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Øivin Andersen University of Bergen

Øivin Andersen University of Bergen. Prototype Theory, Events and the Language of Politics. Aristotelian Categorization. Aristotle: Category membership is an “all-or-nothing” phenomenon: C: {M1……..Mn}

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Øivin Andersen University of Bergen

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  1. Øivin AndersenUniversity of Bergen Prototype Theory, Events and the Language of Politics

  2. Aristotelian Categorization • Aristotle: • Category membership is an “all-or-nothing” phenomenon: • C: {M1……..Mn} • Basic principle: The members M of a category C have the same membership status in C. They are either a member of C or not a member of C. There is no 3rd possibility.

  3. Consequences • 1. There is no internal structure in C. • 2. All categories are well-formed, i.e. there are clear boundaries between different concepts. • 3. Vagueness does not exist in principle.

  4. Wittgensteinian Categorization (Rosch 1973, 2004) • The members M of a category C do not have the same member status in C. Some Ms are better representatives of C than others. These better ones are called prototypical members, or prototypes. Other Ms of the category are peripheral or non-prototypical members.

  5. Consequences: • 1. Categories have internal structure. • 2. Membership status is graded. • 3. Categories may have fuzzy boundaries. • 4. Vagueness is an important aspect in categorization.

  6. Rosch’s Examples • Category: bird • Prototype members: robins, sparrows • Non-prototype members: ostriches, chickens • Category: furniture • Prototype members: chairs, tables • Non-prototype members: paintings, radios

  7. New Perspectives on comprehension theories • 1. First language acquisition: • children learn “good” (or prototypical) members of categories before that of “poor” (or non-prototypical) members of the same category. • Prototypes are easier to comprehend by most people.

  8. New Perspectives on lexical structure: • 2. Basic level categorization and image formation: lexical taxonomies • Superordinate level: furniture • Basic level: chairs, tables • Subordinate level: kitchen chairs, living-room chairs • Basic levels are easiest to process and comprehend by most people, and are first learned by children

  9. New Perspectives on mental processing: • 3. Processing effort and linguistic economy: • Basic principle: The basic task of a category system is to provide maximum information with the least cognitive processing effort. • Goal: convey as much information about the environment as possible conserving finite resources as much as possible. • Assumption: Iconicity: Entities and phenomena in the external world are highly structured, and this structure tends to correlate with linguistic structures.

  10. New Perspectives on vagueness: • 4. The status of vagueness • What is the function of vagueness in language? • Is vagueness a repository that the language user can avail himself/herself of in the use of language?

  11. New Perspectives on discourse strategies: • The interlocutor point of view: • From the relevant information that I possess on this topic; how much information am I prepared to disclose to my audience? • How can I avoid committing myself too much on a highly controversial issue? • What linguistic resources do I have at my disposal to leave aspects of this issue in a haze?

  12. Formal linguistics (Chomsky1970): Aristotelian categorization Principle of well-formedness Principles of the modular approach Distinction between competence/performance No room for internal analysis of categories No room for the linguistic analysis of vagueness Functional Linguistics: (Brinton & Traugott 2005, Taylor 2004) Prototype categorization Vagueness studies Integrated approach Focus on language use and discourse pragmatics Prototype effects Prototype Research in Linguistics

  13. Prototypical nouns: have entity reference have static meaning have no argument structure (Grimshaw 1990) Non-prototypical nouns: may have event reference may have dynamic meaning may have argument structure 5. Prototypes in grammar and parts of speech: Prototype nouns vs non-prototypical nouns

  14. Prototypical verbs: have dynamic meaning (denoting actions and activites, e.g. agree, complete, conclude, ensure, etc. have full argument structure are agentive are transitive Non-prototypical verbs: have stative meaning (denoting states, e.g. belong, possess, have reduced argument structure are non-agentive are intransitive Prototype verbs vs non-prototypical verbs

  15. a) the passive voice • Morphosyntactic properties: • The prototypical grammatical agentive subject is demoted to adverbial status or (most frequently) deleted. The grammatical non-agentive direct object is promoted to subject status. • Discourse properties: • Givón (1985:204): Reasons for deleting the agent: • a) Anaphoric obviousness in the specific discourse context • b) Deliberate suppression of the information • c) Unavailability of the information • d) Generic obviousness in the culture/lexicon • Basic principle: The interlocutor’s judgement of informative relevance/importance.

  16. Examples from The European Council statement. Prime minister Gordon Brown in the House of Commons 17 December 2007. • Passive:The latest E3 plus 3 assessment is that sufficient progress has not been made. • Active: X has not made sufficient progress. • Is the ommission of the agent due to anaphoric obviousness or due to deliberate omission? Or perhaps there are other motives behind it?

  17. b) Deverbal nominalizations • may take argument structures • are often event referring • give the interlocutor the possibility of selecting which arguments to code/realize. • may ambiguate the agentive role by use of prepositions

  18. Example:Deverbal nouns • Deverbal noun construction: And in the light of the recent failureby the parties in the Troika process to find a negotiated way forward, the European Council accepted its responsibility… • Verbal construction: The parties failed in the Troika process to find a negotiated way forward. Consequently the European Council accepted its responsibility….

  19. Deverbal nouns: Concealment strategies, choice of preposition • Unambiguously agentive: a)..the failure by the parties… • Ambiguously agentive vs. non-agentive (”possessive”): • …the failure of the parties… • …the parties’ failure…

  20. Conclusions: • Non-prototypical constructions in language are harder to process mentally. • These constructions, like the use of the passive and deverbal nouns, may be used as concealment strategies by the interlocutor. • How are these strategies coded in language and what is the communicative ”reward” for the interlocutor?

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