Base Space and Built Space
Base space, also known as reality space, presents the interlocutors' shared knowledge of the real world. Space builders are elements within a sentence that establish spaces distinct from, yet related to the base space constructed. Space builders can be expressions like prepositional phrases, adverbs, connectives, and subject-verb combinations that are followed by an embedded sentence. They require hearers to establish scenarios beyond the present point of time. A built space depicts a situation that only holds true for that space itself, but may or may not be true in reality. The base space and built spaces are occupied by elements that map onto each other. These elements include categories that may refer to specific entities in those categories. According to Fauconnier's Access Principle, specific entities of a category in a space can be described by its counterpart category in another space even if it differs from the specific entity in the other space. An example of a built space can be seen in the example " Mary wants to buy a book". In this case, the built space is not that of reality, but Mary's desire space. Though the book in reality space refers to any book in general, it can still be used to describe the book in Mary's desire space, which may or may not be a specific book.
Read more about this topic: Mental Space
Famous quotes containing the words base, space and/or built:
“The desire of most parents is first and foremost to do what is best for their children. Every interview with a mother or father confirms this, every letter written by a parent breathes this deep-seated wish, “I hope I am doing the right thing for my child.” This is real and honest, and at the very base of parenthood.”
—Irma Simonton Black (20th century)
“In bourgeois society, the French and the industrial revolution transformed the authorization of political space. The political revolution put an end to the formalized hierarchy of the ancien regimé.... Concurrently, the industrial revolution subverted the social hierarchy upon which the old political space was based. It transformed the experience of society from one of vertical hierarchy to one of horizontal class stratification.”
—Donald M. Lowe, U.S. historian, educator. History of Bourgeois Perception, ch. 4, University of Chicago Press (1982)
“The Sea Tiger was built to fight. She deserves a better epitaph than “Commissioned 1940. Sank 1941. Engagements, none. Shots fired, none.” Now you can’t let her go that way. That’s like a beautiful woman dying an old maid.”
—Stanley Shapiro (1925–1990)