The fundamental system of spatial schemas in language

Linguistic Research to date has determined many of the factors that govern the structure of the spatial schemas found across spoken languages. We can now integrate these factors and propose the comprehensive system they comprise for spatial structuring in language.This system is characterized by several features. At a componential level, it has a relatively closed universally available inventory of fundamental spatial elements. These elements group into a relatively closed set of spatial categories. And each category includes only a relatively closed small number of particular elements:the spatial distinctions that each category can ever mark. At a composite level, elements of the inventory combine in particular arrangements to form whole spatial schemas.Each language has a relatively closed set of "pre-packaged" schemas of this sort. Finally, the system includes a set of properties that can generalize and processes that can extend or deform prepackaged schemas and thus enable a languageýs particular set of schemas to be applied to a wider range of spatial structures.