Space in semantic typology: Object-centered geometries

1. Introduction In this chapter, we introduce and discuss the hypothesis that the pervasive use of shape-based meronymy as a resource for the expression of spatial relations in a language may bias its speakers against the use of relative frames of reference (FoRs). This hypothesis is currently being tested in the project " Spatial Language and Cognition in Mesoamerica " (MesoSpace). The Mesoamerican linguistic area is the starting point for our investigation because of the preliminary evidence for highly productive meronymies (MacLaury 1989; Levinson 1994; inter alia) and the disuse (Brown & Levinson 1992) or non-dominant use (Bohnemeyer & Stolz 2006) of relative frames. Using a battery of tools, the MesoSpace researchers have been probing frame use and the productivity of geometric meronyms in 13 indigenous languages of the Mesoamerican area, two non-Mesoamerican indigenous languages spoken nearby, and several varieties of Spanish. Here, we present preliminary evidence from just one language of the sample, Yucatec Maya. The Yucatec data indicate a fully productive meronymy for surfaces and one of somewhat more limited productivity for volume parts. In line with our hypothesis, intrinsic uses of the surface meronyms dominate.