Cognitive Linguistic Studies of Locatio-Spatial Expressions in Natural Language

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The cognitive-lignuistic study of natural languages (especially, that of locative and spatial expressions) is one of the most crucial and significant research topics in the field of information science and related fileds.However, little research has been done for the clarification of the underlying mechanisms which conceptually characterize such linguistic expressions. In this research, we have investigated three basic problems concerning locatio-spatial expressions with special reference to Japanese and English. In the first year, we examined the basic types of locatio-spatial expressions in Japanese and English (espetially, Japanese location markers and English locational prepositions). In the second year, the process of encoding the conceptual structure of Japanese and English locatio-spatial expressions was clarified. In the third year, we investigated the cognitive processes which generally characterize the metaphorical extension of concrete meanings to abstract meanings in Japanese and English locatio-spatial expressions.