Containment, support, and linguistic relativity

Bowerman (1996a, 1996b) emphasizes important differences in the way the notions of support and containment are linguistically expressed in Dutch, English, Spanish, and Korean. She takes this diversity as evidence againt the prelinguistic image schemas of containment and support advocated by Mandler (1992, 1994, 1996). In this article, I claim that linguistic diversity is not incompatible with prelinguistic concepts having a role in the acquisition of language. First, I propose a hierarchy of concepts going from the more general level of control to the intermediate level of containment and support and to more specific concepts such as attachment and tight fit. The Spanish preposition en is anchored in the more abstract level, in in the intermediate level, and kkita is mapped to tight fit, at the more specific level. Support and containment are not presented as image schemas but as complex primitives, described by a list of features that behave like traits in a family resemblance. To conclude this article, I propose a hypothesis on the acquisition of words conveying support and containment based on the development of complex primitives that accounts for further linguistic diversity.