Contrastivity: cognition and lexical representation
Suggestions for a research project
0. Introduction
The following considerations sketch the framework for a research project that I will start working on at the University of Leuven in October 1992 and that should ultimately result in my Habilitationsschrift at Vienna University.
1. The point of departure
1.1 What has been done so far
In my dissertation (Aspects of semantic opposition in English: a corpus-based study of binary meaning-relations) I investigated pairs of opposites such as right - wrong, strong - weak, important - unimportant, clean - dirty, pleasure - pain etc. on the basis of data collected from more than fourty British and American novels as well as from Roget's Thesaurus. It could be shown that from the semantic point of view a pair of opposites is characterized by two indispensable factors: the items in question must share a common semantic basis (called 'archisememe' in the theoretical framework adopted in my study) that accounts for their sameness, and they must differ along a specifiable 'semantic dimension' stating with regard to which property the opposition has been established.(cf. also Mettinger 1988b:151ff.)
The classic typology of pairs of opposites in English (Lyons 1977) has been established primarily on logical criteria, i.e. in terms of contradictory and contrary opposition. In contrast, I have proposed an analysis and ensuing typology on the basis of syntactic and semantic properties: if one looks at opposites in English texts one can observe that they are (or cannot be) used in comparative, superlative, and equative constructions, that they are (or cannot be) found together with intensifiers like very, highly, absolutely etc. These observable gradability phenomena (which are basically syntactic in nature) permit the assumption of diverse scalarity properties of the semantic dimensions involved. Thus, dimensions can either be non-scalar (as in the case of dead - alive) or scalar. Opposites operating over scalar dimensions cover different zones on such a scale:
A pair like weak - strong constitutes a uni-directionally open scale STRENGTH with no member of the pair representing a zero-degree, whereas in the case of important - unimportant the prefixed member can be interpreted as including the zero-point of the IMPORTANCE scale (completely/totally unimportant vs. ?completely/totally weak). For the pair clean - dirty I would assume a uni-directionally open scale of DIRTINESS whose zero-point is represented by clean (which could explain almost clean as approximation towards the digit), the remainder of the scale then being represented by dirty. Finally, a pair like pleasure - pain operates over a bi-directionally open scale with an evaluatively positive and an evaluatively negative zone which are covered by the meanings of the respective lexical items.
With the help of archisememes, semantic dimensions, and semantic features (which specify the value, range of values, or zone each member of a pair of opposites occupies with regard to a semantic dimension) it has been possible to arrive at a coherent description of oppositeness of meaning in the English lexicon (for details see Mettinger 1988a, 1988b, 1990).
This approach has, of course, its theoretical foundations and consequently leaves a number of unresolved questions.
1.2 Theoretical framework
The descriptive framework sketched above is firmly rooted in the European structuralist tradition which, following Saussure (1916), distinguishes between the language-system (langue) and speech (parole). With regard to langue the linguistic sign is defined negatively in that it differs formally and semantically from other linguistic signs; consequently, meaning-relations such as the ones discussed above must also be described against the foil of the language-system, which has led to the introduction of the term 'oppositeness of meaning' for referring to langue properties. On the other hand, as the data consisted of actual occurrences of opposites in texts, another term, viz. 'contrast', was established for referring to parole-phenomena. Apart from langue and parole, however, we must assume a level outside language that takes care of the external world (or rather the way humans perceive it) and possibly also of the world of human thought: this level, which so far has received fairly little attention, was labeled 'adversativity' (Mettinger 1988:31 f.). It has turned out that oppositeness of meaning as a systematic phenomenon of langue can be described adequately in terms of archisememes, semantic dimensions, and semantic feature-relations. Such a description is, however, a totally intralinguistic, functional one, and does not postulate any psychological or cognitive reality of the linguistic constructs it uses. This approach therefore does not link meaning with conceptualization, i. e. it is not concerned with the relationship between linguistic and cognitive phenomena. Such a situation might be conducive to the discarding of the basic theoretical framework of European structuralist semantics, the cry for a 'change of paradigm', and the wholehearted adoption of 'cognitive linguistics' (see 2.2) as a radically different theory that would be able to answer all the questions that have not been answered so far. One aim of the project will therefore be to check whether a change of paradigm is necessary and/or feasible.
2. Research goals
2.1 Problems to be solved
2.1.1 Contrast
The first problem that becomes obvious as soon as one takes texts as the raw material for describing oppositeness of meaning is that contrast is very often expressed by pairs of words that do not meet the requirements of being analyzable in terms of archisememes and semantic dimensions. Pairs like debit - credit, venial - mortal, love - money, wits - looks, life - literature are not instances of stable, context-independent meaning-relations, but depend on context and encyclopaedic knowledge for their contrastive interpretation. As one comes across a considerable number of such cases, it would be interesting to find out more about the reasons for and the mechanisms of establishing contrast in actual speech.
2.1.2 Linguistic coding
Up to now, work on oppositeness of meaning has concentrated on the description of individual pairs of opposites and on establishing various types of oppositeness. Though this approach has undeniably given us much insight into linguistic micro-structures, it has obscured our view on the structure of larger areas of vocabulary. In particular, the question as to which semantic properties are common to all members of a specific group of opposites has not been asked yet. Once these properties have been established through linguistic analysis, we will have to go one step further and look at them from the point of view of linguistic coding. This approach opens up two avenues: on the one hand, we will have to investigate whether, why, and to what extent linguistic coding is grounded in man's perception of the world (cf. Johnson 1987), which involves looking into the human perceptual apparatus (cf. Oeser - Seitelberger 1988), into the biological foundations and functions of human language (cf. Marquardt 1984), and into philosophical and psychological research on language and cognition (cf. Freundlich 1976, Lorenz 1983, Tanenhaus 1988). On the other hand, we will have to explore whether, why, and to which extent contrast phenomena in language use are anchored in the cultural and traditional background shared by the members of a speech-community.
2.1.3 Ontology
The most interesting and probably also the most controversial question is that of the ontological status of the scales assumed in 1.1. In this respect Talmy (1988) and Krzeszowski (1990) have done some trailblazing in the field of 'axiality' and 'axiology'. With regard to the pair well - sick Talmy points out:
... such adjectives ... presuppose a schematic axis
that is structured and directed in a particular way. Each adjective,
then, labels a different portion of that axis. The adjectives
here seem in particular to suppose a directed line bounded at
one end; well refers to the end-point while sick
refers to the remainder of the line, correlating greater magnitude
with greater distance along the line. These are the "axial
properties", or "axiality", of the lexical items,
i.e., the specific relation each has to a particular conceptual
axis [my emphasis]... It is the lexicalization of such axiality
that can align adjectives with expressions of spatial relation.
(Talmy 1988:187)
The parallelism between scalar semantic dimensions and Talmy's conceptual axes is striking - the problem is, however, that while the criteria for establishing semantic dimensions and their ontological status are clear, particular conceptual axes have been taken for granted by their advocates without any kind of empirical testing. One of the major aims of my project will therefore be to investigate the epistemological status of conceptual axes and to develop appropriate 'discovery procedures'.
2.2 Theoretical framework
The problems sketched in 2.1 should have made clear that their solution is not possible within the framework of structuralist theory in its present state of development.
A rather recent trend in linguistics, viz. 'cognitive linguistics', which has developed primarily in the United States since the 1980ies, might offer an appropriate alternative framework - at least with regard to some of the problems. Among the basic assumptions of cognitive linguists are the following ones:
a) lexical concepts have to be studied as a proper
part of human cognition at large,
b) there is no distinction between semantic and encyclopaedic
knowledge,
c) semantic studies cannot ignore the experiental and cultural
background of the language user,
d) if language is one of the basic cognitive tools of man, it
should not be studied autonomously, but it should be considered
in the light of this cognitive function, i.e. of interpreting,
ordering, retaining, and expressing human experience.
(cf. Geeraerts 1988:652ff.)
Fascinating though these basic tenets might be, they open Pandora's box: the notion of 'concept' and 'conceptualization' will have to be defined unambiguously, also with regard to epistemology and psychology. Apart from that, one should not be oblivious of the fact that 'concept' has been an integral, though maybe largely disregarded, part of the Saussurean definition of the linguistic sign as
...a link ... between a concept and a sound pattern.
The sound pattern may ... be distinguished from the other element
associated with it in a linguistic sign. This other element is
generally of a more abstract kind: the concept.
(Saussure 1916 [1983:66])
In a way the research project that is being suggested here may be regarded as an attempt at integrating some of the principles of structural linguistics into the wider framework of a conceptual perspective on language. Two more principles of cognitive linguistics, need to be mentioned in this context: the principle of 'iconicity' claims that "in iconic relationships, our conception of reality is mirrored in the structure of language" (Radden 1991:3); the principle of 'conventionality' states that
...the grammar of a language (including semantic
structure) is a characterization of established linguistic convention;
conventionality implies that something is shared - and further,
that it is recognized as being shared - by a substantial number
of individuals.
(Langacker 1983:81)
These two principles might be fruitfully implemented in the investigation of whether and to what extent linguistic coding is based on bodily and/or on cultural phenomena.
Many of the key-notions in cognitive linguistics as advanced in their present form I would regard as too dogmatic in nature, cf.:
Meaning is equated with conceptualization. Linguistic
semantics must therefore attempt the structural analysis and explicit
description of abstract entities like thoughts and concepts. The
term conceptualization is interpreted quite broadly: it encompasses
novel conceptions as well as fixed concepts; sensory, kinesthetic,
and emotive experience; recognition of the immediate context (social,
physical, and linguistic); and so on. Because conceptualization
resides in cognitive processing, our ultimate objective must be
to characterize the types of cognitive events whose occurrence
constitutes a given mental experience. The remoteness of this
goal is not a valid argument for denying the conceptual basis
of meaning.
(Langacker 1990:2)
2.3 Working hypothesis
Accepting the principles of iconicity and conventionality I will assume that opposites are interpreted through the human cognitive capacity of perceiving and coding similarity and dissimilarity. As a working hypothesis, I suggest the 'principle of contrastivity' which means that 'contrastivity' as a conceptual phenomenon would have to be characterized by the simultaneous implementation of two constituents/functors: a conceptual integrator and a conceptual differentiator. The former accounts for the sameness of two entities with regard to certain properties, the latter states the properties with regard to which two entities are different. Though the ontological status of these two constituents/functors is far from clear at present, their function is obvious: the conceptual integrator is assumed to cover one important prerequisite for opposites, viz. the fact that there must be a basis of comparison, the conceptual differentiator states the common basis against which the opposition as such is established. The process of implementing these two functors is a cognitive one and requires varying degrees of encyclopaedic knowledge:
In cases like debit - credit and venial - mortal the conceptual integrator corresponds to what has been termed a 'frame', i.e. a static configuration of knowledge (ACCOUNTING and RELIGION, respectively), whereas establishing the two functors for cases like love - money, life - literature, and wits - looks requires more intellectual work (which might be testable psychologically) and depends more strongly on the experiential and cultural background of the language user. As far as 'prototypical' opposites (i.e. the ones described in Mettinger 1988) are concerned, I will assume that they are highly, if not absolutely conventionalized cases of contrastivity. The conceptual integrator is equal to what has been introduced as 'archisememe' and the conceptual differentiator to the 'semantic dimension'. But this, of course, means that their ontological status will have to be reconsidered as well.
3. Conclusion
The research project thus has three basic goals:
a) to establish, describe, and explain contrastivity as a conceptual phenomenon that is operative in our perception of reality, the structuring of thought, and corresponding linguistic coding;
b) to establish, describe (and, if possible, test) scale (axiality) phenomena that seem to be operative in the coding of contrastivity;
c) to attempt a synthesis between European structuralist semantics and the cognitivist point of view.
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