Dirk Geeraerts

Theories of lexical semantics

Introduction 1. Historical-Philological Semantics 2. Structuralist Semantics 3. Generativist Semantics 4. Neostructuralist Semantics 5. Cognitive Semantics Conclusion References

Vagueness's puzzles, polysemy's vagaries

The distinclion between vagueness and polysemy (which is crucial traditional conceptions of lexical-semantic structure) is unstable: what appear to he distinct meanings from one point of view turn out to be instances of vagueness from another. The argumentation for this thesis is developed in ihree steps. First, three basic kinds of polysemy criteria are disünguished: a logical, a linguistic, and a definitional lest. Second, it is shown that these three kinds of tests may yield mutually contradictory results. Third, it is argued that such inconsistencies also occur within each criterion, in t he sense that there are contextual variations in the polysemy results that they yield. The consequences of this instability of the polysemy of an item are explored on three levels. First, on the pre-theoretical level, any reified conception oflexical meaning (äs embodied in the conduit metaphor) has to be abandoned in favor of a flexible, procedural conception. Second, on the theoretical level, the view that the distinclion between vagueness and polysemy may be used to distinguish between various kinds of prototypicality effects is undermined. And third, on the methodological level, the interpretative indeterminacy that accompanies the instability of polysemy raises the question of the objectivity oflexical semantics.

Usage-based approaches in Cognitive Linguistics: A technical state of the art

Abstract This paper presents a technical state of the art in usage-based linguistics as defined in the context of Cognitive Linguistics. Starting from actual case studies rather than theoretical assumptions, methodological issues concerning the usage-based approach are addressed, with specific reference to the use of corpus materials. The specific methodological identity of usage-based linguistics is described in terms of data gathering strategies and the status of empirical data in linguistic research. From a delineation of corpus research in contrast with introspection, survey research, and experimentation, two criteria emerge as essential for a genuine corpus-oriented usage-based linguistics, viz. the use of quantitative techniques and the systematic operationalization of research hypotheses. It is suggested that paying closer attention to these methodological issues is a prerequisite for the further development of the usage-based approach in Cognitive Linguistics.

Metonymy as a prototypical category

Abstract A definition of metonymy that has gained some popularity in Cognitive Linguistics contrasts metonymical semantic shifts within a domain or domain matrix with metaphorical shifts that cross domain boundaries. In the past few years, however, this definition of metonymy has become subject to more and more criticism, in the sense that it relies too much on the vague notions of domains or domain matrices to be fully reliable. In this article, we address this problem by focusing on a nonunitary, prototypical definition of contiguity (the concept that used to be seen as the defining feature of metonymy before Cognitive Linguistics introduced domains and domain matrices). On the basis of the traditional pre-structuralist literature on metonymy, we identify a large number of typical metonymical patterns, and show that they can be classified in terms of the type of contiguity they are motivated by. We argue that metonymies, starting from spatial part-whole contiguity as the core of the category, can be plotted against three dimensions: strength of contact (going from part-whole containment over physical contact to adjacency without contact), boundedness (involving an extension of the part-whole relationship towards unbounded wholes and parts), and domain (with shifts from the spatial to the temporal, the spatio-temporal and the categorial domain).

Advances in Cognitive Sociolinguistics

Cognitive Sociolinguistics is a novel and burgeoning field of research which seeks to foster investigation into the socio-cognitive dimensions of language at a usage-based level. Advances in Cognitive Sociolinguistics brings together ten studies into the social and conceptual aspects of language-internal variation. All ten contributions rely on a firm empirical basis in the form of advanced corpus-based techniques, experimental methods and survey-based research, or a combination of these. The search for methods that may adequately unravel the complex and multivariate dimensions intervening in the interplay between conceptual meaning and variationist factors is thus another characteristic of the volume. In terms of its descriptive scope, the volume covers three main areas: lexical and lexical-semantic variation, constructional variation, and research on lectal attitudes and acquisition. It thus illustrates how Cognitive Sociolinguistics studies both the variation of meaning, and the meaning of variation.

Cognitive linguistics : basic readings

Cognitive Linguistics: Basic Readings is specifically designed for an introductory course in Cognitive Linguistics. It brings together twelve foundational articles by leading figures in the field, each of which introduces one of the basic concepts of Cognitive Linguistics, like conceptual metaphor, image schemas, mental spaces, construction grammar, prototypicality and radial sets. The introductory purposes of the collection are supported by an introduction to the theory and, specifically, the practice of Cognitive Linguistics and by trajectories for further reading that start out from the individual chapters. Key Features: Each of the twelve articles introduces one of the basics concepts of the cognitive linguistics Contributions by reknown linguistics (George Lakoff, Ron Langacker, Len Talmy, Gilles Fauconnier, Charles Filmore) and influential younger scholars Specifically designed for an introductory course in cognitive linguistics, currently one of the most broadly appealing and dynamic frameworks for the study of natural language Helps students and beginning researchers through the addition of a general introduction to the theory and, specifically, the practice of cognitive linguistics, and through the specification of trajectories for further reading

Introduction: Prospects and problems of prototype theory

When describing categories analytically, most traditions of thought have treated category membership as a digital, all-or-none phenomenon. That is, much work in philosophy, psychology, linguistics, and anthropology assumes that categories are logical bounded entities, membership in which is defined by an items possession of a simple set of criterial features, in which all instances possessing the criterial attributes have a full and equal degree of membership. In contrast, it has recently been argued ... that some natural categories are analog and must be represented logically in a manner which reflects their analog structure (Rosch and Mervis 1975: 573-574).

A statistical method for the identification and aggregation of regional linguistic variation

This paper introduces a method for the analysis of regional linguistic variation. The method identifies individual and common patterns of spatial clustering in a set of linguistic variables measured over a set of locations based on a combination of three statistical techniques: spatial autocorrelation, factor analysis, and cluster analysis. To demonstrate how to apply this method, it is used to analyze regional variation in the values of 40 continuously measured, high-frequency lexical alternation variables in a 26-million-word corpus of letters to the editor representing 206 cities from across the United States.

The automatic identification of lexical variation between language varieties

Languages are not uniform. Speakers of different language varieties use certain words differently – more or less frequently, or with different meanings. We argue that distributional semantics is the ideal framework for the investigation of such lexical variation. We address two research questions and present our analysis of the lexical variation between Belgian Dutch and Netherlandic Dutch. The first question involves a classic application of distributional models: the automatic retrieval of synonyms. We use corpora of two different language varieties to identify the Netherlandic Dutch synonyms for a set of typically Belgian words. Second, we address the problem of automatically identifying words that are typical of a given lect, either because of their high frequency or because of their divergent meaning. Overall, we show that distributional models are able to identify more lectal markers than traditional keyword methods. Distributional models also have a bias towards a different type of variation. In summary, our results demonstrate how distributional semantics can help research in variational linguistics, with possible future applications in lexicography or terminology extraction.

The English genitive alternation in a cognitive sociolinguistics perspective

As a corpus-based inquiry into the probabilistic nature of lectal variation, the present study seeks to explore how language-external determinants of linguistic variation – real time, geography, text type – interact with language-internal determinants of linguistic variation, and in so doing shape cognitive and probabilistic grammars. The concrete empirical attention of this study will be directed toward the English genitive alternation as an instructive case study. The evidence suggests that the probabilistic grammar underlying the system of genitive choice is fundamentally the same across sampling times, geographic varieties of English, and text types. This overall qualitative stability notwithstanding, the importance of individual conditioning factors varies across different data sources, and this variability is shown to be mediated by language-external factors.