Événements et objets dans l’espace et dans le temps De l’ontologie à la langue

This paper deals with the spatial and temporal features of nouns denoting objects and events in French (respectively ENs and ONs). ONs and ENs denote spatial entities, but they involve different modes of location. Location implies occupation only when it applies to objects, because events are not described as entities which extend in space. ENs also differ from ONs in denoting dynamic entities, whose existence depends upon time. ONs describe objects as not being directly located in time, and not having any duration or temporal dimension. It is argued that the different relations to time between objects and events determine different relations to space. Linguistic facts may confirm or invalidate philosophical theses about events and objects, when trying to define a common sense ontology. New hypotheses may also be made about the dependency between spatial and temporal properties, or about the spatial differentiation of events.