Cognitive LinguisticsCroft & Cruse 6

A dynamic construal approach to sense relations I:

hyponymy and meronymy

6.1.1 Hyponymy

• Hyponymy is a relationship of inclusion within a larger set– More often encountered with nouns (koala:

marsupial) than with verbs (punch: hit) and adjectives (maroon: red)

– This means that the superordinate term is a proper part of the meaning of the hyponym, so marsupial is a proper part of the meaning of koala

6.1.2 Hyponymy and context

• But sometimes not all examples of the hyponym category are examples of the superordinate category, cf. “para-hyponymy” of dog: pet, where not all dogs are pets and construal plays a role

6.1.2 Hyponymy and context

• Hyponymy is a transitive relation because containment is also transitive, but sometimes transitivity seems to fail due to construal (car seat: seat, and seat: furniture, but not car seat: furniture)

6.1.3 Relations between lexical items

• Is hyponymy a relation between words or between construals of word meanings? Are there any context-independent relations? Probably not. We are always construing meaning relative to context.

6.1.4 Taxonymy

• This is the relationship in which “X is a kind of Y” (note that “a kind of” is one of Wierzbicka’s semantic primitives)

• Not all hyponyms are good taxonyms– Hyponyms large spoon, deep spoon are not

“a kind of spoon”– Taxonyms teaspoon, soup spoon are “a kind

of spoon”

6.1.4 Taxonymy, cont’d.

• Focal orientation: this is a perspective that the hyponym/taxonym and superordinate term must share so that the relationship works– A blonde is not a kind of

woman because blonde has a hair color focal orientation that woman lacks

6.2 Lexical aspects of the part-whole relation

• Meronymy (aka partonymy) is a relation between meanings, not strictly a part-whole relation, which is a relation between individual entities

• Part-whole is motivated by the image-schema of containment

• Notice that some words are more autonomous than others, as in airplane parts vs. airplane pieces

6.2.1.3 Factors affecting the GOE (Goodness of Example) of parts

• These factors include:– Inclusion in boundaries– Sharing of substance– Clear discontinuity between part and whole– Internal cohesion of the part– Part has a definable function– Part is autonomous and can have replicas– The part is consistent with the type of the whole

• Some parts are segmentable (body parts) and some are systemic (nervous system) and thus less salient

6.2.1.5 Ultimate parts and ultimate wholes

• A part-whole chain prototypically has two endpoints.

• There may be a point beyond which it does not make sense to identify smaller parts (fingertip)

• Ultimate wholes may be variously construable (does pan include lid?)

6.2.1.6 Core parts

• Sometimes the core part is profiled, for example: stainless steel knife, where stainless steel refers only to the blade, not the whole object

6.2.1.7 Variable construal and the transitivity of the part-whole relation• Some parts are more integrated into the whole

than others (handle is more integrated into spoon than hand is to arm)

• Transitivity often fails because there are construals where the whole does not necessarily include the part (arm has hand, but arm does not have fingers)

• [I think that a lot of this is better resolved by referring to Langacker’s profile vs. base]

6.2.2 Meronymy

• “If A is a meronym of B in a particular context, then any member a of the extension of A either maps onto a specific member b of the extension of B of which it is construed as a part, or it potentially stands in an intrinsically construed relation of a part to some actual or potential member of B.” (Cruse’s third try…)

6.2.2 Meronymy, cont’d.

• Notice that meronymy differs across languages, for example the different ranges of words corresponding to arm, hand, finger