The Semantics of Polysemy: Reading Meaning in English and Warlpiri

ISBN-13: 9783110183979 / Angielski / Twarda / 2005 / 503 str.

Nick Riemer

Opis

This comparative investigation of the polysemous senses of English and Warlpiri percussion/impact (‛hitting') verbs lays out a novel approach to the study of polysemy in cognitive linguistics. The book's theoretical chapters develop an interpretative rather than a scientific vision of the activity of semantics, problematizing the conceptualist and reductive orientations characteristic of many semantic models. The empirical chapters present a typology of the polysemous senses of English and Warlpiri percussion/impact (or P/I) verbs based on just four types of semantic operation, under which the phenomenon of polysemy emerges as amenable to strikingly concise description. The book is addressed primarily to students and researchers in semantics, cognitive linguistics, English, and Australian languages.

Spis treści

Chapter 1. Cognition and linguistic science
1. Introduction
2. Meaning and interpretation
3. Meaning and conceptualization: Cognitive Semantics

Chapter 2. Meaning, definition, and paraphrase
1. NSM and meaning
2. Definition and semantic theory
3. Grounding meaning
4. NSM-specific issues
5. More general issues
6. Implications

Chapter 3. Polysemy and the evidence for semantic facts
1. Introduction
2. Polysemy, monosemy and the natural tendency of semantic description
3. Proposed evidence of semantic structure
4. Lexical categorization, semantic relations and referent typicality

Chapter 4. Metaphor, metonymy and the theory of polysemy
1. Introduction
2. The present account
3. The basic P/I scenario
4. Four types of semantic 'extension'
5. Metaphor and metonymy in semantic extension

Chapter 5. Applications I: English
1. Introduction
2. The domain of P/I in English
3. Sources of examples
4. Some methodological preliminaries
5. Polysemous extensions of English P/I verbs
6. Summary of means of extension: strike

Chapter 6. Applications II: Warlpiri
1. Introduction
2. A brief grammatical sketch
3. Three types of 'polysemy'
4. Result Orientation in Warlpiri verbs
5. The domain of P/I in Warlpiri
6. Pakarni
7. Pinyi
8. Luwarni
9. Pantirni
10. Pajirni
11. Katirni
12. Parntarni

Chapter 7. Conclusion: description and explanantion in semantics
References

O autorze

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