How to Ground a Language for Legal Discourse in a Prototypical Perceptual Semantics

Article published in the Michigan State Law Review

Partial Perception and Approximate Understanding

What is discussed in the present paper is the assumption concerning a human narrowed sense of perception of external world and, resulting from this, a basically approximate nature of concepts that are to portray it. Apart from the perceptual vagueness, other types of vagueness are also discussed, involving both the nature of things, indeterminacy of linguistic expressions and psycho-sociological conditioning of discourse actions in one language and in translational contexts. The second part of the paper discusses the concept of conceptual and linguistic resemblance (similarity, equivalence) and discourse approximating strategies and proposes a Resemblance Matrix, presenting ways used to narrow the approximation gap between the interacting parties in monolingual and translational discourses

Legal Quanta: A Mathematical Romance of Many Dimensions

Article published in the Michigan State Law Review

Use of sign space

This chapter focuses on the semantic and pragmatic uses of space. The questions addressed concern how sign space (i.e. the area of space in front of the signer’s body) is used for meaning construction, how locations in sign space are associated with discourse referents, and how signers choose to structure sign space for their communicative intents. The chapter gives an overview of linguistic analyses of the use of space, starting with the distinction between syntactic and topographic uses of space and the different types of signs that function to establish referent-location associations, and moving to analyses based on mental spaces and conceptual blending theories. Semantic-pragmatic conventions for organizing sign space are discussed, as well as spatial devices notable in the visual-spatial modality (particularly, classifier predicates and signing perspective), which influence and determine the way meaning is created in sign space. Finally, the special role of simultaneity in sign languages is discussed, focusing on the semantic and discourse-pragmatic functions of simultaneous constructions

Metonymy in Mind, Language, and Communication

The typical view considers metonymy as an intra-domain mapping which involves the source providing mental access to the target within the domain, with PART-WHOLE as the prototypical relation. This commonly held view of metonymy in Cognitive Linguistics pays attention to what happens after the domain, or rather, the WHOLE, has been established. How the WHOLE is formed seems to be missing. Based on the research results of cognitive science, especially in cognitive psychology, developmental psychology, and neuroscience, metonymy is tentatively argued to be an innate cognitive mechanism involving PART-WHOLE FORMING, PART-WHOLE/PART RELATING processes. The PART-WHOLE FORMING process establishes the WHOLE from the PART: It picks up some prominent element(s) in an interactive process to form a patterned experience, and the PART-WHOLE/PART RELATING process relates PART to PART, relating PART to the WHOLE and vice versa. The PART-WHOLE/PART RELATING process is made possible by the PART-WHOLE FORMING process. Metonymic operations usually precede metaphoric operation. Metaphor is essentially grounded on metonymy. Metonymy as a cognitive mechanism is most noticeably realized in language. It operates in various aspects of language and language use. The experience pattern (i.e. the WHOLE) formulated through the PART-WHOLE FORMING process is found to underpin the process of grammaticalization, the development of meaning prototype, and to motivate such daily language use as football nicknaming and to bring in certain cognitive and communicative functions. In the light of this view of metonymy, grammaticalization is considered from the conceptual perspective as a process from the general/global to the specific/local, or from focus on one specific aspect to focus on another particular aspect within the global WHOLE, rather than the usually held concrete-to-abstract process. This also applies to word meaning prototypes. Word meaning develops due to the dynamic of meaning prototypes. When considered from the conceptual perspective, meaning prototypes generally develop from the general/global to the specific/local with the change and specification of contextual situations. The cognitive analysis of football nicknames also suggests that metonymy is overwhelming and provides the requisite basis for metaphor. The PART-WHOLE FORMING and the PART-WHOLE/PART RELATING processes of metonymy as an inherent cognitive mechanism often interact in the mind, which is evidenced in language and may be best illustrated through analysis of interactive communication in general, and dialogic discourse in particular. Metonymy in interaction is embodied in its functions and operations in dialogue and its contribution to the dialogue as a discourse entity. Metonymy operates in dialogic discourse in various patterns of GENERAL-SPECIFIC scheme. It operates in the development of dialogue and helps structure the dialogic discourse, making it a coherent discourse entity; it makes meaning out of the local utterance and relates it to the whole dialogue; it underlies the decision-making process, helping make a final decision among alternatives. It also motivates the problem-solving process, helping formulate and organise replies to the questions posed by the counterpart in dialogic discourse, and facilitating the solution of daily problems

Metaphors, domains and embodiment

Investigations of metaphorical meaning constitution and meaning (in-) variance have revealed the significance of semantic and semiotic domains and the contexts within which they function as basis for the grounding of metaphorical meaning. In this article some of the current views concerning the grounding of metaphorical meaning in experience and embodiment are explored. My provisional agreement with Lakoff, Johnson and others about the “conceptual” nature of metaphor rests on an important caveat, viz. that this bodily based conceptual structure which lies at the basis of linguistic articulations of metaphor, is grounded in a deeper ontic structure of the world and of human experience. It is the “metaphorical” (actually “analogical”) ontological structure of this grounding that is of interest for the line of argumentation followed in this article. Because Johnson, Lakoff and other’s proposal to ground metaphorical meaning in embodiment and neural processes is open to being construed as subjectivist and materialist, I shall attempt to articulate the contours of an alternative theory of conceptual metaphor, meaning and embodiment which counteracts these possibilities. This theory grounds metaphorical meaning and meaning change in an ontological and anthropological framework which recognises the presence and conditioning functioning of radially ordered structures for reality. These categorisations in which humankind, human knowledge and reality participate, condition and constrain (ground) analogical and metaphorical meaning transfer, cross-domain mappings, and blends in cognition and in language, provide the basis for the analogical concepts found in these disciplines

Evidential adverbials in Lithuanian: a corpus-based study

The present study examines the functional distribution of the adverbials akivaizdžiai ‘evidently’, aiškiai ‘clearly’, ryškiai ‘visibly/clearly’, tariamai ‘allegedly/supposedly’ and aišku ‘clearly/of course’ in Lithuanian fiction and academic discourse. The aim of the study is to identify the evidential and/or pragmatic functions of perception and communication-based adverbials which can be traced synchronically to different syntactic environment (a predication manner adverbial and a CTP clause). The paper examines the frequency of these adverbials, their position, scope, functions, co-occurrence with argumentative markers, word class (adverb or non-agreeing adjective) and the type of discourse they occur in. The research is conducted by applying a corpus-based methodology and the data are obtained from the Corpus of the Contemporary Lithuanian Language, namely from the subcorpus of fiction, and the Corpus of Academic Lithuanian. The perception-based adverbials akivaizdžiai ‘evidently’, aiškiai ‘clearly’, ryškiai ‘clearly/visibly’ and aišku ‘clearly/of course’ denote inferences drawn from perceptual and conceptual evidence and contribute to persuasive authorial argumentation, while the communication-based adverbial tariamai ‘allegedly/supposedly’ functions as a hearsay marker. The latter may also be used as an epistemic marker which refers to unreal or imagined situations. In contexts of common knowledge, the adverbial aišku ‘clearly/of course’ acquires interactional and textual functions and thus reveals traces of pragmaticalisation. In academic discourse, it signals interaction with the addressee and links units of discourse, while in fiction it functions as a speech act modifier in a variety of emotive contexts. The pragmaticalisation of aišku ‘clearly/of course’ is also marked by its high frequency, positional mobility (initial, medial, final) and scopal variability (clausal, phrasal). Alongside its discrete evidential and pragmatic functions, the adverbial aišku ‘clearly/of course’ displays the merger of the two functions. The adverbials akivaizdžiai ‘evidently’, aiškiai ‘clearly’, ryškiai ‘visibly/clearly’ and tariamai ‘allegedly/supposedly’ do not acquire a pragmatic function, which is indicated by their frequency and position. The results of the present study corroborate the findings of previous studies that common sources of evidential adverbials and pragmatic markers in Lithuanian are verb-based, adjective-based and noun-based CTP clauses

TEORIA PROTOTYPU W PRAKTYCE ORZECZNICZEJ TRYBUNAŁU SPRAWIEDLIWOŚCI UNII EUROPEJSKIEJ - STUDIUM PRZYPADKU

Prototype theory is a semantic theory according to which the membership of conceptual categories is based not on a list of criterial features, but rather on the similarity to the most representative member of the category. Consequently, conceptual categories may lack classical definitions and rigid boundaries. This article supports the claims, already made by other scholars working in the field, that prototype theory may greatly augment our understanding of legal (i.e. statutory, judicial) interpretation. Legal provisions are traditionally written as classical definitions, but they are rarely applied that way. Statutory concepts tend to be interpreted with a great deal of flexibility, using a wide array of extra-textual factors. This is especially true for the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union, which has to deal with the challenges of the multilingual, supranational law of the European Union.Teoria prototypu jest teorią semantyczną, zgodnie z którą przynależność do kategorii pojęciowych nie opiera się na zestawie określonych cech, lecz na podobieństwie do najbardziej reprezentatywnego egzemplarza danej kategorii. W związku z tym kategorie pojęciowe mogą nie poddawać się klasycznemu definiowaniu, a ich granice bywają rozmyte. Artykuł ten wspiera twierdzenia innych autorów, że teoria prototypów może znacząco pogłębić nasze rozumienie interpretacji prawniczej. Przepisy prawne są tradycyjnie formułowane jak klasyczne definicje, jednak rzadko są stosowane w ten sposób. Pojęcia ustawowe są często interpretowane z dużą elastycznością, przy wykorzystaniu szerokiej palety czynników pozatekstowych. Jest to szczególnie aktualne w przypadku orzecznictwa Trybunału Sprawiedliwości Unii Europejskiej, który stoi przed wyzwaniem stosowania wielojęzycznego, ponadnarodowego prawa Unii Europejskiej