Formal space and meaning

형태상의 공간과 의미

Since speaking is correlated with time and time is metaphorically conceptualized in terms of space, it is natural for us to conceptualize language metaphorically in terms of space. For example, we think that the future is in front and the past is behind. Reddy(1979) suggested in his conduit metaphor that linguistic expressions are containers. According to him, the speaker puts his ideas(objects) into words{containers)and sends them along a conduit to a hearer who takes the idea(object) out of the word(container). As a result we are able to know that the larger linguistic expressions have more meaning in it. In other words the space of a linguistic form has close relationship with meaning. Moreover we are able to see that formal distance between arguments or elements of linguistic expressions shows semantic influences between them. If two elements keep close distance, a preceeding element has a strong, direct and whole influence upon the following element. Sometimes even the results of the influence can be brought out implicitly by the formal relation between two elements. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to show that tins difference in meaning which is due to formal distance of sentence elements can be explained by the metaphorical concept presented by Lakoff and Johnson(1980).