Title Topologic and geometric structure of spatial relations in Latvian: An experimental analysis of RCC /
Authors Šķilters, Jurģis ; Zariņa, Līga ; Žilinskaitė-Šinkūnienė, Eglė ; Bērziņa, Nora ; Apse, Linda
DOI 10.22364/BJMC.2020.8.1.05
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Is Part of Baltic journal of modern computing.. Riga : University of Latvia. 2020, vol. 8, no. 1, p. 92-125.. ISSN 2255-8942. eISSN 2255-8950
Keywords [eng] region connection calculus ; experimental study ; spatial relations ; spatial languagep ; Latvian language
Abstract [eng] In this study we experimentally test topological and geometric relations as encoded in Latvian. The task of the subject is to describe different combinations of two geometric objects presented in a randomized order. For the in-group experiment two circles – dark and light - were used according to the topological principles of Region Connection Calculus further extended with simple relational variables representing proximity, orientation, object size, and partial occlusion. The results show that both topological and geometric features determine the number of words used in the description of the respective relations and accuracy of the description. Further, we explored the most common words used for the description of general spatial relations and tested the differences associated with the experimental variables. It was concluded that topological and geometric relations matter in the linguistic representation of space but to a differing degree. Our results also indicate that spatial relations at the linguistic level are represented categorically and rarely encode fine-grained information.
Published Riga : University of Latvia
Type Journal article
Language English
Publication date 2020
CC license CC license description