Cognitive Scientific Studies of Spatio-Temporal Expressions in Japanese and English

自然语言的语言学研究(尤其是对地点、时间和空间的语言表达的研究)是认知科学领域最重要的研究课题之一。然而，很少有人注意到解释这种语言表达的形式和概念特征的潜在机制。在这项研究中，我们特别参照日语和英语考察了关于时空表达的三个基本问题。第一年，我们考察了日语和英语中时空语表达的基本形式类型(特别是日语位置标记和英语位置介词)。第二年，我们澄清了日语和英语时空表达的概念性质。第三年，我们考察了日语和英语方位表达中具体意义向抽象意义隐喻延伸的潜在机制。

The lignuistic study of natural languages (especially, the study of linguistic expressions of location, time and space) is one of the most important research topics in the field of cognitive sciences. Little attention, however, has been paid to the elucidation of the underlying mechanisms which formally and conceptually characterize such linguistic expressions. In this research, we have investigated three basic problems concerning spatio-temporal expressions with special reference to Japanese and English. In the first year, we have examined the basic formal types of spatio-tempral expressions in Japanese and English (espetially, Japanese location markers and English locational prepositions). In the second year, the conceptual nature of Japanese and English spatio-temporal expressions was clarified. In the third year, we have investigated the underlying mechanisms which characterize the metaphorical extension of concrete meanings to abstract meanings in Japanese and English locational expressions.