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Study of Linguistic Areas: Evidence from Cultural Words, Semantic Maps, and Spatial Reference in Southeast Asia

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Handbook of the Changing World Language Map

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Abstract

This chapter describes a case study of spatial reference in Thai, Lao, Khmer, and Vietnamese within the field of areal linguistics. As space is seen as one of the basic domains of conceptualization, spatial reference provides an exemplary approach for investigation at the conceptual-semantic level. It is widely agreed that Mainland Southeast Asia forms one of the prime examples of a linguistic area or Sprachbund. Traditionally, languages which show a significant amount of parallels on the morphological, phonetic, and structural level developed during long-term contacts even though they are belonging to different language families which form a distinct linguistic area. At this point, the conceptual-semantic level as a criterion for linguistic areas is underexplored in the literature. By identifying a significant number of parallels and conceptual borrowings of semantic value of static spatial reference, this chapter analyzes further opportunities for studying linguistic areas.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ludwig Maximilians University Munich, Munich, Germany

    Stefanie Siebenhütter

  2. Department of English and Linguistics, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Mainz, Germany

    Stefanie Siebenhütter

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  1. Stefanie Siebenhütter
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Correspondence to Stefanie Siebenhütter .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geography, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, USA

    Stanley D. Brunn

  2. Research Centre Deutscher Sprachatlas, Philipps University, Marburg, Germany

    Roland Kehrein

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Siebenhütter, S. (2020). Study of Linguistic Areas: Evidence from Cultural Words, Semantic Maps, and Spatial Reference in Southeast Asia. In: Brunn, S., Kehrein, R. (eds) Handbook of the Changing World Language Map. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02438-3_83

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