期刊 | COSE 2021全年目录
# Introduction to the journal #
COGNITIVE SEMANTICS
Volume 7, Number 1, 2021
Table of Contents
FIRST
Child and Children in a Corpus of American Fiction: Contrasting Semantic Preferences and Their Experiential Motivations
John Newman (Department of Linguistics, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada | School of Languages, Literatures, Cultures & Linguistics, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia)
Pages: 1-30
Abstract
This study investigates the nature of the semantic differences between collexemes of singular child and plural children in a corpus of American fiction. Collexemes in three specific syntactic slots are investigated: adjectives in the attributive position, nouns grammatically possessed by child’s and children’s, and present participial forms of verbs in the position immediately to the right of child/children. The approach relies on Distinctive Collexeme Analysis to establish statistically significant differences, revealing a surprising variety of semantic distinctions not usually acknowledged in discussions of the singularity vs. plurality of count nouns. Finally, an attempt is made to relate the key findings to broader cognitive and behavioural realities.
SECOND
Rationality in Economics and Politics: A Case Study in the Importance of Adequate Conceptual Analysis
Peter Harder (Department of English, Germanic and Romance Studies, University of Copenhagen, Denmark)
Pages: 31-53
Abstract
One of the challenges for Cognitive Linguistics in charting the role of conceptualizations in the human world is how to address the frontier between social and cognitive dimensions of those processes that depend on conceptualization. The case that forms the topic of this paper is the conceptualization of rationality, including specifically rational decision-making in relation to economic dilemmas. I am going to take up the concept of rationality with a view to highlighting the connections between on the one hand its complex conceptual structure and on the other hand its complex societal role, focusing on a crucial context, that of determining and implementing economic policy.
THIRD
Event Types and (In)Directness of Causation in Akan
Reginald Akuoko Duah, E. Kweku Osam, and Nana Aba A. Amfo (Department of Linguistics, University of Ghana, Legon, Ghana; Department of English and American Studies, Humboldt-Universität, Berlin, Germany; Department of Linguistics, University of Ghana, Legon, Ghana; Department of Linguistics, University of Ghana, Legon, Ghana)
Pages: 54-84
Abstract
This paper presents a proposal on the form-function correlation between direct causation and non-periphrastic causatives on one hand, and indirect causation and periphrastic causatives on the other hand. The study argues that notions of direct and indirect causation are actually features of event types of causation and vary across different event types. We present five event types of causation found in Akan causatives and isolate their properties with regard to the causer, causee, control of resultant state/event and (in)direct physical contact between causer and causee. We show that in Akan, all types of causatives, lexical, cause-effect SVC and analytic causatives can encode any of the major event types of causation. Consequently, rather than mapping causative expressions with notions of direct or indirect causation, we analyze (in)directness of causation as a feature of event types of causation, not of causative expressions themselves. Thus, although the form-function correlation in causatives may hold in some languages we argue that (in)direct causation is not encoded separately in causative forms and constructions.
FOURTH
On the Gradable Nature of the Search Domain: A Study of Degree Modifiers and the Scalar Semantics of Finnish Spatial Grams
Tuomas Huumo (Department of Finnish and Finno-Ugric Linguistics, School of Languages and Translation Studies, University of Turku, Turku, Finland)
Pages: 85-113
Abstract
Degree modifiers (DM) are intensifying words that typically modify adjectives or adverbs. Some DMs (e.g., ‘rather’, ‘very’) indicate an open scale, which is unbounded and has no maximal or minimal boundaries, others (e.g., ‘quite’, ‘almost’) a closed scale, which has either or both. In Finnish, many spatial grams, i.e., adpositions and adverbs, accept DMs. Such grams have a scalar meaning, which the DM then elaborates. I analyze three groups of grams: 1) topological luona ‘at; by’, lähellä ‘near’, and kaukana ‘far’; 2) directional kohti ‘towards’ and ohi ‘past’; and 3) targeting keskellä ‘in the middle of’. I argue that the scalar meaning of the grams may relate 1) to the distance between Figure and Ground; 2) to the direction of Figure’s motion or orientation with respect to Ground; 3) to the precision of Figure’s location at (or deviation from) a targeting point specified with respect to Ground. Most of the grams accept only closed-scale DMs, while some accept open-scale DMs, and yet others both. The compatibility of closed-scale DMs with most of the grams indicates that the search domain of the grams is typically bounded and has at least a maximal-degree boundary and often also a minimal-degree boundary.
FIFTH
Crosslinguistic Image Schema Differential Hypothesis Clarifies Non-Prototypical and Polysemous Spatial Preposition ‘on’ for L2 Learners
Robert H. Taferner and Jun Yamada (Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Hiroshima University, Hiroshima, Japan; Graduate School of Integrated Arts and Sciences, Hiroshima University, Hiroshima, Japan)
Pages: 114-134
Abstract
A key question for linguistics involves how to determine and account for expressions of non-prototypical spatial relationships between languages. To address this issue, Crosslinguistic Image Schema Differential (CISD) hypothesis is introduced to examine various uses of the English preposition on produced by L2 (second language) learners. Data collection consisted of a grammar test designed to elicit and measure participants’ knowledge of the English preposition on by completing cloze sentences in English, translating these sentences into the L1 (first language), and then drawing visual images of the sentences presented as redescriptions of perceptual events, i.e., image schemas. The most remarkable findings were that two space-relational types (‘encirclement with contact’ and ‘at an edge’) and one image schema (‘concave surface’) were almost completely lacking in the Japanese learners of English (JLEs) who participated in this study. This investigation indicates that simple explicit explanations are possible utilizing the CISD hypothesis.
SIXTH
Metaphoric Conceptual Pathways
Zoltán Kövecses (Department of American Studies, Eötvös Lorand University, Budapest, Hungary)
Pages: 135-153
Abstract
When we are engaged in metaphorical conceptualization online, we create and comprehend a metaphorical contextual meaning through an expression with a more basic, literal meaning. How does this process happen? I cannot answer this question as a psychologist or psycholinguist would; I attempt to answer it from the perspective of a cognitive linguist, and ask: What are the specific figurative devices (metaphors and metonymies) that the process requires in an act of metaphorical conceptualization? I propose that there is not a single device on a single level of conceptualization but several such devices on several levels participating in every act of metaphor use. Furthermore, I suggest that the participating devices constitute conceptual hierarchies that are different for correlation-based and resemblance-based metaphors. I call such hierarchies of figurative devices “metaphoric conceptual pathways.” Finally, I contend that these conceptual pathways emerge in and are shaped by several different context types.
COGNITIVE SEMANTICS
Volume 7, Number 2, 2021
Table of Contents
FIRST
Structure within Morphemic Meaning
Leonard Talmy (Department of Linguistics and Center for Cognitive Science, University at Buffalo, State University of New York, US)
Pages:155-231
Abstract
The entire conceptual content represented by a single morpheme—its plenary meaning—is in general both copious and structured. This structuring consists of both the patterning of its content and the distribution of attention over that pattern. With respect to the patterning of its content, a morpheme’s plenary meaning can be divided into a core meaning and an associated meaning. In turn, its associated meaning can be subdivided into five sectors: the holistic, infrastructure, collateral, disposition, and attitude sectors. And with respect to its distribution of attention, eight specific attentional factors and three general attentional principles are cited. The main attentional factor is that a morpheme’s core meaning is generally more salient than its associated meaning or any of the sectors therein. But another attentional factor holds that the attitude sector, especially its expletivity type, can challenge or exceed the core meaning in salience.
SECOND
One of a Kind: On the Utility of Specific Classifiers
Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald (Centre for Indigenous Health Equity Research, Central Queensland University, Cairns, Australia)
Pages: 232-257
Abstract
Noun categorization devices, or classifiers, of all types are a means of classifying referents in terms of basic cognitively salient parameters. These include humanness, animacy, sex, shape, direction and orientation, consistency, and function. In large systems of classifiers, one finds additional terms whose application is restricted to a limited set of referents, or even just to a single referent. For instance, numerous languages of Mainland Southeast Asia have elaborate sets of specific classifiers in the domain of social hierarchies and human interactions. Languages with multiple classifier systems spoken in riverine environment will be likely to have a special classifier for ‘canoe’. Rather than categorizing entities in terms of general features, such classifiers with specific meanings serve to highlight items important for the socio-cultural environment of the speakers and their means of subsistence. Specific classifiers are likely to be lost if a practice or a hierarchy they reflect undergoes attrition. They occupy a singular place in language acquisition and the history of development of classifier systems.
THIRD
How Many Moods Are There in Polish? The Case of the Polish Subjunctive
Agnieszka Kaleta (Institute of Literary Studies and Linguistics, Jan Kochanowski University, Kielce, Poland)
Pages: 258-289
Abstract
The present paper is concerned with the Polish construction introduced with the subordinating complementizer żeby. The construction is interesting for its mood properties, which have been subject of a long-standing debate in Polish linguistics. The paper explores the semantic range of the construction and illuminates its mood properties. More specifically, it argues that żeby clauses represent a subjunctive mood and as such should be distinguished from indicative and conditional constructions. This distinction is described in terms of Langacker’s model of control and Givón’s theory of semantic binding. It is argued that the żeby construction constitutes an intermediate category between indicative mood, which grants the speaker a high degree of control over a proposition described in the complement clause, on the one hand, and conditional mood, which situates a proposition outside the conceptualizer’s dominion of control, on the other. The paper also highlights the iconic and metonymic motivation behind the distribution of żeby clauses in present-day Polish.
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