Polysemy and word meaning: an account of lexical meaning for different kinds of content words

There is an ongoing debate about the meaning of lexical words, i.e., words that contribute with content to the meaning of sentences. This debate has coincided with a renewal in the study of polysemy, which has taken place in the psycholinguistics camp mainly. There is already a fruitful interbreeding between two lines of research: the theoretical study of lexical word meaning, on the one hand, and the models of polysemy psycholinguists present, on the other. In this paper I aim at deepening on this ongoing interbreeding, examine what is said about polysemy, particularly in the psycholinguistics literature, and then show how what we seem to know about the representation and storage of polysemous senses affects the models that we have about lexical word meaning

Metaphoric coherence: Distinguishing verbal metaphor from `anomaly\u27

Theories and computational models of metaphor comprehension generally circumvent the question of metaphor versus “anomaly” in favor of a treatment of metaphor versus literal language. Making the distinction between metaphoric and “anomalous” expressions is subject to wide variation in judgment, yet humans agree that some potentially metaphoric expressions are much more comprehensible than others. In the context of a program which interprets simple isolated sentences that are potential instances of cross‐modal and other verbal metaphor, I consider some possible coherence criteria which must be satisfied for an expression to be “conceivable” metaphorically. Metaphoric constraints on object nominals are represented as abstracted or extended along with the invariant structural components of the verb meaning in a metaphor. This approach distinguishes what is preserved in metaphoric extension from that which is “violated”, thus referring to both “similarity” and “dissimilarity” views of metaphor. The role and potential limits of represented abstracted properties and constraints is discussed as they relate to the recognition of incoherent semantic combinations and the rejection or adjustment of metaphoric interpretations

Referential metonymy: Cognitive bases and communicative functions

Referential metonymy is a variety of figurative usage wherein our apprehension of relations of contiguity (e.g. the ‘distinctive property-individual’ relation) is exploited in order to pick out a specific target referent in the communicative context: The green trousers (= man wearing green trousers) is doing the Macarena with gusto. This thesis begins by providing an in-depth theoretical treatment of referential metonymy, exploring (i) the conceptual basis of the phenomenon, and how ‘contiguity’ may best be understood; (ii) the relationship between referential metonymy and other ‘contiguity-based’ usages of language (e.g. noun-noun compounds and conversions); (iii) current theoretical approaches to metonymy, namely Bowerman’s (2019) ‘repurposing’ account and Wilson and Falkum’s (2015, 2020, forthcoming) ‘neologism’ account; (iv) both metonymically-derived nicknames (e.g. ‘Red Shirt’) and the metonymic usage of established proper names (e.g. ‘a Picasso’ = a painting by Picasso); and (v) the relationship between metonymy and ellipsis. The theoretical claims I develop are then empirically examined, with an acquisition focus. First, I present a corpus study of two young children’s spontaneous production, in a naturalistic setting, of referential metonymy and other related phenomena (noun-noun compounds, conversions, metaphor, etc.) (Eleanor: 2;6-2;12, Thomas: 2;6-3;12). Key findings include: examples of referential metonymy and contiguity-based naming from 2;6, and striking evidence of metalinguistic awareness before age four. Second, I report a series of experiments into metonymy comprehension and production in Japanese adult learners of English as an additional language. Key findings include: support for the claim that metonym is a useful ‘gap-filling’ strategy during acquisition. Finally, directions for future research are indicated; in particular, examining metonymy comprehension and production in atypical development (e.g. ASD), and systematically comparing referential metonymy with referential metaphor (e.g. ‘the helmet’ = metonymy: woman wearing a cycle helmet/metaphor: woman with a lacquered bouffant resembling a military helmet)

IMENA: METONIMIJSKA “POVRATNA KARTA” U PET JEZIKA

In recent years cognitive linguists have shown that many grammatical structures are motivated by metonymic principles. The goal of this article is to demonstrate the role of metonymy in the emergence of proper names and in their frequent grammatical reclassification as common nouns, drawing examples from English, French, German, Italian and Spanish. Proper names are often metonymic in origin, i.e., they refer to a circumstance or distinctive aspect closely linked to their referent. The name eventually becomes a rigid designator for its referent(s). The frequent (temporary or permanent) reclassification of proper names as common nouns is also often motivated by metonymy. Two instances of this phenomenon are discussed: names used as paragons (Lakoff 1987) and the phenomenon known as “partitive restrictive modification” of names (Quirk et al. 1985: 290). In both cases, the rules of grammar holding for names appear to be violated: they may occur with (in)definite determiners and plural morphemes. The paragonic use of names arises on the basis of a metonymy in which the paragon stands for a class. If the class, rather than an individual, is highlighted, its members can be counted and specific reference can be made to them. This metonymy operates on the basis of a “deeper” metonymy applied to the individual taken to be the model for the whole class. In partitive restrictive modification the whole stands for one or a set of its aspects or parts leading to the figurative reclassification of the referent as a class of distinct individuals that can be contrasted in the same sentence.Kognitivni su lingvisti posljednjih godina pokazali da su mnoge gramatičke structure motivirane metonimijskim načelima. Cilj je ovoga članka ukazati na ulogu metonimije u pojavi vlastitih imena te čestoj pojavi njihove reklasifikacije kao općih imenica na temelju primjera iz engleskog, francuskog, njemačkog, talijanskog te španjolskog. Izvori su vlastitih imena nerijetko metonimije, tj. imena se odnose na okolnosti ili neki osebujni aspekt usko vezan uz referenta. Ime naposljetku postaje rigidni označitelj svog referenta (ili svojih referenata). Pojava česte privremen ili stalne reklasifikacije vlastitih imena kao općih imenica također je motivirana metonimijom. U članku se razmatraju dva slučaja ove pojave: poraba imena kao paragona (Lakoff 1987) te pojava koju se naziva partitivnom restriktivnom modifikacijom (Quirk et al. 1985: 290). U obame se slučajevima čini da su povrijeđena gramatička pravila porabe vlastitih imena jer se pojavljuju uz neodređene determinatore te stoje u množini. Poraba imena kao paragona počiva na metonimiji gdje paragon zamjenjuje razred. Ako je naglasak na razredu, a ne na pojedincu, članovi razreda postaju brojivi te mogu imati specifičnu referenciju. Ta metonimija počiva na “dubokoj” metonimiji koja je primjenjiva na pojedinog člana razreda kada se uzima za model cijelog razreda. U partitivnoj restriktivnoj modifikaciji cjelina se rabi umjesto jednog aspekta ili sklopa osobina, odnosno jednog dijela, što dovodi do figurativne reklasifikacije referenta kao razreda različitih pojedinaca koje se može kontrastirati u istoj rečenici

Unnamed locations, underspecified regions, and other linguistic phenomena in geographic annotation of water-based locations

This short paper investigates how locations in or close to water masses in topics and documents (e.g. rivers, seas, oceans) are referred to. For this study, 13 topics from the GeoCLEF topics 2005-2008 aiming at documents on rivers, oceans, or sea names were selected and the corresponding relevant documents retrieved and manually annotated. Results of the geographic annotation indicate that i) topics aiming at locations close to water contain a wide variety of spatial relations (indicated by dierent prepositions), ii) unnamed locations can be generated on-the-fly by referring to movable objects (e.g. ships, planes) travelling along a path, iii) underspecied regions are referenced by proximity or distance or directional relations. In addition, several generic expressions (e.g. "in international waters") are frequently used, but refer to different underspecified regions

Semantic Change in Words Loaned to Swedish

This thesis examines the diachronic semantic development in terms of metonymization and metaphorization for 30 nouns loaned into the Swedish language between the 13th and 20th centuries from a cognitive-semantic point of view. Through the framework of Lexical Meaning as Ontologies and Construals (LOC) combined with a study of the occurrence of metaphorization, metonymization, widening and narrowing in semantic development, it examines to what extent metonymization can be said to be a more common mechanism of lexical semantic change than metaphorization, and to what extent words lose semantic width initially after the loaning period and then regain it over time. The results indicate that metonymization is the more frequent mechanism and that an initial narrowing occurs directly after loaning in most cases. However, the results also reveal that in order to reach a satisfactory understanding of this matter, the socio-cultural context of the loans must be considered to a greater extent than has been done in this thesis