The Semantics of Polysemy

This book, addressed primarily to students and researchers in semantics, cognitive linguistics, English, and Australian languages, is a comparative study of the polysemy patterns displayed by percussion/impact ('hitting') verbs in English and Warlpiri (Pama-Nyungan, Central Australia).

The opening chapters develop a novel theoretical orientation for the study of polysemy via a close examination of two theoretical traditions under the broader cognitivist umbrella: Langackerian and Lakovian Cognitive Semantics and Wierzbickian Natural Semantic Metalanguage. Arguments are offered which problematize attempts in these traditions to ground the analysis of meaning either in cognitive or neurological reality, or in the existence of universal synonymy relations within the lexicon. Instead, an interpretative rather than a scientific construal of linguistic theorizing is sketched, in the context of a close examination of certain key issues in the contemporary study of polysemy such as sense individuation, the role of reference in linguistic categorization, and the demarcation between metaphor and metonymy.

The later chapters present a detailed typology of the polysemous senses of English and Warlpiri percussion/impact (or P/I) verbs based on a diachronically deep corpus of dictionary citations from Middle to contemporary English, and on a large corpus of Warlpiri citations. Limited to the operations of metaphor and of three categories of metonymy, this typology posits just four types of basic relation between extended and core meanings. As a result, the phenomenon of polysemy and semantic extension emerges as amenable to strikingly concise description.

Autorentext

Nick Riemer is Assistant Professor at the Department of English, University of Sydney, Australia.

Inhalt

Chapter 1. Cognition and linguistic science

1. Introduction
2. Meaning and interpretation

3. Meaning and conceptualization: Cognitive Semantics

   Chapter 2. Meaning, definition, and paraphrase

4. NSM and meaning
5. Definition and semantic theory
6. Grounding meaning
7. NSM-specific issues
8. More general issues

9. Implications

   Chapter 3. Polysemy and the evidence for semantic facts

10. Introduction
11. Polysemy, monosemy and the natural tendency of semantic description
12. Proposed evidence of semantic structure

13. Lexical categorization, semantic relations and referent typicality

    Chapter 4. Metaphor, metonymy and the theory of polysemy

14. Introduction
15. The present account
16. The basic P/I scenario
17. Four types of semantic 'extension'

18. Metaphor and metonymy in semantic extension

    Chapter 5. Applications I: English

19. Introduction
20. The domain of P/I in English
21. Sources of examples
22. Some methodological preliminaries
23. Polysemous extensions of English P/I verbs

24. Summary of means of extension: strike

    Chapter 6. Applications II: Warlpiri

25. Introduction
26. A brief grammatical sketch
27. Three types of 'polysemy'
28. Result Orientation in Warlpiri verbs
29. The domain of P/I in Warlpiri
30. Pakarni
31. Pinyi
32. Luwarni
33. Pantirni
34. Pajirni
35. Katirni

36. Parntarni

    Chapter 7. Conclusion: description and explanantion in semantics
    References