Spatial Location. Objects in the Cognitive Image are located through processes that place them in a zone within a reference system.

The reference system within which an object is located may be:

• an axial system, in which an object is located in a zone along an axis. Direction along the axis may be indicated by directional pointers. The specification of a direction in this system sets the speaker's viewpoint vis-à-vis the Perceptual Field. There are two types of axial system:
  • the speaker-centric system, in which an axis originates at the speaker's viewpoint and runs straight ahead in the speaker's Perceptual Field. Location along the axis may be in a non-directed zone (see below) or directed via directional pointers either
    • toward the speaker (vâ- 'hither') or
    • away from the speaker (pâ- 'thither'),
    with a suffixed indication that the alignment of the axis is
    • horizontal (-e '[hither/thither] and across'),
    • upward (-ñu '[hither/thither] and up'),
    • downward (-a '[hither/thither] and down'), or
    • curvilinear (-ü '[hither/thither] and over, around');
  • the global system, in which an axis is aligned relative to a conventional landmark and may be oblique to the speaker's viewpoint. Possible alignments are
    • vertical, with directional pointers`u 'up' and `ü 'down',
    • barrier-relative, with directional pointers ^âta 'in' and ^bâra 'out', and
    • flow-relative, with directional pointers `ca 'high' and `ni 'low';
• the object-relative system, in which an object is located relative to a target object. The location may be specified as
  • the target object itself, if it is a place (^kâmu, `berkuT, etc.),
  • the place that the target object occupies (-e),
  • a zone about the target object's place (to 'at', meS 'with', etc.),
  • a transition to a target object's place (pâ- 'thither at', `se 'along with'), or
  • a transition to the place of a conventional part of a target object (pâ- + `çeR 'top', ^kâRü 'base', `mük 'front', `pTi 'back, `or 'side').

The zones that an object may occupy include

• non-directed zones in the speaker-centric reference system:
  • the background zone, where backgrounded (-a) objects stand, as opposed to foregrounded objects, which stand as the Subject of the Cognitive Image,
  • the conversational zone, in which the speaker and hearer are located by personal pronouns (`o˜ç 'I', `tü 'thou' ["you"], ^imo 'we', `šo 'ye' ["you"]'), and
  • the deictic zone, in which objects are located by deictic pronouns (^ina 'this', ^i·a 'that' [visible], ^âska 'that' [non-visible], etc.) and deictic adverbs (^âni 'here', ^â·ki 'there');
• directed zones along a directed axis, with a suffix to the directional pointer indicating
  • a specific zone (-ra, -re, etc.),
  • a non-specific zone (-ñ),
  • an extensive zone (-ma), or
  • an intermediate zone (-e˜);
• object-relative zones, as stated above, including
  • a target object's place itself, and
  • the zones about a target object's place (to, meS, etc.).