  While previous linguistic and psycholinguistic research on space has mainly
analyzed spatial relations, the studies reported in this paper focus on how
language distinguishes among spatial entities. Descriptive and experimental
studies first propose a classification of entities, which accounts for both
static and dynamic space, has some cross-linguistic validity, and underlies
adults' cognitive processing. Formal and computational analyses then introduce
theoretical elements aiming at modelling these categories, while fulfilling
various properties of formal ontologies (generality, parsimony, coherence...).
This formal framework accounts, in particular, for functional dependences among
entities underlying some part-whole descriptions. Finally, developmental
research shows that language-specific properties have a clear impact on how
children talk about space. The results suggest some cross-linguistic
variability in children's spatial representations from an early age onwards,
bringing into question models in which general cognitive capacities are the
only determinants of spatial cognition during the course of development.
