I am a bit unclear about which point of view we are talking about when describing the location of things.
For Example:
小山さんは山下さんの右にいます。
For this sentence I have two possible interpretations:
- Koyama is to Yamashita's right.
- Koyama is to the right of Yamashita.
In the first one the POV is Yamashita, so assuming he is facing us, that would mean from our POV he is to the left. The second one is more ambiguous to me, but I would usually assume that we are speaking from our POV here. I'm not native in English though, so I could be a bit wrong here.
Regardless, my questions is whether it is also ambiguous in Japanese or if there is a clear POV?
I have a feeling that it is more like the first interpretation, since that is closer to how the の-particle works.
If there is a clear POV, would the same then also apply to 後ろ and 前?