very carefully, but I'm going to ramble here anyway.

In English, it seems that we speak of time often in terms of space. I am talking about metaphor here.

For instance, the verb go is basically used to speak of movement through space. However, since we often equate time with space, we have a grammaticalized go that appears as a future marker, as in

I'm going to ramble here anyway.

Go is used to speak of a forward movement in time (toward the future). As further evidence of this grammaticalization, we can use the time go with the space go:

He's going to go to Cambodia someday.

What about prepositions?

• at (1-dimensional): He came at me with a knife. = He came here at 4:00.
• on (2-dimensional): On: Please put on the table. = Please come here on Monday.
• in (3-dimensional): In: I'll put it in a box. = I'll finish it in 4 minutes.

It seems that the spatial dimension is somehow equivalent to the temporal dimension. At refers to a point in space or time. On, a 2-dimensional surface or a less point-like temporal referent. In, a 3-dimensional object or a span of time.

Anyway, just some thoughts. Peace. - Ish ishwar 19:01, 2005 Feb 25 (UTC)

Wow, interesting stuff. Nice examples! You write: 'It seems that the spatial dimension is somehow equivalent to the temporal dimension.' My first thought it that this similarity lies precisely in the fact that we're calling both a dimension. Then of course the question becomes: what exactly is a dimension? Something about which you can make statements of the type you're making above? Or is that a tautology? I don't know (have to think about it more, I guess).

As for verbs and prepositions being used for movement trought both time and space — intriguing indeed. You call it a metaphor, so you assume a sort primacy of space before time. I think you're absolutely right, but I also think there's more to it. This is one of the areas where the nature of human cognition shines through our use of language (so it's Cognitive linguistics, really). It has to do with our conceptualization of both space and time. I am sure that you will like the thoughts of Leonard Talmy, especially chapter 2 ("Fictive Motion in Language and 'Ception'") and 3 ("How language structures space") of his Toward a Cognitive Semantics. (By the way, you can find the whole book in PDF-format here — don't tell anyone :) )

As for your n-dimensional analysis — it looks beautiful. I'm thinking about it. Kind regards, — mark ✎ 18:05, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

note the time stamp on the above comment was affected by a technical problem (out of sync apache) and should read 13:05 UTC (probably not important, but confusing :) -- sannse (talk) 13:23, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Yes, any thoughts from you are welcome. The preposition suggestion is not mine, but from Háj Ross (a.k.a. John Robert Ross), one of the early generative semanticists formerly at MIT (& good friend of George Lakoff). Háj is into poetics, syntax, semantics, education, & love. His email is haj @ unt.edu.

There is probably much to think about here & figure out, & I havent done anything with it. Looks like it might be pretty "hairy". But it is intriguing. I would like to know what goes on in other languages (esp. non-Indo-European). I think that the future go works in French to some extent. Maybe alot of langs are similar?

I think that it is difficult to speak of time in any way besides metaphorical. So we have target domain time spoken in terms of source domain space. In Metaphors we live by Lakoff & Turner mention another one: Time = Money. I havent thought of any others.

Another somewhat related thing that Háj told me is about the grammaticalization of have ('to possess') to function as a sort of past aspect marker. This is true of some European languages. I also wonder about Japanese: where Verb+past koto ga aru means have done Verb — aru also is used for possession as in car ga aru 'to have/possess a car'. But I dont have a good Japanese dictionary with etymology notes.

Len Talmy is very cool. I have his 2 volume book & some other papers of his, but havent read the chapters you suggest. I've read the intro & the chapter on figure & ground (which was very good). I think I need to check his force dynamics, too. I also would love to read his dissertation on Atsugewi. My reading list is endless: an issue I'm sure you know about. Thanks for the link to Talmy's website. Peace - Ish ishwar 06:50, 2005 Mar 1 (UTC)

You might want to check out Force Dynamics then. It's just listed on Peer Review, if you have any comments or suggestions, feel free to post them there. Cheers, — mark ✎ 01:20, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Hopi language

This article still haunts me occasionally. Seeing as I am unable to find any substantiation - except for copies of this article - for the claim that the Hopi language employs spatial tenses, it would seem reasonable to remove in its entirety the paragraph dealing with this language. Any objections? — Itai (talk) 15:10, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

I think that you should leave it there, because maybe someone will find somthing about Hopi and will be kind in off to write it here.

I have just removed it. Whorf (1956:158) writes that "There is no such striking difference between Hopi and SAE [Standard American English] about space (...) and probably the apprehension of space is given in substantially that same form by experience irrespective of language." Now only Lojban is left, and the article needs to be sourced, by the way. — mark ✎ 20:15, 2 June 2006 (UTC)