Spatial frames of reference in Sumu-Mayangna

Alyson Eggleston, Elena Benedicto, Mayangna Yulbarangyang Balna

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

9 Scopus citations

Abstract

A linguistic spatial task, conducted with five dyads of Sumu-Mayangna speakers, provides evidence that while speakers have diffuse access to spatial Frames of Reference (FoRs), the direct was most preferred. Further, the absolute FoR is found to be restricted to the lateral/east-west axis, with older generations displaying a greater proportion of use than younger ones. In addition, the possible exploitation of a meronymy system is discussed. A nonlinguistic spatial memory task indicates a bias toward an absolute solution type, and this partly mirrors observed trends in the linguistic task, providing some evidence for alignment between language and cognition.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)1047-1072
Number of pages26
JournalLanguage Sciences
Volume33
Issue number6
DOIs
StatePublished - Nov 2011

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Language and Linguistics
  • Linguistics and Language

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