中日兩國語言方位詞「西～」之認知多義構造

Processing of metaphor has long been studied due to implications on human cognition. But less has been explored as to its relationship with lexical access. This is important, because comprehension of conventional metaphors fundamentally hinges on activation of lexicalized metaphorical meanings, but early lexical access models rarely consider a distinction between literal and metaphorical meanings. This study attempts to bring these two lines of research together by investigating processing of lexical metaphors, i.e., metaphorical polysemy (e.g., “pressure”) based on Giora’s (2003) graded salience hypothesis. The graded salience hypothesis states that salient meanings, i.e., “more frequent, more familiar, or more conventional” meanings, are always initially accessed in context. Giora’s model differs from previous models because it comprehensively interprets lexical access as well as figurative language processing, thus receiving much attention in literature (Gibbs, 2001). But it has two major problems: (1) Vague definition of salience, particularly its relationship with frequency, and (2) Unclear criteria for semantic analysis and meaning distinction. To address these issues, this thesis combined a corpus linguistic approach and recent cognitive semantic theories with psycholinguistic experiments. I distinguished sense-level meanings from facet-level meanings based on Chinese Wordnet and calculate their sense frequencies in corpus. In one offline word association task and two online cross-modal lexical priming tasks, I found: Salient, sense-level literal meanings cannot be sufficiently activated in metaphorically-biased contexts. This contradicted the graded salience hypothesis’s prediction but corresponded to Ahrens et al.’s (1998) and Croft and Cruse’s (2004) lexical semantic theories that sense-level meanings cannot coexist in the same context. The study thus has significant implications on the graded salience hypothesis and for metaphor and lexical access research in general; particularly, a refined lexical semantic analysis based on cognitive linguistic theories is necessary. Besides, the results shed light on the relationship between frequency and salience, i.e., how corpus reflects human cognition, as well as how cognitive semantic theories can refine interpretations in psycholinguistic studies. Therefore, the study is expected to have a cross-domain contribution to the general field of cognitive science.

Polysemy is a well-known fact about language. This study focuses on describing the concept and the extended senses of lexeme hot found in the corpus. The data taken from the corpus show that lexeme hot contains more than one semantic representation. This study aims at finding out the prototypical meaning, the extended senses and the relation between the prototypical meaning and the extended senses. First, the paper discusses the literal meaning of hot from its componential analysis, which will be supported by the Natural Semantic Metalanguage. After elaborating the prototypical meaning of the lexeme hot, this paper elaborates the extended senses of the lexeme and the motivation grounding the various types of these senses. Finally, it analyses the relation of the literal and the extended senses of the word by drawing the semantic networks. This research elaborates 10 extended senses of the word hot found in the corpus. The prototypical meaning of the word indicates a “very high degree of temperature”. It is a scale used to describe high degree of temperature. The senses of lexeme hot are mostly motivated by metaphoric extension, in which hot is used to describe a scale to measure other things. The relation of the senses enables us to draw the semantic network of the polysemy of lexeme hot. DOI: https://doi.org/10.24071/llt.2014.170107

The aim of this thesis is to draw the insights from Cognitive Linguistics to examine the grammar of Mandarin resultative verbs by zooming in on the specific class of V-kai constructions. With a bottom-up empirical approach, the present study first scrutinizes systematically the usage patterns pertinent to V-kai resultative verbs based on corpus data. Then the multiple, related meanings of postverbal –kai observed from the usage of V-kai complex verbs are examined. Finally, the taxonomy of V-kai constructions has been established according to their similarities and variations in syntax, semantics and pragmatics. Firstly, this study adopts a corpus-oriented usage-based approach to the distribution and productivity of V-kai resultative verbs, applying the quantitative techniques of both collocational and frequency analysis. By classifying the verbal collocates of –kai on the basis of their associated semantic frames, this study has recognized regular patterns of meaning integration in V-kai resultative verbs. Moreover, the observation that the verbal collocations within V-kai resultative verbs come in different strengths accords with the experience-driven, probabilistic view of grammatical generalizations. The frequency analysis conducted in this study further indicates that while high token frequency results in lexicalization of V-kai complex verbs, high type frequency leads to schematization of V-kai constructions. Accordingly, the routinized patterns of V-kai schemas that vary in their specificity and generality serve as a representative illustration of the continuum between lexicon and grammar that characterizes a usage-based conception of language. In addition, following the model of Principled Polysemy, this thesis has identified the Sanctioning Sense and four distinct senses of the postverb –kai in resultative verbs, constructing a radial semantic network to explain the underlying cognitive-pragmatic principles of its meaning extensions. Specifically, we have illuminated the significance of perspective-taking as well as real-world force dynamics in the conceptual structure of Mandarin resultative verbs. Moreover, this study has shown that, while –kai pertains to four conventionalized lexical concepts, the exact interpretation assigned to the postverb is constrained and delimited by its sentential context. In other words, we have unveiled the distributed and context-sensitive nature of the meaning construction of Mandarin resultative verbs. From a constructionist point of view, this study has argued that, on the basis of the family resemblances in their forms and meanings, V-kai complex verbs constitute a family of constructions that can be classified into four types of resultatives. Different types of V-kai constructions are found to involve conceptual conflation of events across distinct domains and thus pertain to different interpretations. We also observe that at the level of linguistic expression, –kai determines most of the complement structure, aspectual structure, upshot of the clauses V-kai constructions occur in, which point to the conceptual saliency of the postverb in macro-events expressed by V-kai resultative verbs. In sum, this case study illuminates the conceptual basis for the taxonomy of Mandarin resultative verbs in general. It is hoped that the findings of this comprehensive study specifically on V-kai constructions can elucidate the systematic, cognitive-functional properties of resultative verb generally and further our understanding to the authentic usage of these productive grammatical templates in Mandarin Chinese.

This study focuses on the semantic change and development of the word婊biǎo, which is once used as an expletive, and then has developed a predicate usage in the modern era. We apply not only the model of Principled Polysemy (Evans 2005) to illustrate the semantic network of 婊biǎo, but the Invited Inferencing Theory (Traugott and Dasher 2002) for its semantic change as well as some possible cultural and social factors. In addition, we compare and contrast how the word is used (e.g., the semantic prosody, the distribution of syntactic categories) in two registers—PTT forum and newspapers, enables us to understand more about the influence of the subculture on the main culture. Through the analysis, we illustrate not only the relation between language and culture but how cognitive mechanisms function during semantic change. Moreover, we provide a complete description and semantic network for the word 婊biǎo, which complements the research gap of Chinese study on this word.

This paper focuses on a problem which has been the object of numerous studies centered mainly on Germanic languages, and which concerns general linguistics : determining to what extent the meaning of a derivative can be predicted from the meaning of the base. The author attempts to answer this question by taking the Romagnese dialect as an example. By observing 232 Romagnol deverbatives (corresponding to pairs of verbs derived from a single noun with variations in the prefix), it was possible to establish that the meaning of 76% of them can be predicted from the base noun. The main causes of idiosyncrasy are : flaws in the lexical system (homonymy, polysemy), the phenomenon of transference of denomination (metaphor, metonymy), chance events linked to the history of lexicon (modification of originally regular meaning, introduction of units from other systems, etc.). This relatively high rate of readability seems to correct the somewhat chaotic view on derivation proposed by English and American linguists and to accord with the conclusions of scholars (Rainer, Corbin) who have measured the semantic predictability of derivatives in Romance languages

One of the fundamental issues of semantics is polysemy, a topic that has been approached from different positions over the years (Bolinger 1965, Kempson 1977, Pottier 1977). However, one of the most interesting positions that addresses this issue is that of cognitive semantics (Lakoff 1987, Langacker 1991), since it proposes that the different meanings of a word are not given in a random way, but that there is a conceptual basis from which they start by losing and gaining semantic traits through the mechanisms of metaphor and metonymy. This work presents an analysis of the verb PASAR, one of the movement verbs in Spanish with the greatest number of meanings (Morero 2007). Based on the principles of cognitive semantics, the analysis shows that the broad polysemy of the verb PASAR does not occur in a random way, but rather responds to a categorial systematicity.

The present study examines the semantic structure of a specific class of Japanese verbs within the framework of Cognitive Linguistics. The verbs in question are highly polysemous and assumed to be centered around a particular spatial or force-dynamic schema – hence the name image schema verbs. Further, they partake in verb-verb compounding as grammatical “auxiliaries” (V2s) which functionally resemble the particles of English and German verb particle constructions (VPCs). Over the course of five case studies it is shown that the respective V2s are inherently meaningful and that their senses are motivated by the same image schematic structures that motivate the senses of the simplex. Thus, simplex and V2 are entangled in a complex network of family resemblences. Mechanisms of meaning extension such as metaphor, metonymy, and image schema transformation are examined in some detail and often from a cross-linguistic point of view. Rejecting a principled division between lexicon and grammar in favor of the symbolic continuum hypothesis, argument structure phenomena are then reexamined and reframed as issues of cognitive prominence. In the same spirit, the traditional dichotomy of “lexical” vs “grammatical” V-V compounds, a staple of Japanese linguistics, is challenged from a usage-based perspective. Based on the results of the case studies, the thesis closes with a brief cross-cultural inquiry into embodied cognition, showing that directly embodied source domains tend to have similar metaphorical scope in Japanese and German.

A set of 300 most frequent nouns has been extracted from the Russian National Corpus. Then, each method or resource, including RuThes, produced at most five hypernyms, if possible. In case it is not possible, missing answers treated as empty results. This resulted in 9 322 unique non-empty subsumption pairs that have been passed for crowdsourcing annotation on the Yandex.Toloka microtask platform. Each pair has been annotated by seven different annotators whose mother tongue is Russian and the age is at least 20 by February 1, 2017. The layout of the human intelligence task (HIT) design assumes the direct answer to a simple question: does the given pair of words represent a meaningful is-a relation? Since the crowd workers are not expert lexicographers and this question might be difficult for them, it has been rephrased as “Is it correct that a kitten is a kind of mammal ?” (in Russian). The answers have been aggregated using the Yandex.Toloka proprietary answer aggregation mechanism. As the result, 3 940 out of 9 322 pairs have been annotated as positive while the rest 5 382 have been annotated as negative. Interestingly, the workers were more confident in negative answers rather than in the positive ones. These negative answers are extremely useful for both training and testing different relation extraction methods. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first dataset of this kind made for the Russian language using microtask-based crowdsourcing.

As many scholars have stated metaphors are not only a piece of literary work but also represent the experiences and cognitions in a human’s mind (Lakoff, 1992; Gibbs & O’Brien, 1990; Goatly, 2000; Gibbs, 2002; Kovecses, 2002). To connect with the recent hottest topic in the world, this thesis studies the metaphorical expressions in daily life, especially focusing on the Chinese word yin2 銀 ‘silver’. We will further compare and contrast our results with Huang’s (2009) study of jin1 金 ‘gold’. The study uses Lakoff and Turner’s (1989) Great Chain Metaphor and Fauconnier & Turner’s (1998) Conceptual Integration Network as the theoretical frameworks to answer the following research questions: (1) How is yin2銀categorized in fixed expressions? (2) How is yin2 銀categorized in metaphor clusters? (3) Are the categorizations of yin2 銀 in fixed expressions and metaphor clusters similar to each other or mutually exclusive? (4) What are the similarities and differences between yin2 銀and jin1 金 on cognitive viewpoint? Through dictionary sources, Web edition of Ministry of Education Chinese dictionary, Great Dictionary, and the database source, Newspapers in Taiwan, yin2 銀 metaphorical expressions within the current decade are used to conduct the research. The results demonstrate that (a) there are five basic categories of yin2 銀 fixed expressions as YIN IS A PERSON, YIN IS AN ANIMAL, YIN IS A PLANT, YIN IS AN OBJECT and YIN IS NATURAL THING. (b) There are also five basic categories in yin2 銀 metaphor clusters. They are YIN IS A FARMER, YIN IS A BIRD, YIN IS A FLOWER and TREE, YIN IS A BULLET and YIN IS A STAR. (c) The categorizations of yin2銀fixed expressions and metaphor clusters are similar to each other. Via frequency test, the five categories of yin2 銀 fit within the model of the Great Chain Metaphor which entails that living beings, things and literary works in this world follow certain rules. (d) The results show that yin2 銀 and jin1 金 are similar to each other on their solid concept, such as YIN IS A OBJECT and JIN IS MEDICINE. On the other hand, both terms are different from each other on their abstract concept as YIN REPRESENTS NUMBER TWO but JIN REPRESENTS NUMBER ONE. These metaphorical similarities and differences between yin2 銀 ‘silver’ and jin1 金 ‘gold’ reflect our relationship, cognition and judgment with the world.

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Keyword plays a significant role in various fields of natural language processing. For Chinese natural language processing, the polysemy and synonym have always been a major problem that troubles researchers. Traditional statistics-based approach, such as KEA, simply calculates the frequencies of appearance, without taking into account the relationships between the words. In this paper, a synonym Chinese keyword extraction method SKEA with word meaning disambiguation using Hidden Markov Model is proposed. This method projects maps from the vector space into semantic space, which achieves the dimensionality reduction of texts. At the same time, it improves the the KEA position weight formula, and proposes a new keyword feature selection criteria. Finally, the paper compares SKEA method and KEA method using multiple controlled experiments, SKEA has an average accuracy of 74.6%, which is 5.2% higher than the KEA method, that proves SKEA is a better Chinese keyword extraction method.

This study incorporates a cognitive, functional, and discourse approach to explore the discourse-pragmatic functions of jieguo in spoken Mandarin Chinese. In contemporary Mandarin Chinese, jieguo is a polysemy layering with verbal (‘to fruit’), nominal (‘conclusion; ending’), and connective uses, an indicator of the residue of grammaticalization. Of particular interest to this study is the connective jieguo, whose extended functions in spoken discourse still lack an integrated account in spite of a few research efforts that either based their analyses on written data or restricted their focus to one single dimension of functions. It is thus the aim of this study to comprehensively investigate the functioning of jieguo in talk-in-interaction. Based on over 10 hours of naturally-occurring conversations of Mandarin Chinese spoken in Taiwan, this study yields two major findings. First, in line with previous studies, our study suggests that jieguo in contemporary Mandarin Chinese predominantly functions as a counter-expectation marker. Going one step further, it is found that when the counter-expectation function extends to operate at a more global level of conversations, it serves to mark the turning point and projects the climax of an episode. Second, in addition to the counter-expectation function, jieguo is also found to perform both interactional and conversation-structuring functions that reveal the dynamic interaction between the speaker and addressee in a story telling event. Interactionally, jieguo is used to signal the anticipation of an episode ending. The addressee uses jieguo to confirm his role as a participant in a story telling process by expressing his anticipation of the outcome or climax of the episode being narrated. Conversational structure wise, jieguo is used by a story-teller to mark the ending of an extended episode or indicate the transition of discourse topics. These functions serve to encode the speaker’s metatextual attitude on the hierarchical structuring of conversations and narratives, and reveal the speaker and addressee’s awareness of each other as a participant in a story telling event. The findings of this study contribute to at least three aspects. First, the counter-expectation function of jieguo complements our understanding of the class of counter-expectation markers in Mandarin Chinese. Second, our analysis acknowledges the important role of spontaneous interactional linguistic data, especially conversations in contemporary linguistic study. By analyzing the sophisticated linguistic cues available in the context of conversations and the intricate interaction between interlocutors, we are able to notice and further explore functions that are hardly attested in written data. Last but most importantly, the dynamic discourse-pragmatic functions of jieguo thus lend supportive evidence to the emergent view of grammar, in which linguistic structures/meanings are seen as adaptive, ever-evolving, and constantly being negotiated in discourse practice.

The prevalence of obesity and its associated negative health consequences are a significant public health concern. Recent research has demonstrated an association between mid life obesity and increased risk of later life dementia. This worrying relationship has prompted investigation and identification of an association between obesity and cognitive impairment in mid life. However, many questions remain regarding the domains of cognition affected; the independent contribution of obesity to cognitive function above and beyond obesity related comorbidities; and the subjective experience of such impairment in individuals with obesity. A series of three studies addressed these identified limitations of the literature. A systematic review assessed evidence of domain specific cognitive impairment, and the independent contribution of obesity to cognitive function in mid life adults (Aim 1). Seventeen articles were reviewed, with evidence of obesity related cognitive impairment in the domains of intellectual functioning, psychomotor performance and speed, visual construction, concept formation and set shifting, and decision making. However, as few studies considered comorbidities relevant to investigating an independent link, evidence regarding an independent relationship between obesity and cognitive function was limited. The remaining two empirical studies of this thesis examined a sample of 69 treatment seeking individuals with obesity and 65 healthy weight individuals (matched for age and gender). Individuals with obesity were recruited consecutively from a private surgical weight loss clinic in Melbourne, Australia. The healthy weight control group were volunteers recruited from the general community. Participants completed a range of clinical health, psychological, and neuropsychological measures. The first empirical paper assessed domain specific cognitive functioning in adults with obesity (Aim 2) and the independent contribution of obesity to this performance (Aim 3). Individuals with obesity demonstrated poorer cognitive performance (independent of education) compared to healthy weight control participants in psychomotor performance and speed, verbal learning and memory, complex attention, semantic verbal fluency, working memory, and concept formation and set shifting. Obesity related impairments remained significant in each of these domains (except verbal memory) following control for obesity related comorbidities (e.g., mood, sleep, and cardiovascular disease risk factors). The second empirical paper employed a self report questionnaire to investigate the subjective experience of cognitive impairment in adults of obese and healthy weight, and the variables associated with these reports (Aim 4). The majority of both obese and healthy weight participants reported low levels of self-reported cognitive dysfunction, with no differences demonstrated between groups. Self reported cognitive dysfunction was not associated with objective cognitive performance, but with depression and anxiety symptoms in both groups and fatigue and sleepiness in the healthy weight group. In multivariate analyses, anxiety was the only significant independent predictor of self reported cognitive dysfunction in both obese and healthy weight individuals. Overall, this thesis adds to the growing evidence of cognitive impairment in adults with obesity, along with providing initial evidence that obesity independently contributes to this performance. Findings that individuals with obesity report similar levels of cognitive dysfunction compared to healthy weight individuals indicate that these early cognitive deficits may not be subjectively experienced during mid life. Further research however, is required to clarify the brain regions and mechanisms underlying obesity related cognitive impairment, and confirm the clinical significance of this impairment. Ultimately, the long term aim of this research should be to examine whether mid life weight loss can improve mid life obesity related cognitive impairment and attenuate late life dementia risk. This will be particularly important in the context of the growing levels of obesity and an ageing population.

Design has been framed as a driver of innovation through product meaning, but it falls short when it comes to dedicated knowledge and methods directly applicable into design practices. Structured by Design Research Methodology (DRM) (Blessing and Chakrabarti 2009), this thesis combines exploratory research with practice-based design research. This thesis presents a literature review covering design studies, psychology, cognitive semantics, linguistics, marketing, innovation management and new product development. Together combined these have been used to develop a new framework of ‘product meaning’ consisting of 4 definitions: meaning as conceptualisation, as importance, as intention, and as representation. The framework has been used to demonstrate that different types of meaning are utilised throughout different stages of product development. Meaning as conceptualisation is identified as fundamental, and the most suitable, for design practice engaged in product meaning innovation. Three strategies of innovation of product meaning through product re-purposing are identified. Furthermore, from the field of cognitive science, theories and methods such as concept categorisation, thematic roles and conceptual blending are used as analysis tools for the selected 6 examples of innovative new meaning products. The structure of meaning innovations has been identified to consist of seven distinctive elements. Ten common characteristics of new meaning innovations are identified and, additionally, an exploratory method of current meanings of products is presented. Moreover, through engagement in practice-based design research a new meaning-driven design process has been developed. The findings from this research have been combined into a new design platform for an approach to meaning innovation and evaluated with experienced designers.

Doğal dillerde sözlüksel muğlaklığın iki türü bulunmaktadır. Birincisi, farklı anlamların birbirleriyle ilişkili olmadığı eşadlılık durumu, ikincisi ise farklı anlamların ilişkili olduğu çok anlamlılık durumudur. Kelimelerin farklı anlamları arasındaki ilişkiler anlam kavramına nasıl yaklaşmamız gerektiği konusunda belirleyici bir rol oynamaktadır. Doğal dillerdeki çok anlamlılık olgusu biçimsel ve bilişsel anlambilim geleneklerinin arasındaki karşıtlıkta önemli bir rol oynamaktadır. Biçimsel anlambilim, mantık ve bilgisayar biliminin de yardımıyla, anlamı öznel deneyimlerden olabildiğince ayırarak modellerken, bilişsel anlambilim ise dilsel anlamın deneyimlerimizle bir bütün oluşturduğunu iddia etmektedir. Bilişsel anlambilim dilsel ifadeleri anlamlandırma sürecinin arkasındaki mekanizmayı, diğer bir ifadeyle, yaşam formunun dilsel anlama katkısını ortaya çıkarmayı hedeflemektedir. Dilsel anlam, biçimsel bir şekilde, deneyimlerimizden, kavramsal derinliklerimizden, bilişsel süreçlerimizin bütününden bağımsız olarak incelenebilir mi? Bilişsel anlambilimciler bu soruya çok anlamlılık üzerinden cevap vermektedirler: Bilişsel anlambilimcilere göre, çok anlamlılık, deneyimlerimiz ile dilsel anlam arasında bulunan güçlü ilişkilerin bir yansımasıdır. Dolayısıyla, dilsel anlamın insan deneyimlerinden bağımsız incelenemeyeceğini iddia etmektedirler. Bu çalışmada bilişsel anlambilimin iddiaları çok anlamlılık üzerinden ele alınmaktadır.