I am working on the directions and spatial stuff in a conlang currently, and wondering why conceptually we have words for the y-axis, but not the x-axis or z-axis?
- above/on top of (that one isn't a word for some reason)
- below/under
- top
- bottom
But we don't have words for these:
- beyond the right side (like above/below)
- beyond the left side
- beyond the front side
- beyond the back side
- on the right side (like top/bottom)
- on the left side
- on the front side
- on the back side
We have right/left/up/down/forward/backward, but for some reason in English at least we don't have simple words for this. Why is that, is there some fundamental reason? Do any languages, conlangs or not, have words for these sorts of things? Wondering what the spectrum looks like.
Top/bottom are like because of gravity pulling everything "down". So you can stack on the top, or put below. But put to the right side of, there's no force of gravity tugging in that direction, so maybe that's why?