Mental Space - Base Space and Built Space

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.

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Famous quotes containing the words base, space and/or built:

    I am sure my bones would not rest in an English grave, or my clay mix with the earth of that country. I believe the thought would drive me mad on my death-bed could I suppose that any of my friends would be base enough to convey my carcass back to her soil. I would not even feed her worms if I could help it.
    George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)

    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)

    You sold Marmaros to the Russians. Scurried away in the night and left us to die. Is it to be wondered at that you should choose this place to build your house? The masterpiece of construction, built upon the masterpiece of destruction, the masterpiece of murder. The murderer of ten thousand men returns to the place of his crime.
    Peter Ruric, and Edgar G. Ulmer. Edgar G. Ulmer. Dr. Vitus Werdegast (Bela Lugosi)