Concepts of space and spatial language
Andrew Frank1989
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Abstract
Development of a comprehensive model of spatial relations is important to improved geographic information and analysis systems, and also to cognitive science and behavioral geography. This paper first reviews concepts of space. A critical distinction is between small-scale spaces, whose geometry can be directly perceived through vision and other senses, and large-scale space, which can be perceived only in relatively small parts. Fundamental terms for spatial relations often are based on concepts from small-scale space, and are metaphorically extended to large-scale (geographic) space. Reference frames, which form an important basis both for spatial language and for spatial reasoning, are discussed. Lastly, we set as a short term but important goal a search for geometries of spatial language.
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