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:
“I think it is worse to be poor in mind than in purse, to be stunted and belittled in soul, made a coward, made a liar, made mean and slavish, accustomed to fawn and prevaricate, and “manage” by base arts a husband or a father,—I think this is worse than to be kicked with hobnailed shoes.”
—Frances Power Cobbe (1822–1904)
“Here were poor streets where faded gentility essayed with scanty space and shipwrecked means to make its last feeble stand, but tax-gatherer and creditor came there as elsewhere, and the poverty that yet faintly struggled was hardly less squalid and manifest than that which had long ago submitted and given up the game.”
—Charles Dickens (1812–1870)
“Here was a place where nothing was crystallized. There were no traditions, no customs, no college songs .... There were no rules and regulations. All would have to be thought of, planned, built up, created—what a magnificent opportunity!”
—Mabel Smith Douglass (1877–1933)