A Cognitive perspective on Word Meaning and the Model of

Cruse (2011: 53) points out that “…all meaning, whether conventionally associated with a linguistic expression or expressions, or whether it arises by pragmatic construal, is conceptual in nature.” A concept is a “mental construct” that represents the correspondence to “a coherent category” of things in a world, and is therefore vital to human activities such as communication, learning, and so on. Concepts result from categorization, which helps to organize the concepts within the network of encyclopaedic knowledge, and which is therefore central to the human conceptual system in terms of knowledge representation as well as linguistic meaning (Evans and Green, 2006).

Categorization is essential to cognition so that Cognitive Linguistics takes a specific perspective in the study of polysemy, which is to analyze polysemy as a form of categorization (Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk, 2007). In the 1970s, cognitive psychologist Eleanor Rosch proposed in her early research (e.g., Rosch, 1978; Rosch and Mervis,

1975) that humans categorize “with reference to a prototype” instead of the necessary and sufficient conditions by the classical theory. Briefly speaking, the prototype theory indicates that (i) there are central and peripheral members in a category, and a particular member of the category occupies a focal position since it exhibits the most salient features of the category; (ii) members in a category exhibit “a family resemblance structure.” This prototype-based conception of categorization influences the development of a cognitive approach to lexical semantics, characterized by the following assumptions (summarized from Evans and Green, 2006):

(i) Similar to non-linguistic conceptual categories, “words and their senses represent conceptual categories.” Consequently, linguistic categories have prototype structure.

(ii) Word meanings are typically polysemous, and are organized relative to a prototype or prototypes. Therefore, lexical categories form radial categories, which are modeled in terms of a radiating lattice configuration.

(iii) Radial categories, especially meanings extended from the prototype, are motivated by general cognitive mechanisms—conceptual metaphor and image schema transformations.

(iv) Distinct senses constituting radial categories are stored in long-term semantic memory rather than being generated.

The application of prototype theory can be seen in Brugman (1981), Brugman and Lakoff (1988) and Lakoff (1987) for their analysis on the English preposition over.

However, Lakoff’s approach (also called the full-specification approach) does not provide principled criteria for determining distinct senses and consequently results in proliferation of senses (see Sandra and Rice, 1995; Sandra, 1998; Evans and Green, 2006). Therefore, to make semantic network analyses more objective, Evans and Tyler

proposed the Principled Polysemy approach (Evans, 2004, 2005; Evans and Tyler, 2004a, 2004b; Tyler and Evans, 2001, 2003), in which a set of criteria is specified to distinguish each distinct sense. Originally for analyzing prepositions, the approach can also be applied to analysis on other syntactic categories (Evans and Green, 2006). In Evans (2005), he deals with the issue of polysemy of the lexeme time within the framework of cognitive linguistics (i.e., the assumptions that we have mentioned above).

He considers how the range of senses associated with this form can be accounted for in a principled and systematic manner by applying the Principled Polysemy Model.

The range of distinct senses constitutes a motivated semantic network that is organized with respect to a central Sanctioning Sense (i.e., the prototypical sense as a center of a semantic network), which is determined as follows:

(i) historically earliest attested meaning

(ii) predominance in the semantic network, in the sense of type-frequency (iii) predictability regarding other senses

(iv) a sense which relates to lived human experience of time (i.e., experience at the phenomenological level)

Centering on this Sanctioning Sense, other distinct senses represents a radial-like structure and constitute a word’s semantic network. For determining each distinct sense, Evans proposes the following three criteria as principles (Evans 2005: 41):

(i) Meaning Criterion: If a sense is counted as distinct, it must contain additional meaning which is not apparent in any other senses. For instance, time in “The time for a decision has arrived” denotes the Moment Sense, while time in “They bought the cashmere scarves at £50 a time” denotes the Instance Sense.

(ii) Concept Elaboration Criterion: This criterion is related to “semantic selection restrictions.”A distinct lexical concept is characteristic of unique or highly

distinct patterns of concept elaboration. Namely, certain lexical items appear in syntagmatic or collocational relationship with each distinct lexical concept. For instance, the expression “The time sped by” indicates the Agentive Sense of time.

(iii) Grammatical Criterion: If a sense is counted as distinct, it may manifest unique or highly distinct structural dependencies. For instance, time as a nominal can be a count noun, a mass noun, or a proper noun.

By applying the above-mentioned criteria, Evans (2005) provides a semantic network for time, with eight distinct senses in total, as shown in Figure 2.1 below. Here we only take the Duration Sense as an example to illustrate how Evans applies the above principles and criteria. He considers the Duration Sense as the Sanctioning Sense in that it is the earliest attested meaning associated with the lexeme time according to The Oxford English dictionary. In addition, it is regarded as a distinct sense since (i) in terms of the Concept Elaboration Criterion, it appears to be felt as if it is “passing”

wither “quickly” or “slowly,” as (1) shows; (ii) it can only be used as a mass noun, exemplified by (2).

(1) The time has sneaked/tiptoed by/past.

(2) *A time drags when you’re bored.

Figure 2.1 The Semantic Network for time (Evans, 2005: 52)

The present study will follow the model of Principled Polysemy to categorize the distinct senses of the newly emerging polysemy 婊 biǎo. What should be noted is that we adopt the Concept Elaboration Criterion to meet the need for determination of senses.

Originally, this criterion emphasizes the syntagmatic or collocational relationship between the word in question and its distinct lexical concept. The present study, however, also takes into consideration broader units, elaborations, and descriptions related to the word 婊 biǎo since its usage depends highly on the whole text. We will elaborate more and present how we analyze the senses of 婊 biǎo in Chapter Three and Chapter Four.