Spatial frames of reference in Yucatec: Referential promiscuity and task-specificity

A referential communication task conducted with five pairs of native speakers of Yucatec Maya produced evidence of “referential promiscuity”, the unrestricted availability of spatial frames of reference (FoRs) and the lack of a default perspective. Speakers switched freely between FoRs and often combined multiple types in single descriptions. In contrast, a recall memory experiment conducted with 18 speakers revealed a strong bias toward responses consistent with the use of geocentric FoRs. It is argued that referential promiscuity makes FoR selection more task-specific, preventing the linguistic conditioning of spatial reference in internal cognition predicted for populations with more constrained linguistic usage.

► This study examines the use of spatial reference frames by speakers of Yucatec Maya. ► Linguistic frame use was studied in a referential communication picture matching task. ► Most but not all speakers showed a preference for intrinsic and geocentric frames. ► All speakers frequently switched frame types and produced multi-frame descriptions. ► A recall memory task showed a bias for geocentric frames, argued to be task-specific.