Home > Catalogue > Annali di Ca’ Foscari. Serie occidentale > 51 | 2017 > Codifying Spatial Relationships in Hungarian and Italian: a Typological Analysis

Annali di Ca’ Foscari. Serie occidentale | Vol. 51 | September 2017

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Research Article

Codifying Spatial Relationships in Hungarian and Italian: a Typological Analysis

Edit Rozsavolgyi    Università di Padova, Padova, Italia    

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abstract

This cross-linguistic survey of spatial reference is about the way Hungarian and Italian languages structure the spatial domain. My chief concern is theoretical and methodological: how and to what extent the traditionally structure-centeredness of linguistic typology (LT) can be broadened? Pursuing new ways of investigation taking into account an interdisciplinary approach LT may complement and learn from linguistics of other persuasions which in turn may enhance theoretical well groundedness of LT and expand its research scope. Opening up to cognitive linguistics, which has experienced a shift towards more empirically-based inquiry recently, may provide a potential for methodological cross-fertilization in the framework of semantic typology, a new kind of work in linguistics. Semantic typology is the comparative study of linguistic categorization. Its central issue is how linguistic representations structure a given cognitive domain across languages unraveling the functioning of the syntax – semantics interface. It studies variation and universals in the constraints languages impose on semantic representations in specific conceptual domains, in our case that of spatial relations.

Published
Sept. 28, 2017
Accepted
March 9, 2017
Submitted
Dec. 4, 2016
Language
IT

Keywords: Linguistic typology • Cognitive domain of spatial relations • Semantics

permalink http://doi.org/10.14277/2499-1562/AnnOc-51-17-17

Copyright: © 2017 Edit Rozsavolgyi. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.