Space and Its Linguistic Expression

Building on Herbert Clark's conception of the human perception of the space inhabited in the world ("Space, Time, Semantics, and the Child" in Cognitive Development and the Acquisition of Language, Moore, T. [Ed], New York: Academic Press, 1973) & attempting to correlate this perception with its linguistic manifestation, the manifestation of space in the Portuguese lang is analyzed, focusing on expressions denoting the localization of humans as social beings. The meanings & uses of various idiomatic expressions are considered (eg, estar por fora 'to be outside; to be unaware', estar no lixo 'to be in the garbage; to have a bad reputation'). It is suggested that the richness of the colloq lexicon reflects the extent to which human beings master spatial perception & develop the capacity to express this mastery in linguistic terms. 3 References. Modified HA