Spatial semantics: Recent advances [in English]

In this paper, we discuss the most recent trends in the study of space and time. We consider four volumes — Space and Time in Languages and Cultures: Language, Culture, and Cognition (2012), Motion encoding in language and space (2013), The Spatial Language of Time. Metaphor, Metonymy and Frames of Reference (2014), and Space in diachrony (2017) — that cover a relatively broad set of topics and approaches. The main topics the authors focus on are: language-specific systems of space and time conceptualization, cultural differences in understanding time, space and time (dis)analogy, granularity, frame of reference, verbs of motion, and Source vs. Goal asymmetry. The methods that the contributors apply are versatile ranging from formal and experimental to anthropological participant observation, and lexical typology. Many of the papers collected in these volumes deal with similar problems applying different frameworks to them, which makes it possible to compare how different approaches handle similar problems and thus reveal how the y may be combined. This reflects one of the strongest trends in modern linguistics, namely the tendency to conduct interdisciplinary studies that allow to simultaneously view the same data from different angles.