The Ins and Outs of spatial language: Pragmatics shapes early-developing, cross-linguistically robust encoding patterns

Abstract

Research on the language of space has uncovered a complex set of conceptual and linguistic factors affecting the nature, use and acquisition of spatial vocabularies across languages. Here we highlight the important but understudied role of pragmatic factors in how spatial relations are encoded across ages and languages. We focus on Containment (in/out) and Support (on/off) terms that can denote both static locations (‘places’: be in/out of X) and dynamic motions (‘paths’: go in/out of X). We offer a new pragmatic analysis of place-denoting out/off as ‘negative’ locatives and, as a result, predict that such expressions should have a restricted informational contribution (and use) compared to in/on. This prediction is confirmed in four experiments. In elicited production tasks with English-speaking adults and three-year-olds, out and off (unlike in and on) are used extremely sparsely to describe static locations (Experiment 1) but quite frequently to describe dynamic motions (Experiment 2). When contextual support is present, the use of place-denoting out/off increases (Experiment 3). Similar patterns in the use of locatives are found in French, Greek and Turkish speakers (Experiment 4). We conclude that pragmatic factors produce striking, early emerging and cross-linguistically stable properties of spatial vocabulary.