Introduction to Introduction to Cognitive Semantics:Cognitive Semantics:

a study of meaning in a study of meaning in conceptual structuresconceptual structures

Assistant Professor Wichian Sunitham

Linguistic Linguistic relativism & universalismrelativism & universalism Linguistic relativism – languages encode cultural and

cognitive categories differently; thus, affect the way people think. People language behaviors are different depending on the language they speak

...just as English uses derived terms for a variety of forms of water (liquid, lake, river, brook, rain, dew, wave, foam) that might be formed by derivational morphology from a single root meaning 'water' in some other language, so Eskimo uses the apparently distinct roots aput 'snow on the ground', gana 'falling snow', piqsirpoq 'drifting snow', and qimuqsuq 'a snow drift‘

Franz Boas (1911), The Handbook of North American Indians

- English – in front of the house; behind the house; beside the house, etc.- Polynesian – north of the house; seaward of the house, etc.

- English – close/shut the door; turn on/off the light; in the sky- Thai – ปิดประต ู; เปิด/ปิดไฟ ; บนท้องฟา้

Linguistic Linguistic relativism & universalismrelativism & universalism

- บา้นโนนศร ีมุกดาหาร , บา้นโคกสง่า หนองบวัลำาพู , บา้นโพนยางคำา สกลนคร ,บา้นสงเปือย ยโสธร , บา้นเหล่ากดุ รอ้ยเอ็ด ,บา้นโสก ชยัภมู ิ[based on Amphin & Rakmanee, 2557 B.E.]

- บา้นดงสามหมื่น เชยีงใหม่ , บา้นแพะหนองแดง ลำาปาง , บา้นดอยหมอก เชยีงราย , บา้นมอ่นตะแลง แมฮ่่องสอน , บา้นขว่งบุก แพร ่[based on Amphin & Rakmanee, 2557 B.E.]

Linguistic Linguistic relativism & universalismrelativism & universalism Linguistic universalism – linguistic patterns occur

systematically across natural languages or there exist generalizations across languages

- Berlin and Kay (1969) – the universality of color terms in a strict consequence (dark-cool vs light-warm; red; either green or yellow; both green and yellow, blue; brown; purple/pink/orange/grey

- Swadesh (1972) – core vocabulary of different languages – a list basic vocabulary in each language

- Wierzbicka (1996)’s semantic primes -- Substantives: I, YOU, SOMEONE, SOMETHING and PEOPLE / Determiners and quantifiers: THIS, THE SAME, and OTHER / Quantifiers: ONE, TWO, MANY (MUCH), ALL, SOME and MORE / Mental Predicates: THINK, KNOW, WANT, FEEL, SEE and HEAR

Linguistic relativity: Linguistic relativity: Sapir-whorf hypothesisSapir-whorf hypothesis Known in different names – linguistic relativity, linguistic

extremism, Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, Whorfian hypothesis Firstly introduced by Wihelm von Humboldt Franz Boas,

Edward Sapir (20th century) Benjamin Lee Whorf (proponent of hypothesis)

Linguistic determinism: linguistic categories determine how people think / linguistic relativism: languages classify experience in different ways reflect the preoccupations of their speakers (Italian azurro and blu correspond to one color in English, blue) (concepts that are not equivalent among different cultures folk etymology or loan translation – Eastern US sparrowgrass from asparagus, the silent s in island, )

Linguistic relativity: Linguistic relativity: Sapir-whorf hypothesisSapir-whorf hypothesis Objected by the idea of universals in different languages –

Berlin and Kay (1969), Kinship terms consistently and linguistically marked [Levis Strauss’s cross cultural variation in uncle terminologies]

Linguistic relativity: Linguistic relativity: Sapir-whorf hypothesisSapir-whorf hypothesis

Rise of Language and Thought hypothesis and cognitive science – mental representation of meaning in language

Approaches to meaningApproaches to meaningWe can easily tell if two words have identical or different meanings,but it is hard to determine precisely what meaning is.

When we talk about the ‘meaning’ of a word, we are actually talking about a multi-dimensional set of properties of thatword.

- Some philosophers & linguists try to reduce to just one thing.- In fact need to look at meaning from lots of different

perspectives.

A recent development in linguistics has been the realisation thatknowledge from cognitive science can assist linguists inunderstanding how language and communication works.

Approaches to meaningApproaches to meaningWe can easily tell if two words have identical or different meanings,but it is hard to determine precisely what meaning is.

When we talk about the ‘meaning’ of a word, we are actually talking about a multi-dimensional set of properties of thatword.

- Some philosophers & linguists try to reduce to just one thing.- In fact need to look at meaning from lots of different

perspectives.

A recent development in linguistics has been the realisation thatknowledge from cognitive science can assist linguists inunderstanding how language and communication works.

Essentially, meaning and linguistic structure are seen as being inseparable from psychological and embodied aspects of human experience.

Referential view of meaningReferential view of meaningAn entity that is referred to by a word/phrase is a referent.

For example:The meaning of table is the set of objects that we call tables.The word table refers to a referent table.

But the referential view of meaning has problems.How are we going to treat things like unicorn, dragon, if, any,

and?Sometimes we have two expressions that have the same referent,

e.g., Obama, the president of the U.S.A.

Mentalist view of meaningMentalist view of meaning Think of what a dog is. Do you get a mental picture of a dog when you have to think of what it is? If you do get a mental image do you see a particular dog or kind of dog?

A word evokes a mental picture of its referent and the image is the ‘meaning’ of the word.

Problems:

- would not work for all words, since many are not imageable or physical

- even if you have an ‘image’ of a dog (the golden retriever you have) you can recognize lots of dogs - mental images would have to be very complex to account for this

- images are idiosyncratic (e.g., poorer person’s image of house different from richer)

Semantic Features view of Semantic Features view of meaningmeaning

The meaning of a word can be decomposed into semantic features/properties.

e.g., Stallion [+equine, +adult, +male]

Semantic features are a device for expressing the presence or absence of semantic properties.

Words with similar meaning share the same features, but each word’s set of features should make its meaning distinct from other words.

woman father child Ewe piglet stroll [+human] [+human] [+human] [+bovine] [+porcine] [+motion] [+female] [+male] [-adult] [+adult] [-adult] [+slow] [-young] [+parent] [+/-male] [-male] [+/-male] [+volitional]

Problem: most words can’t be characterized like this unless you have unlimited number of features

Lexical SemanticsAll the examples below are (adapted) from Saeed (1997)

1. a. lap (n) = circuit of a course b. lap (n) = part of body when sitting down c. ring (n) = a small circular band, worn on the finger. d. wring (n) = a squeeze or twist e. keep (v) = to retain possession of f. keep (n) = care, charge g. not (adv) = in no way h. knot (v) = to tie in or fasten with knots

Homographs

Homophones

Homonymy

Lexical Semantics1 . a. A curved or sharply bent device, usually of metal, used to catch, drag, suspend, or fasten something else. b . A fishhook.2. Something shaped like a hook, especially: a. A curved or barbed plant or animal part. b . A short angled or curved line on a letter. c. A sickle.3 . a. A sharp bend or curve, as in a river. b . A point or spit of land with a sharply curved end.4. A means of catching or ensnaring; a trap.5 . Slang a. A means of attracting interest or attention; an enticement : a sales hook. b. Music A catchy motif or refrain: "sugary hard rock melodies [and] ear candy hooks " (Boston Globe).6 . Sports a. A short swinging blow in boxing delivered with a crooked arm. b . The course of a ball that curves in a direction away from the dominant - hand of the player propelling it, as to the left of a right handed player. c. A stroke that sends a ball on such a course. d . A ball propelled on such a course. e. In surfing, the lip of a breaking wave. Polysymy

Lexical Semantics

couch / sofa boy/lad lawyer/attorneyToilet/lavatory large/big

synonymy

dead/alive (of ..)pass/fail (a test)hit/miss (a target)

antonymy

Tool

hammer saw chisel etc.

hacksaw jigsaw etc.

antonymy

hyponymy

Meaning components

womanbachelorspinsterwife

+ -ADULTFEMALEHUMANMARRIED

BINARY FEATURE

[+ADULT] [+FEMALE] [+HUMAN][+ADULT] [-FEMALE] [+HUMAN] [-MARRIED]

[+ADULT] [+FEMALE] [+HUMAN] [-MARRIED][+ADULT] [+FEMALE] [+HUMAN] [+MARRIED]

COMPONENTIAL ANALYSIS (CA)

Sentence semantics

David cooked the rashers.AGENT PATIEN

TRoberto passed the ball wide.

THEME

Kevin felt ill.EXPERIENCER

David cooked the rashers for his family .BENEFICIARY

Sheila handed her license to the police on the street.GOAL LOCATIO

NWe got the idea from a French magazine, and we wrote it down with our pens. SOURC

EINSTRUMENT

THEMATIC ROLES

Cognitive LinguisticsCognitive Linguistics language as a non-autonomous system – cognitive ability for

language and non-language is the same

grammar as conceptualization language and cognition or conceptual system/structure – we understand language rules using our conceptual system/bodily experience, which is also used for other non-linguistic knowledge

knowledge of language emerging from language use – interaction with physical world mental representation

Where is Cognitive Linguistics from?1960s: Emergence of cognitive sciences: interdisciplinary disciplines including psychology, philosophy, linguistics, anthropology, sociology, biology, neuroscience, and artificial intelligence1970s: Development of Functional Linguistics (Joan Bybee, Bernard Comrie, John Haiman, Paul Hopper, Sandra Tompson, & Tom Givon) -Language as a communicative system-Discourse-functional linguistics-Typology-functional linguistics & historical-functional linguistics (Grammaticalization –Elizabeth Traugott and Bernd Heine

1970s: Works in child language acquisition (Dan Slobin, Eve Clark, Elizabeth Bates and Mellissa Bowerman)

The following timelines are from Suzanne Kemmer, ICLA

1970s-1980s: Linguists focusing on meaning as central part of language (Wallace Chafe, Charles Fillmore, George Lakoff, Ronal Langacker, & Leonard Talmy)-Fillmore’s Frame Semantics & Construction Grammar-Lakoff’s Metaphor & Metonymy-Langacker’s Space Grammar or Cognitive Grammar-Fauconnier’s Mental Space / Fauconnier, Ducroft & Mark Turner’s Conceptual Blending

1990s: Cognitive Linguistics widely recognized as an important field

What is Cognitive Linguistics?

cognitive linguistics (CL ) refers to the school of linguistics that understands language creation, learning, and usage as best explained by reference to human cognition (Wikipedia)

topics of special interest for cognitive linguistics include : the structural characteristics of natural language categorization (such as prototypicality, systematic polysemy, cognitive models, mental imagery and metaphor); the functional principles of linguistic organization (such as iconicity and naturalness); the conceptual interface between syntax and semantics (as explored by cognitive grammar and construction grammar); the experiential and pragmatic background of language-in-use; and the relationship between language and thought, including questions about relativism and conceptual universals (Geeraerts, 1995)

What is Cognitive Linguistics?the approach to the study of language that began to emerge in the 1970s and has been increasingly active since the 1980s. [There are] three major hypotheses as guiding the cognitive linguistic approach to language-language is not an autonomous cognitive faculty-grammar is conceptualization-knowledge of language emerges from language use

(Croft and Cruse, 2004)

A school of linguistics and cognitive sciences which emerged from the early 1980s onwards. Places central importance on the role of meaning, conceptual processes and embodied experience in the study of language and the mind and the way in which it intersect. (Evans, 2007)

What is Cognitive Semantics?

Linguistic meaning is not separate from other forms of knowledge of the world that we have, and in that sense it is encyclopedic and non-autonomous: it involves knowledge of the world that is integrated with our other cognitive capacities. There are at least two main aspects to this broader experiential grounding of linguistic meaning. First, we are embodied beings, not pure minds. Our organic nature inflences our experience of the world, and this experience is reflected in the language we use…..Second, however, we are not just biological entities: we also have a cultural and social identity, and our language may reveal that identity, i.e. languages may embody the historical and cultural experience of groups of speakers (and individuals). (Geeraerts, 2006)

What is Cognitive Semantics?

Meaning is based on conventionalized conceptual structures. Thus, semantic structure, along with other cognitive domains, reflects the mental categories which people have formed from their experience of growing up and acting in the world. (Saeed, 1997)

Cognitive Semantics is that subfield of cognitive linguisticsa. whose object of investigation is the ‘meaning’ of linguistic

expressions as part of cognition;b. whose methods are those of empirical linguisticsc. whose central aim, among others, is to reformulate, to answer or

to eliminate classic philosophical questions concerning the nature of the mind and knowledge by dealing with them empirically and interdisciplinarily; and

d. which includes both modular and holistic approaches. (Kertesz, 2004)

Cognitive LinguisticsCognitive Linguistics

Cognitive LinguisticsCognitive Linguistics

Cognitive LinguisticsCognitive Linguistics