1. Event-based time intervals in an Amazonian culture
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Vera da Silva Sinha
Abstract
We report an ethnographic and field-experiment-based study of time intervals in Amondawa, a Tupi language and culture of Amazonia. We analyse two Amondawa time interval systems based on natural environmental events (seasons and days), as well as the Amondawa system for categorising lifespan time (“age”). Amondawa time intervals are exclusively event-based, as opposed to time-based (i.e. they are based on event-duration, rather than measured abstract time units). Amondawa has no lexicalised abstract concept of time and no practices of time reckoning, as conventionally understood in the anthropological literature. Our findings indicate that not only are time interval systems and categories linguistically and culturally specific, but that they do not depend upon a universal “concept of time”. We conclude that the abstract conceptual domain of time is not a human cognitive universal, but a cultural historical construction, semiotically mediated by symbolic and cultural-cognitive artefacts for time reckoning.
Abstract
We report an ethnographic and field-experiment-based study of time intervals in Amondawa, a Tupi language and culture of Amazonia. We analyse two Amondawa time interval systems based on natural environmental events (seasons and days), as well as the Amondawa system for categorising lifespan time (“age”). Amondawa time intervals are exclusively event-based, as opposed to time-based (i.e. they are based on event-duration, rather than measured abstract time units). Amondawa has no lexicalised abstract concept of time and no practices of time reckoning, as conventionally understood in the anthropological literature. Our findings indicate that not only are time interval systems and categories linguistically and culturally specific, but that they do not depend upon a universal “concept of time”. We conclude that the abstract conceptual domain of time is not a human cognitive universal, but a cultural historical construction, semiotically mediated by symbolic and cultural-cognitive artefacts for time reckoning.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Editors and contributors vii
- Foreword: Space and time in languages, cultures, and cognition xi
- Introduction: Linguistic, cultural, and cognitive approaches to space and time 1
-
Part I. Linguistic and conceptual representation of events
- 1. Event-based time intervals in an Amazonian culture 15
- 2. Vagueness in event times 37
- 3. Aspectual coercions in content composition 55
- 4. Back to the future 83
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Part II. Cultural perspectives on space and time
- 5. The “Russian” attitude to time 103
- 6. Two temporalities of the Mongolian wolf hunter 121
- 7. Koromu temporal expressions 143
- 8. Universals and specifics of ‘time’ in Russian 167
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Part III. Conceptualizing spatio-temporal relations
- 9. Linguistic manifestations of the space-time (dis)analogy 191
- 10. Vectors and frames of reference 217
- 11. Verbal and gestural expression of motion in French and Czech 251
- 12. Language-specific effects on lexicalisation and memory of motion events 269
- 13. Space and time in episodic memory 283
- 14. Conceptualizing the present through construal aspects 305
- 15. From perception of spatial artefacts to metaphorical meaning 329
- Contents of the companion volume 351
- Name index 355
- Subject index 359
- Language index 363
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Editors and contributors vii
- Foreword: Space and time in languages, cultures, and cognition xi
- Introduction: Linguistic, cultural, and cognitive approaches to space and time 1
-
Part I. Linguistic and conceptual representation of events
- 1. Event-based time intervals in an Amazonian culture 15
- 2. Vagueness in event times 37
- 3. Aspectual coercions in content composition 55
- 4. Back to the future 83
-
Part II. Cultural perspectives on space and time
- 5. The “Russian” attitude to time 103
- 6. Two temporalities of the Mongolian wolf hunter 121
- 7. Koromu temporal expressions 143
- 8. Universals and specifics of ‘time’ in Russian 167
-
Part III. Conceptualizing spatio-temporal relations
- 9. Linguistic manifestations of the space-time (dis)analogy 191
- 10. Vectors and frames of reference 217
- 11. Verbal and gestural expression of motion in French and Czech 251
- 12. Language-specific effects on lexicalisation and memory of motion events 269
- 13. Space and time in episodic memory 283
- 14. Conceptualizing the present through construal aspects 305
- 15. From perception of spatial artefacts to metaphorical meaning 329
- Contents of the companion volume 351
- Name index 355
- Subject index 359
- Language index 363
