Hello,

Are you aware of John O'Keefe's theories of language (e.g. O'Keefe '96 &
O'Keefe '01), in which he extends his Cognitive Map theories (O'Keefe &
Nadel 1978) to human behaviour? If so, please let me know what you think
of
them... for example: do you agree with O'Keefe that prepositions can be
thought of as defining the activity of boundary vector cells? Do you
agree
that language requires an intrinsically spatial deep structure? And did
language really evolve for the purpose of communicating spatial knowledge
(e.g. the food is over there, the enemies are behind us). Why aren't
linguists catching on to John O'Keefe's ideas?

Thanks,
Jack

References:

O'Keefe & Nadel (1978) "The Hippocampus as a Cognitive Map" Clarendon
Press,
Oxford. Now available online at www.cognitivemap.net

O'Keefe (1996) "The Spatial prepositions in English, vector grammar and
the
Cognitive Map theory" a chapter in "Language and Space" (edited by P.
Bloom,
M. Peterson, L. Nadel, M. Garrett) MIT Press, Mass. pp493-529

O'Keefe (2001) "Vector Grammer, Places, and the Functional Role of the
Spatial Prepositions in English", a chapter in "Axes and Vectors in
Language
and Space", edited by E. Van der Zee & J. Slack, OUP