Abstract: Cognitive categories in the geographic realm appear to manifest certain special features as contrasted with categories for objects at surveyable scales. We have argued that these features reflect specific ontological characteristics of geographic objects. This paper presents hypotheses as to the nature of the features mentioned, reviews previous empirical work on geographic categories, and presents the results of pilot experiments that used English-speaking subjects to test our hypotheses. Our experiments show geographic categories to be similar to their non-geographic counterparts in the ways in which they generate instances of different relative frequencies at different levels. Other tests, however, provide preliminary evidence for the existence of important differences in subjects ’ categorizations of geographic and non-geographic objects, and suggest further experimental work especially with regard to the role in cognitive categorization of different types of objectboundaries at different scales.

The paper presents a framework for the formulation and testing of ontological theories embodied in human cognition, concentrating primarily on the domain of geographic categories. Evidence for and against alternative theories of cognitive categories, for example on the part of E. Rosch and her associates, has been hitherto based primarily on studies of categorization of entities of table-top space (pets, tools, fruits). We hypothesize that the structure of our categories does not remain constant as we move from categories of objects at manipulable scales to geographic categories such as nation, mountain, river. More precisely: Geographic objects are not merely located in space, they are tied intrinsically to space in such a way that they inherit from space many of its structural (mereological, topological, geometrical) properties. Categorization in the geographic world is often size- or scaledependent (consider: pond, lake, sea, ocean), and to a much greater extent than in the world of tabletop space, the realization that a thing or type of thing exists at all in the geographic world may have individual or cultural variability. Geographic objects are in very many cases the products of delineation within a continuum, and the boundaries of such objects are themselves highly salient phenomena for purposes of categorization. A battery of experiments is described to test these hypotheses and to serve as a basis for more detailed ontological theorizing. 1.

Abstract. This paper describes categories for landscape elements in the language of the Yindjibarndi people, a community of Indigenous Australians. Yindjibarndi terms for topographic features were obtained from dictionaries, and augmented and refined through discussions with local language experts in the Yindjibarndi community. In this paper, the Yindjibarndi terms for convex landforms and for water bodies are compared to English-language terms used to describe the Australian landscape, both in general terms and in the AUSLIG Gazetteer. The investigation found fundamental differences between the two conceptual systems at the basic level, supporting the notion that people from different places and cultures may use different categories for geographic features.