Conceptual alternativity
The membership of concepts within the domains of SPACE and TIME is not fixed, however. This is because TIME and SPACE are what Talmy describes as homologous categories, which means that they appear to share certain structural principles. As we have already seen, one of these relates to quantity: both SPACE and TIME can be conceived in terms of quantity. For example, in response to following question How far is London from Brighton? one could legitimately answer either Fifty miles (SPACE) or About an hour (TIME).
Talmy calls the ability to conceptualise a member of one domain in terms of another conceptual alternativity. Conceptual alternativity is reflected in the closed-class subsystem by grammatical categories. Conceptual alternativity is facilitated by a number of conceptual conversion operations. For example, reification is the name of the conversion operation that converts our conceptualisation of TIME (or action) into SPACE (or matter): an act can be converted into an object, or an activity into a mass. When a temporal concept is reified, it is expressed by a nominal expression (a noun phrase). Compare the examples in (1) and (2).
In example (1), washed is a verb and encodes an act, while a wash is a noun phrase and encodes an act conceptualised as an object. In example (2), helped is a verb and encodes an activity, while some help is a noun phrase and encodes an activity conceptualised as a mass. When an act is construed as an object, it can be described in terms consistent with the properties of objects. For example, physical objects can be transferred: to call (on the phone) becomes he gave me a call. Physical objects can also be quantified: to slap becomes he gave her two slaps. As Talmy observes, however, there are constraints upon this process of reification. For example, a reified act or activity cannot be expressed in the same way that prototypical physical objects can. Example (3) illustrates that the reified act a call is incompatible with verbs that are prototypically physical.
The converse operation, which converts matter to action, is called actionalisation. When concepts relating to matter are actionalised, they are expressed by verb phrases. This operation is illustrated by the following examples adapted from Talmy (2000: 45).
