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On the semantics of Polish do. A minimalspecification approach
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Title: On the semantics of Polish do. A minimalspecification approach
1
On the semantics of Polish do. A
minimal-specification approach
- Daria Bebeniec
- Maria Curie-Sklodowska University, Lublin, Poland
- daria_at_hektor.umcs.lublin.pl
2
Principled Polysemy
- Tyler and Evans (2001, 2003, 2004), constrained
methodology for modelling prepositional meaning - LCCM (lexical concepts, cognitive models) Theory
(Evans 2005, 2007, in press) - In opposition to so-called full-specification
approaches (Brugman 1988, Lakoff 1987), bone of
contention distinctness of sense nature of
meaning - ? full-specification approach lexical
units possess constant semantic values and
therefore all meaning can be given exhaustive
representation by the enumeration of senses - ? minimal-specification approach lexical
units constitute underspecified prompts which
activate relevant portions of encyclopedic
knowledge, depending on the context they occur
in)
3
Nature of spatial meaning
- Distributed spatial semantics (Sinha and Kuteva,
1995) - ? spatial meaning is scattered over all
elements co-occurring in a given syntagm - Meaning as indeterminate, protean and emergent -
The cat jumped over the wall example (Tyler and
Evans, 2001, 2003) - ? none of the lexical items provides the
specification concerning the shape of the
trajectory it is retrievable from the complex
interaction of the knowledge concerning cats,
walls, the activity of jumping and some aspects
of force dynamics - ? meaning emerges in the dynamic process
of meaning construction, i.e. in a particular
usage-event - Usage-based perspective (Langacker 1988, 2000)
4
Centrality of sense
- Central sense (proto-scene) configurational
element functional element (Vandeloise 1994,
Herskovits 1988), e.g. ?the apple in the bowl /
the apple beneath the bowl (after Evans in press
6) - ? even though the relation of containment
typically associated with the preposition in is
evidently present in the figure above, it is the
preposition beneath that seems the most natural
choice (this is because containment is associated
with the functional consequence of location with
surety, absent from the foregoing configuration) - ? functional knowledge is an intrinsic
part of every spatial configuration and helps
account for usage potential and sense derivation - Criteria for abstracting central senses (Tyler
and Evans 2003 47-50) - 1) earliest attested meaning
- 2) predominance in the semantic network
- 3) frequency of participation in compounds and
other composite forms - 4) contrast sets
- 5) grammatical predictions
5
Distinctness of sense
- Distinct senses vs. instances of use (Tyler and
Evans 2004) - ? the problem is crucial to the full
specification minimal specification distinction
and actually touches on the understanding of
polysemy (inclusion or exclusion of such factors
as the physical properties of TR and LM, contact
and motion) - ? even though the boundary between a sense
and a usage is subtle, any analysis which aims at
differentiating single senses ought to take into
account only conventionalized usages (senses), as
opposed to the usages whose meaning arises from
the accumulation of a number of spatial elements
at the sentence level - Criteria for discriminating distinct senses
(Tyler and Evans 2001 731-733) - 1) meaning absent from other distinct senses
- 2) context-independent instantiations
- Meaning extension (pragmatic strengthening,
experiential correlation (e.g. Grady 1999),
perceptual resemblance) - On-line meaning construction (best fit, knowledge
of real-world force dynamics, topological
extension)
6
DO proto-scene
- 1) Poszla do kina / szkoly / sklepu / kosciola.
She went to the cinema / school / the store /
church. - 2) Poszedl do pracy. He went to work.
- 3) Wsiadla do samochodu. She got in the car.
- 4) Podeszla / doszla do samochodu. She approached
to / arrived at the car. - 5) Idz do mamy. Go to your mother.
- 6) Zajrzal do domu przez okno. He peeped into the
house through the window. - 7) Stal tylem do sciany. He stood with his back
towards the wall.
TR LM
- The proto-scene for do
- configurational element a spatial relation
where a TR is oriented towards a salient LM - functional element goal
7
DO proto-scene (cont.)
- Unsurprisingly, the proto-scene for do is
compatible with that for the English cognate to
(see Tyler and Evans 2004) - Sentences 1-7 are all instances of the
proto-scene - Do does not encode motion by itself (the
implicature of movement is evident only in the
presence of verbs of motion, examples 1-5) - Still, do is particularly apt for participating
in dynamic readings (due to the information
encoded by the proto-scene there is a strong
correlation between being oriented towards
something and an intention to reach it - hence
the functional consequence of goal) - Do is also neutral with respect to containment
(final-inclusion readings are influenced by
canonical functions associated with particular
bounded LMs, by the presence of a motile TR and
finally, by the semantics of the verb e.g.,
examples 3 and 4 wsiasc vs. podejsc vs. dojsc) - In sum, the nature of a given LM plus other
sentential clues influence the reading of an
utterance in terms of the presence or absence of
potential containment and motion - The examples quoted also illustrate the
indeterminacy of lexical meanings (esp. example
1) and the importance of functional information
(esp. example 2, where the goal reading overrides
the spatial configuration)
8
DO other distinct senses
- 1) The Temporal Sense Zamierzam pracowac do
wieczora. Im going to work till the evening. - ? the Temporal Sense may have been motivated by
the correlation of distance, which is a situated
implicature arising from the frequent
co-occurrence of do(-) with motion verbs, and
duration. Besides, attaining a goal is usually
limited to a certain period of time, so that the
sense of success often depends on completing a
given action within that period of time. - 2) The Comparison Sense Legia wygrala 2 do 1.
Legia won 2 to 1. - ? The Comparison Sense rests on the fact that
physical proximity, that is, bringing two things
together, is a necessary condition for comparing
them. That sense is an interesting example of how
implicatures, or meaning components arising
incidentally in a given linguistic and
extralinguistic context, get entrenched and turn
into separate senses. - 3) The State Sense Do zakochania jeden krok. It
takes one step to fall in love. / Kolysala
dziecko do snu. She rocked the baby to sleep. - ? The State Sense may be accounted for in terms
of the correlation between states and locations
through recurring instances of a particular
emotional state being experienced in a particular
locale, the correlation between location and
emotional and/or physical state becomes
established (Tyler and Evans 2003 187). - 4) The Attachment Sense Do pudelka przywiazana
byla karteczka. There was a little card tied on
to the box. / Byla do niego bardzo przywiazana.
She was strongly attached to him. / Zapisal sie
do partii. He joined the party. - ? The Attachment Sense constitutes an example
where physical proximity, a consequence of the
trajector reaching its goal, is correlated with
transfer in a particular direction. On being
sanctioned, the sense may be used in other than
purely spatial relationships
9
DO other distinct senses (cont.)
- 5) The Limit Sense Badal do 20 pacjentĂłw
dziennie. He examined up to twenty patients a
day. - ? The Limit Sense may have been established on
the grounds that reaching a goal is frequently
thought of as an end or limit of some activity.
Besides, distances covered when reaching a goal
can be measured, and the landmark in the sentence
at issue constitutes a point on a certain scale,
which also corroborates the motivation proposed. - 6) The Function Sense filizanka do kawy coffee
cup / pasta do butĂłw shoe polish - ?The Function Sense is a result of the
correlation of the canonical destination of the
trajector with the inherent function of the
landmark. - 7) The Emotion Sense milosc do matki love for
ones mother / niechec do kogos aversion to
somebody - ? The Emotion Sense can be explained by the fact
that interpersonal relationships require physical
presence and contact, which naturally entails
orientation, as we normally face other people
when talking to them. Contacts, in turn, result
in having some kind of emotional attitude to
people who we know. - Interestingly, although motion and containment
are not encoded by do, their consequences
(implicatures deriving from experiential
correlations), via the process of pragmatic
strengthening, give rise to and sanction many of
the distinct senses presented above.
10
Conclusions
- Zlatev (in press) with regard to the full
specification minimal specification
distinction the reason for the multiplication of
prepositional senses is one of the consequences
of the widely-accepted cognitivist assumption
that there is no division between the semantic
and pragmatic portion of meaning. If nothing can
be relegated to context, then it may seem natural
that all meaning should be given explicit
representation. Also, language-based
introspective research of both fully-specified
and minimally-specified kind is naturally
confined to the normative level of description,
i.e. devoted to describing a set of shared
conventions rather than mental representations. - Nevertheless, Principled Polysemy offers at least
some advantages in the field of cognitive spatial
semantics. First of all, clear methodological
principles minimize the much-criticized
subjectivity of description. In addition, the
model takes a definite stand on the questions of
distinctness of sense and prepositional dynamism,
one of the results being a considerable reduction
in the number of senses in a semantic network.
Another benefit of Principled Polysemy is its
account of meaning extension, language-based and
constructed without resort to subsymbolic
conceptual metaphors. Also, it is worth noting
that the framework developed by Tyler and Evans
attempts to integrate a number of recent findings
in psycholinguistics, lexical semantics and
language change (such as the question of
psychological reality, functional information and
the notion of pragmatic strengthening, for
example). Therefore, Principled Polysemy
constitutes an important step towards formulating
a comprehensive encyclopedic approach devoted to
spatial meaning, which has already been
undertaken by Evans in his LCCM Theory (2005,
2007, in press).
11
References
- Brugman, Claudia, 1988, The Story of Over
Polysemy, Semantics and the Structure of the
Lexicon. New York Garland Press. - Evans, Vyvyan, 2005, Lexical Concepts, Cognitive
Models and Meaning-Construction. Report no. LxWP
16/05. Sussex Working Papers in Linguistics and
English Language. - Evans, Vyvyan, 2007, Towards a Cognitive
Compositional Semantics An Overview of LCCM
Theory, in U. Magnusson, H. Kardela and A. Glaz
(eds.) Further Insights into Semantics and
Lexicography, 11-42. Lublin Maria
Curie-Sklodowska University Press. - Evans, Vyvyan, A Lexical Concepts and Cognitive
Models Approach to Spatial Semantics The State
Senses of English Prepositions. To appear in V.
Evans and P. Chilton (eds.), Language, Cognition
and Space. London Equinox Publishing Co. - Grady, Joseph, 1999, A typology of motivation
for conceptual metaphor correlation versus
resemblance, in R. Gibbs and G. Steen (eds.)
Metaphor in Cognitive Linguistics, 79-100.
Philadelphia John Benjamins. - Herskovits, Annette, 1988, Spatial expressions
and the plasticity of meaning, in B.
Rudzka-Ostyn (ed.) Topics in Cognitive
Linguistics, 271-298. Amsterdam and Philadelphia
John Benjamins. - Lakoff, George, 1987, Woman, Fire, and Dangerous
Things What Categories Reveal About the Mind,
Chicago Chicago University Press. - Langacker, Ronald, 1988, A Usage-Based Model,
in B. Rudzka-Ostyn (ed.) Topics in Cognitive
Linguistics, 127-161. Amsterdam and Philadelphia
John Benjamins. - Langacker, Ronald, 2000, A Dynamic Usage-Based
Model, in M. Barlow and S. Kemmer (eds.) Usage
Based Models of Language, 1-63. Stanford CSLI
Publications. - Sandra, Dominiek and Sally Rice, 1995, Network
analyses of prepositional meaning Mirroring
whose mind the linguists or the language
users?, Cognitive Linguistics 6 (1) 89-130. - Sinha, Chris and Tania Kuteva, 1995, Distributed
Spatial Semantics, Nordic Journal of Linguistics
18 (2) 167-199. - Tyler, Andrea and Vyvyan Evans, 2001,
Reconsidering Prepositional Polysemy Networks
The Case of Over, Language 77 (4), 724-765. - Tyler, Andrea and Vyvyan Evans, 2003, The
Semantics of English Prepositions Spatial
Scenes, Embodied Meaning and Cognition. Cambridge
and New York Cambridge University Press. - Tyler, Andrea and Vyvyan Evans, 2004,
Rethinking English "Prepositions of Movement"
The Case of To and Through, in H. Cuyckens, W.
de Mulder and T. Mortelmans (eds.), Adpositions
of Movement, 247-270. Amsterdam John
Benjamins. Belgian Journal of Linguistics, 18. - Vandeloise, Claude, 1994, Methodology and
analyses of the preposition in, Cognitive
Linguistics 5 (2) 157-184. - Taylor, John R., 1989/2003, Linguistic
Categorization. Prototypes in Linguistic Theory.
Oxford Clarendon Press. - Zlatev, J. (In press). Spatial Semantics. In H.
Cuyckens and D. Geeraerts (eds.), The Oxford
Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics. Oxford Oxford
University Press. Retrieved June 25, 2007, from
http//www.hf.uib.no/forskerskole/13_Zlatev_Handbo
ok-1.pdf
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