Cognitive Lexical Semantics

1. Cognitive Lexical Semantics Cristiano Broccias (Genova) c.broccias@unige.it

2. Outline PART I (Introduction) - ‘Traditional’ lexical semantics - Cognitive semantics (prototypes, conceptualisation, metaphors, conceptual spaces and frames) PART II - Lexical classes and cognitive abilities PART III - Simultaneity constructions (while, as)

3. PART I Introduction

4. Some (apparently) very simple questions involving meaning: What is a cat? What is beauty? What is a red pen? Is the Pope a bachelor? How do we distinguish between mosquito net and butterfly net?

5. Traditionally: • lexical semantics • sentence semantics • text/discourse semantics Two underlying assumptions: • it is possible to identify lexical items • it is possible to ‘isolate’ lexical meanings

6. Some basic notions: - homonymy (e.g. bank) - polysemy (e.g. mouse) - monosemy: There’s some fruit in the bowl. There’s a crack in the bowl.

7. Major approaches: - Structural semantics - Semantic features - Cognitive semantics • More recently also: Interaction between constructions and lexical items

8. Some naive conceptions about meaning • the meaning of an utterance consists of the sum of the meaning of its parts (the building block metaphor): red pen mosquito net butterfly net

9. Referential theory of meaning: a word means what it refers to (e.g. we may point to a cat to understand cat) Some problems: - abstract concepts (e.g. beauty) - Hesperus and Phosphorus (different intensions or senses but same extension or meaning, i.e. Venus), the British Prime Minister (different extensions but same intension)

10. Ogden and Richard’s (1923) semiotic triangle sense (Sinn) meaning (Bedeutung) e.g. word

11. The systemic (i.e. NETWORK) nature of meaning Words enter into various sense relationships with one another: deictic verbs ‘Va bene. Ti porto il libro domani.’ ‘Ok. I’ll bring the book tomorrow.’ ‘Va bene. Porto il libro alla biblioteca domani.’ ‘Ok. I’ll take the book back to the library tomorrow.’

12. vision verbs (semantic field of vision) We’ll come/goback to networks later!

13. Structual semantics (see Lyons) Three major types of relationship: • synonymy • hyponymy • oppositeness

14. Synonymy (same denotation) unhappy/sad present/gift prisoner/convict

15. Context dependency: pedigree animals ancestry/genealogy/lineage [ˈlɪn i‿ɪdʒ]  human beings descent  both The {peel/skin} of the orange is thick. The girl’s {skin/*peel} is sunburned.

16. Many synomyms differ in respect to their connotations: horse/steed/nag cavallo/destriero/ronzino

17. Register, social and geographical variation What do you call this?

18. toilet(BrE) lavatory(BrE), lav (informal) WC (BrE, used especially on signs in public places) the gentsand the ladies (BrE, used for public conveniences) loo(BrE informal) bath/rest/washroom (AmE, cf. Italian ‘bagno’) = BrE toilet john (AmE informal)

19. hypernym Hyponymy(i.e. category membership) It may be problematic to identify the superordinate terms: brother & sister < sibling (formal) uncle & aunt < ? cow & bull < cow/cattle (collective)/bovine (technical) human being & animal < animal (vs. vegetable, mineral) (co)hyponyms

20. Semantic networks e.g. natural kind terms attributes

21. But there are various problems with this model (apart from the obvious fact that not all information is easily represented in hierarchical form): (1) A cow is an animal. (2) A cow is a mammal. Reaction time is faster in (1) than in (2) even though ‘animal’ is higher in the hierarchy than ‘mammal’! (3) A pine is a church. (4) A pine is flower. Reaction time is faster in (3) than in (4) even though they are both equally untrue (relatedness effect).

22. (5) A robin is a bird. (6) A penguin is a bird. Reaction time is faster in (5) than in (6) even though both involve one semantic link (prototypicality effect).

23. Oppositeness - Complementarity - Antonymy - Converseness

24. Complementarity either X or Y, not both – non gradable concepts single vs. married dead vs. alive legal vs. illegal asleep vs. awake true vs. false male vs. female pregnant vs. not pregnant on vs. off pass vs. fail

25. However we can sometimes think of intermediate cases: divorced (cf. single vs. married) hermaphrodite (cf. male vs. female)

26. Antonymy gradable concepts (e.g. scalar adjectives) big vs. small high vs. low small vs. large wet vs. dry hot–warm–lukewarm– cool –cold

27. The reference value is context dependent: A small elephant is a large animal. A large mouse is a small animal. A warm beer and a cold coffee may be the same temperature.

28. Context dependency: young animate beings new inanimate objects old both bitter  beer sour fruit sweet  both

29. With scalar pairs, one is usually unmarked: How old are you? How tall are you? Context dependency: in summer: How hot is it? in winter: How cold is it?

30. Converseness relational opposites verbs of transfer: buy/sell, lend/borrow, give/receive FRAMES

31. More examples kinship terms and professional relationships: husband/wife, brother/sister teacher/student, employer/employee, host/guest, lawyer/client time and space: in front of/behind, outside/inside, north of/south of Apparent cases of converseness: ask/answer command/obey seek/find try/succeed

32. What was often referred to as contextbefore can be related to what is also traditionally called the syntagmatic axis:

34. Semantic features (decompositional theories) Semantic features are assumed to be universal, part of our cognitive system.

35. Attempts have been made at reducing the number of features to a few semantic primitives, see e.g. Wierzbicka’s work.

36. But there are various problems with these models. For example, there are categories which do not have any obvious defining features that are common to all their members, e.g. Wittgenstein’s (1958) game example (game is a category based on family resemblance).

39. Further, many categories have fuzzyboundaries. For many people it is unclear whether a tomato is a fruit or a vegetable, or both.

40. (from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomato#Fruit_or_vegetable.3F)

41. Cup, vase or bowl?

43. Semantic features or primitives might not have linguistic counterparts (i.e. they might be non-verbal).

44. Still, it seems likely that we (at least sometimes) represent the meanings of words as combinations of semantic features. For example, we remember better sentences like “Pat sold the wand to Harry” than “Pat gave the wand to Harry” Sell is more ‘complex’ than give.

45. Cogntive semantics • 1970s as a reaction against truth-conditional semantics • research on prototypes (Rosch)

46. Prototypes “best example” of a category: e.g. blackbird vs. penguin for the category ‘bird’. But notice that the prototype may be abstract.

48. Category membership is culture-dependent:

49. More on prototypes - not necessarily incompatible with feature theories - fuzzy boundaries - family resemblance