The Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics Part 71 pdf

These analyses would probably support Kemmer’s view that morphemes should be regarded as the special case of a well-entrenched and recombinable connection of a sound string with a meanin

by swooshtika The semantic side of the lexical blend can be captured by a three-space representation based on Fauconnier and Turner’s notion of conceptual blending (see section 2.2 above) Kemmer’s example for this semantic (or conceptual) de-scription is the blend glitterati (< glitterþ literati), an example which also enables her to show how low-level schemas can spark off higher-level schemas, as shown in figure 25.10.10

Figure 25.10a illustrates a relatively low-level schema whose phonological pole

is applicable to the blends glitterati, chatterati, and a few others Apart from the four-syllable structure of the second source lexeme literati, this schema is charac-terized by an overlap of an initial consonant cluster, a vowel, and the phoneme /t/

In figure 25.10b, the /t / is replaced by the more general consonant element which admits blends like botherati and luncherati, and thus raises the schema to a some-what higher level, while still maintaining the syllabic structure of schema (a) Fi-nally, in figure 25.10c, phonological overlap is no longer required (but still possible), and the syllable structure, though prototypically still consisting of four syllables, may be extended to more syllables, as in Britpoperati Within Kemmer’s classifi-cation of blends, this marks a switch from overlap to substitution blends, and this

is possible because in schema (a), the phonological string -erati already supports the fairly tangible meaning of ‘elite group’ (as indicated in the top section of the schema boxes) When the phonological overlap in the first element is dropped, as in schema (c), the second element may therefore assume the status of a derivational morpheme (traditionally called ‘‘semi-suffix’’), which can freely be combined with suitable lexical morphemes This is a good illustration of what Kemmer (2003) means when she claims that it is ‘‘the phonological strings that trigger meanings’’ (77) This leads her to the important conclusion (modestly hidden away in a foot-note) that morphemes should be regarded as a special case of the association of sounds with meaning, ‘‘the case in which the connection of a sound string with a meaning is very well entrenched and the unit is recombinable’’ (note 7)

Figure 25.10 -erati blends: The development from low-level to high-level schemas (excerpt from the schematic network for -erati blends in Kemmer 2003: 90, figure 3)

4 C o n c l u s i o n a n d

R e s e a r c h P r o s p e c t s

As this survey has shown, current cognitive research in word-formation is still very much in its initial stages While one can be fairly certain that word-formation can smoothly be accommodated within the framework of Cognitive Grammar, the application of most empirical methods has been too selective for a proper evaluation

of their usefulness and should be supported by further studies Thus, the radial category approach could be extended beyond -er derivation (and, of course, phrasal verbs and prepositional compounds) to other types of suffixations, for instance, to the area of de-nominal adjectival suffixes (-ic, -ical, -ous, etc.); the attribute listing and matching method could be tested in a more comprehensive examination of compounds, which can be expected to yield more differentiated results

An exciting avenue for further research would be to try to transfer Kemmer’s approach of ‘‘emergent schematic networks’’ from lexical blends to other domains

of word-formation The obvious candidates are acronyms, both alphabetic (UN, US) and orthoepic acronyms (ROM, SARS), including those supported by prop words (WASPS, see also section 2.3) It might also be interesting to provide a sche-matic analysis of the development from letter combinations to pseudo-simplicia, which is accomplished at an ever-increasing speed (compare the development of laser, AIDS, and SARS), as well as a schematic network solution for the yuppie, dinkie, taffie series of acronyms These analyses would probably support Kemmer’s view that morphemes should be regarded as the special case of a well-entrenched and recombinable connection of a sound string with a meaning.11This view of word-formation would not only strengthen the position of the ‘‘ungrammatical’’ word-formation processes such as blending and acronyming, but would permit a refreshing glimpse at ‘‘morphemes in the making’’ and might well change the pic-ture we have of this central linguistic element.12Finally, a cognitive approach might fuel the discussion of the question (raised in Ungerer 2002) of what the specific conceptual and communicative function of word-formation might be vis-a`-vis the potential of simplex lexemes and syntactic constructions

N O T E S

1 This implies that root creations are very rare indeed in modern languages, where they are largely restricted to the creation of trade names such as kodak.

2 For a much wider application of the Figure/Ground contrast (and other cogni-tive principles) in the affix-stem morphology of incorporating languages like Nahuatl, see Tuggy (1992).

3 A still more differentiated explanation for compounds (and even more so, for idioms) is offered by Geeraerts (2002), whose ‘‘prismatic model’’ not only takes account

of the relationship between the composite meaning and the meaning of the constituents, but also of the metaphorical or metonymic relationship that holds between the literal and derived meanings of compounds and idioms, as in Dutch schapenkop (457) or English blockhead ‘stupid person’ Within this model, the bottom-up analysis is complemented

by the (less frequent) top-down analysis underlying nontransparent ‘‘semantic back-formations’’, as in the idiom spekverkoper ‘boaster’ (450) or the proverbial fragments new broom and early bird In the domain of compounds, one might consider paper ‘newspaper’, plane ‘airplane’, or car ‘motor car’ as suitable candidates, even though their compound background will probably receive low analyzability ratings by language users.

4 For an application of the blending approach to nominal compounds, see Coulson (2001: 128–33); for an analysis of adjective-noun combinations, see Sweetser (1999) The representation of the compound wheelchair in figure 25.5 makes use of a three-space arrangement of mental spaces (i.e., dropping the representation of the fourth generic space originally suggested by Fauconnier) and has been extended to accommodate background knowledge The subsequent description neglects the aspects of cross-mappings between input spaces, underlying vital relations and their compression in the blended space, which are important for the understanding of more complex blends.

5 Another argument mentioned by Schmid to support his theory of contrast is that word-formation items whose prefixed character is still felt by the speaker receive secondary stress on the prefix while fully lexicalized items lose the profiled contrast and receive no secondary stress (cf re-cover ‘cover again’ and recover ‘get better’).

6 The domain in figure 25.6b is not represented in Mettinger (1994) It has been deduced from Mettinger (1996: 24), where a similar treatment for contrastive adjective pairs such as male/female is suggested.

7 Another recent analysis (Heyvaert 2003) attempts to overcome the basic assump-tion of an underlying agentive argument structure for verb-derived -er nominalizaassump-tions

by approaching the structure through underlying middle constructions (e.g., This book sells best underlying bestseller) The main claim is that the local and force-dynamic qual-ities of middle constructions have made it possible for -er nominalizations to develop from profiling only agents to profiling subjects in their relationship to the finite (in Halliday’s terminology), complete with its interpersonal and grounding potential Whether this ‘‘constructional approach’’ (which explicitly excludes nondeverbal -er no-minalizations) is superior to the cognitive ‘‘representational’’ descriptions Heyvaert wants to overcome remains to be seen.

8 The fact that noun-noun compounding has been selected for closer scrutiny does not mean that other problem areas of composition have not benefited from a cognitive

subject is not expressed in the compound; e.g., ‘Someone who scares crows’),which Tuggy (1987) explains by positing a schematic network of possessive or bahuvrihi compounds (now understood as a combination of specifying compound and metonymy; Ungerer 2002: 551).

9 Kemmer’s (2003: 71) claim that she does not use a process model may be reflected in her refraining from using the input-output metaphor; however, it does not mean that she denies processual links between source and target concepts—actually, they come in au-tomatically as she relies to a considerable extent on the model of conceptual blending As well, her position does not exclude that it may be worth looking at the processual aspect of lexical blending and its iconic properties (see section 2.3).

10 The assignment of examples to schemas (a)–(c) in figure 25.10 also differs slightly from the assignment indicated by Kemmer’s sanctioning arrows.

11 These are lexical morphemes in the case of laser, radar, AIDS, and SARS and derivational morphemes in the case of yuppie, where the suffix -ie may be understood to express ‘belonging to a fashionable group’.

12 Perhaps the schematic approach could thus have a similar impact on word-formation analysis and lexicology as the study of Pidgin and Creole languages has had on sociolinguistics and linguistics in general.

R E F E R E N C E S

Bakema, Peter, Patricia Defour, and Dirk Geeraerts 1993 De semantische structuur van het diminutief [The semantic structure of the diminutive] Forum der Letteren 34: 121–37 Bauer, Laurie 1983 English word-formation Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Bauer, Laurie 2001 Morphological productivity Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Brugman, Claudia 1981 Story of Over MA thesis, University of California at Berkeley (Published as The story of Over: Polysemy, semantics, and the structure of the lexicon New York: Garland, 1988)

Coulson, Seana 2001 Semantic leaps: Frame-shifting and conceptual blending in meaning construction Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Dirven, Rene´ 1999 Conversion as a conceptual metonymy of event schemata In Klaus-Uwe Panther and Gu¨nter Radden, eds., Metonymy in language and thought 273–87 Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Downing, Pamela 1977 On the creation and use of English compound nouns Language 53: 810–42.

Dressler, Wolfgang U., and Lavinia Merlini Barbaresi 1994 Morphopragmatics: Diminu-tives and intensifiers in Italian, German and other languages Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Fauconnier, Gilles 1997 Mappings in thought and language Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Fauconnier, Gilles, and Mark Turner 2002 The way we think: Conceptual blending and the mind’s hidden complexities New York: Basic Books.

Geeraerts, Dirk 2002 The interaction of metaphor and metonymy in composite expres-sions In Rene´ Dirven and Ralf Po¨rings, eds., Metaphor and metonymy in comparison and contrast 435–65 Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Heyvaert, Liesbet 2003 A cognitive-functional approach to nominalization in English Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Kemmer, Suzanne 2003 Schemas and lexical blends In Hubert Cuyckens, Thomas Berg, Rene´ Dirven, and Klaus-Uwe Panther, eds., Motivation in language: Studies in honor

Lakoff, George 1987 Women, fire, and dangerous things: What categories reveal about the mind Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Langacker, Ronald W 1987 Foundations of cognitive grammar Vol 1, Theoretical prereq-uisites Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Langacker, Ronald W 1990 Concept, image and symbol: The cognitive basis of grammar Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Levi, Judith N 1978 The syntax and semantics of complex nominals New York: Academic Press.

Lindner, Susan 1981 A lexico-semantic analysis of English verb-particle constructions with OUT and UP PhD dissertation, University of California at San Diego (Also published as A lexico-semantic analysis of English verb-particle constructions, LAUT Paper, no 101 Trier, Germany: Linguistic Agency of the University of Trier, 1983) Lipka, Leonhard 2002 English lexicology: Lexical structure, word semantics and word-formation Tu¨bingen: Gunter Narr.

Mettinger, Arthur 1994 Un-Prefixation in English: Expectations, formats, and results M€ u unstersches Logbuch der Linguistik 5: 17–31.

Mettinger, Arthur 1996 (Image-)Schematic properties of antonymous adjectives Views 5: 12–26.

Panther, Klaus-Uwe, and Linda Thornburg 2001 A conceptual analysis of English -er-nominals In Martin Pu¨tz, Susanne Niemeier, and Rene´ Dirven, eds., Applied cognitive linguistics II: Language pedagogy 149–200 Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter Quirk, Randolph, Sidney Greenbaum, Geoffrey Leech, and Jan Svartvik 1985 A compre-hensive grammar of the English language London: Longman.

Rappaport Hovav, Malka, and Beth Levin 1992 -Er nominals: Implications for the theory

of argument structure In Tim Stowell and Eric Wehrli, eds., Syntax and semantics, vol 26, Syntax and the lexicon 127–53 New York: Academic Press.

Rosch, Eleanor 1975 Cognitive representations of semantic categories Journal of Experi-mental Psychology: General 104: 193–233.

Rudzka-Ostyn, Brygida 1985 Metaphoric processes in word formation: The case of pre-fixed words In Wolf Paprotte´ and Rene´ Dirven, eds., The ubiquity of metaphor 209–41 Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Ruiz de Mendoza Iba´n˜ez, Francisco 1998 El modelo cognitivo idealizado de ‘tama~ n no’ y

la formacio´n de aumentativos y diminutivos en espa~ n nol Me´xico: Instituto de In-vestigaciones Filolo´gicas, Universidad Nacional Auto´noma de Me´xico.

Ryder, Mary Ellen 1994 Ordered chaos The interpretation of English noun-noun com-pounds Berkeley: University of California Press.

Ryder, Mary Ellen 1999 Bankers and blue-chippers: An account of -er formations in present-day English English Language and Linguistics 3: 269–97.

Santibanez-Saenz, Francisco 1999 Conceptual interaction and Spanish diminutives Cuadernos de Investigation Filologica 25: 173–90.

Erich Schmidt.

Stekauer, Pavel 1998 An onomasiological theory of English word-formation Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Sweetser, Eve 1999 Compositionality and blending: Semantic composition in a cognitively realistic framework In Theo Janssen and Gisela Redeker, eds., Cognitive linguistics: Foundations, scope, and methodology 129–62 Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Talmy, Leonard 1991 Path to realization: A typology of event conflation Berkeley Lin-guistic Society 7: 480–519.

Taylor, John R 1992 Old problems: Adjectives in cognitive grammar Cognitive Linguistics 3: 1–46.

Tuggy, David 1987 Scarecrow nouns, generalizations, and cognitive grammar In Scott DeLancey and Russell S Tomlin, eds., Proceedings of the Third Annual Meeting of the Pacific Linguistics Conference 307–20 Eugene: Department of Linguistics, University

of Oregon.

Tuggy, David 1992 The affix-stem distinction: A cognitive grammar analysis of data from Orizaba Nahuatl Cognitive Linguistics 3: 237–300.

Twardzisz, Piotr 1997 Zero derivation in English: A cognitive grammar approach Lublin, Poland: Wydawnicto UMCS.

Ungerer, Friedrich 1999 Iconicity in word-formation In Max Na¨nny and Olga Fischer, eds., Form miming meaning 307–24 Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Ungerer, Friedrich 2002 The conceptual function of derivational word-formation in English Anglia 120: 534–67.

N O M I N A L

C L A S S I F I C A T I O N

g u n t e r s e n f t

1 I n t r o d u c t i o n

The problem of ‘‘classification’’ is a general problem of life That classification abil-ities are necessary for the survival of every organism is an important insight of biology Human beings classify consciously, unconsciously, and even subconsciously in all situations When we confront a scientific problem, we try to solve it by first classifying the various parts of the problem Therefore, the history of all branches of science is also a history of how these sciences have classified their research subject ‘‘Classifi-cation’’ always implies ‘‘selection,’’ too, because, as Koestler (1983: 201) puts it, our

minds would cease to function if we had to attend to each of the millions of stimuli which constantly bombard our receptor organs The nervous system and the brain itself function as a multilevelled hierarchy of filtering and classifying devices, which eliminate a large proportion of the input as irrelevant ‘noise’, and assemble the relevant information into coherent patterns before it is represented

to consciousness.

If we want to communicate about this perceived, classified, and filtered input, we have to classify once more: we have to transform the input into classes and cate-gories provided by the systems that organize our communicative verbal and nonverbal faculties—thus, this second round of classification leads to categoriza-tion on the semantic level With our systems of language and gesture, we again classify, filter, and categorize on various levels while communicating Linguistics is the science that tries to analyze these processes of classification that are relevant for communication Indeed, the languages of the world provide an enormous data pool for the analysis of the problem of categorization and classification—and

humankind has developed a number of different linguistic techniques to appre-hend our world (see Senft 1996: ix–x; 2000b: 11)

As Royen (1929: 1) points out, the philosophical discussion of nominal classi-fication can be traced back to the Greek sophistic philosopher Protagoras (485–414 BC) Obviously, discussing the problem of ‘‘category’’ and ‘‘categorization,’’ and especially the interdependences between category, categorization, and classification

on the one hand, and naming, language, thought, perception, and culture on the other hand, has a long tradition, not only in philosophy (see, e.g., Foucault [1966] 1980; Rosch 1988; Vollmer 1988a, 1988b), but also in linguistics (see, e.g., Herder [1770] 1978; Humboldt [1836] 1968; Schleiermacher [1838] 1977; Whorf 1958) Even a brief glance over this literature and other literature that deals especially with nominal classification reveals that the basic problems continue to emerge in the discussion of this topic.1

Cognitive Linguistics is particularly interested in these problems and has devoted much attention to nominal classification and categorization Actually, the book that undoubtedly contributed much to finally establishing Cognitive Linguistics

as a subdiscipline of its own—Lakoff’s (1987) influential monograph Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal about the Mind—explicitly refers to categorization in its title and even mentions three (of many more) members that constitute a noun class in Dyirbal, an Australian Aboriginal language spoken in North Queensland (see Dixon 1972: 44–47, 307)

This chapter summarizes some of these problems of nominal classification in language, presents and illustrates the various systems or techniques (see Seiler 1986) of nominal classification, and points out why nominal classification is one of the most interesting topics in Cognitive Linguistics

2 N o m i n a l C l a s s i fi c a t i o n

This section first discusses briefly the basic problem of how the perceived world is expressed and represented in language and how language refers to the perceived world Then it presents and exemplifies the systems of nominal classification that can be found in the languages of the world, and finally it discusses some central problems of nominal classification

2.1 From the World to Nouns and Systems

of Nominal Classification

One of the basic questions in the study of language is how the perceived world is expressed and represented in, and through, language, and how language refers to the perceived world, to its objects, things, and living beings Not only do we

perceive the world, but we also develop concepts about what we perceive and create linguistic expressions that refer to and represent these concepts These expressions refer—among other things—to actions, temporary states, things and objects, and persons and other living beings

Many of these expressions are classified by linguists as ‘‘nouns’’—and in many languages these ‘‘nouns’’ (like verbs and adjectives) constitute an open word class Moreover, if we keep in mind Greenberg’s (1978: 78) claim that as ‘‘soon as we wish

to talk about an action as such, we nominalize it,’’ we become aware (again) of the important role nouns play in our languages (at least with respect to their frequency)

As Talmy (1992: 131) points out, languages ‘‘generally subcategorize nouns grammatically along certain semantic parameters.’’ These subcategorizations are classifications, of course The question why most of these classifying systems apply just to the noun phrase rather than other syntactic constituents was answered by Greenberg (1978: 78) in a very convincing way:

It is the noun par excellence which gives rise to classificational systems of syn-tactic relevance It is not so much that the noun designates persisting entities

as against actions or temporary states It is that nouns are continuing

discourse subjects and are therefore in constant need of referential devices of identification Classification is a help in narrowing the range of possible

identification.

Languages have been developing a rather broad variety of these nominal classification systems After Royen’s (1929) pioneering research, it was Seiler and his coworkers who tried to integrate the various techniques of nominal classifi-cation into an overall framework (Seiler and Lehmann 1982; Seiler and Stachowiak 1982; Seiler 1986) Recently, Grinevald (2000) and Aikhenvald (2000a) proposed new typologies for these systems of nominal classification (see also Bisang 2002) Based on these proposals, the following subsection presents an overview of nominal classification systems found in the languages of the world The presentation of these systems follows Royen’s (1929: 526) basic maxim which runs: ‘‘Von nominalen Klassen kann man erst dann reden, wenn die mentale Gruppierung der Nomina in der Sprache auf die eine oder andere Weise formal reflektiert wird’’ (We can speak

of nominal classes only if the mental grouping of nouns is formally reflected within the language in one way or another; my translation)

2.2 Systems of Nominal Classification

Grinevald (2000) presents a typology of techniques of nominal classification that postulates a lexical-grammatical continuum of systems ‘‘ ‘Lexical’ here means (a) part of the lexicon and its word-building dynamics and (b) semantically compo-sitional, while ‘grammatical’ means part of the morphosyntax of a language’’ (55)

On the lexical end of this continuum, we find measure terms and class terms, and

on the grammatical end of the continuum, we find gender and noun class systems The various classifier systems ‘‘can be placed at a mid-way point’’ (55) on this

continuum In what follows, I will present the systems of nominal classification mentioned in Grinevald’s and Aikhenvald’s typologies

Measure Terms and Class Terms

In her typology, Grinevald (2000: 58) clearly differentiates between two systems

of lexical nominal classification: ‘‘Measure terms are lexical in the sense that they are semantically compositional/analytic noun phrases, and class terms are lexical in the sense that they operate on derivational or compounding morphology at word level.’’ Measure terms express quantities; in English, for example, we find measure terms like a glass of whisky, a slice of bread, a group of children, and a school of dolphins It should be noted here that distinguishing measure terms from numeral classifiers (see below) is a recurrent problem in numeral classifier languages, es-pecially in isolating ones (see Aikhenvald 2000a: 98–120)

Grinevald (2000: 59) defines class terms as ‘‘classifying morphemes which participate in the lexicogenesis of a language’’ and differentiates three types of these terms The plant world is probably the most common semantic domain of class terms Thus, we find morphemes like -berry or tree that classify nouns like straw-berry, raspstraw-berry, palm tree, and oak tree In English we also find derivational morphemes like -ist, -er, and -man to designate classes of ‘agents’, as in scientist, novelist, baker, writer, postman, and fireman Again, it should be noted here that distinguishing class terms from noun classifiers (see below) is a problem in many languages, such as in Australian languages or Thai (see Aikhenvald 2000a: 81–97)

Noun Class Systems and Gender

In noun class systems of nominal classification, all nouns of a language are assigned

to a number of classes These systems are typical of languages of the Niger-Congo linguistic stock, especially Bantu They ‘‘are characterized by agreement with con-stituents outside the NP by a higher degree of grammaticalization, evident in a closed system of a small number of classes; and by a lesser degree of semantic transparency’’ (Zubin 1992: 42) Noun classes in noun class systems form a

‘‘grammatical category’’ (Dixon 1986: 105).2Nineteen noun classes have been re-constructed for Proto-Bantu, for example, with the classes 1/2, 3/4, 5/6, 7/8, and 9/10 as singular/plural markers The noun class systems of modern Bantu languages consist of 12–20 morphological classes Demuth (2000: 273) presents the following example for a noun class system in the Bantu language Sesotho:

(1) Ba-shaanyana baa-ne baa-fuumaanee di-perekisi 2-boys 2-dem 2-subject agreement marker-found 10-peaches tsee-monaate

10-good

‘Those boys found some tasty peaches.’

Here, the demonstrative modifying the class 2 subject noun ba-shaanyana is the class

2 demonstrative baa-ne The subject marker on the verb then agrees with this