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How to make sense of temporal/spatial ‘before’ and ‘after’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Lynne Feagans
Lynne Feagans
Affiliation:
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
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Abstract

Two experiments were devised in order to better understand the relationship between temporal before and after and their spatial counterparts. In Experiment I, sixty adults were probed for their spatial metaphoric understanding of temporal before and after. Although H. Clark proposed that temporal before and after were derived from their spatial counterparts, Experiment I did not support that notion. In fact, the subjects overwhelmingly reported that temporal before was more related to spatial after and that temporal after was more related to spatial before. Since it has been shown by numerous investigators that temporal before is acquired before temporal after by children, the evidence from Experiment I suggested that their spatial relatives may be acquired similarly. Experiment II presents evidence that indeed spatial after is understood better by three-year-old children than spatial before. This evidence is coincident with the adult reports in Experiment I.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 7 , Issue 3 , October 1980 , pp. 529 - 537
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1980

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References

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