The language of literature / Terms and concepts in linguistics
Talk 1
Pelyvás, 27th September, 2013
I. Language, linguistics (and the language of literature)
1. Compositionality
Competence vs. performance
Saussure, Chomsky
Linguistic competence: an ideal native speaker’s ability to create and
understand sentences that he has never heard before
System linguistics
The autonomy of linguistic theory / of levels of linguistic description
(something stable at the core, e.g. Verbs of propositional attitude)
RGY: …. philosophical problems surrounding propositional attitude constructions, problems that
are not simple but that don’t have to be solved in advance of making progress on most other kinds
of making progress on most other kinds of constructions ... (Partee 2005)
The theory of strict compositionality of meaning:
The meaning of a composite expression is the function of the component parts
and of the way they are composed.
RGY:Meaning is to be captured through reference, and is characterized in terms of truthconditions.
RGY: Mr Wittgenstein is concerned with the conditions for a logically perfect language - not
that any language is logically perfect, or that we believe ourselves capable, here and now, of
constructing a logically perfect language, but that the whole function of language is to have
meaning, and it only fulfils this function in proportion as it approaches to the ideal language
which we postulate.(Russel 1922)
Strict compositionality vs. motivatedness: The problem of metaphor, metonymy
John rode into the sunset
Mary has a cigarette in her mouth
A
B
A
B
C
C
Where does the rest of C come from?
(Speaker-conceptualizer’s ‘non-linguistic knowledge/experience)
How much do you lose?
No longer system linguistics (CAN you describe the system without its use?)
A usage-based system
2. System linguistics vs. cognitive linguistics
Generative grammar
How are linguistic forms related?
Conceptualization (meaning)
Transformations
Form1
F2
F3
F4 ….
How are these related?
(1)
The dog bit the postman
(2)
The postman was bitten by the dog
(3)
# The postman bit the dog
Cognitive grammar
Language is a human product and it bears every mark of this fact.
Usage-based system (cf. above)
(Grammar: a structured inventory of conventional linguistic units  entrenchment)
Non-transformational
Different linguistic forms come from deifferent conceptualizations
Conceptualization1
C2
C3
C4 ….
How are these related?
symbolic relationship
Form1
F2
F3
F4 ….
How are these related?
Alternative conceptualizations (related in a linguistically interesting way???)
(4)
John loaded hay onto the cart
source – path – goal (atelic)
(5)
John loaded the cart with hay
filling a container (telic)
(6)
John was stealing hay ???
CART:
location
/
container /
vehicle
/
etc.
Idealized Cognitive Models
ICM: a situation; its participants and the relationships holding among them as construed by
the conceptualizer. An active process, ‘tunung in’.
I saw a little girl who was moving a counter for some reason and I don’t know what the
heck that was about. She was pressing against it okay. In the beginning I saw a white
car with a red vinyl top and then this little girl was looking in the store was looking in
the trash can or something and then she turned around and she went on she talked to
her mother and her father and neither one was listening to her
(A psychotic patient’s narration of a scene of a little
girl buying ice-cream: Chaika & Alexander 1986)
An exercise (inversion after preposed negatives, downward entailing contexts?):
(5)
(6)
(7)
(8)
(9)
(10)
(11)
(12)
Never (I HAVE SEEN) such behaviour.
At no time (HE LEAVE) the building.
In no time (HE LEAVE) the building.
By no means (HE WILL BE ALLOWED) to stay in the country.
With no help (HE MOVED) the piano.
With no amount of help (HE MOVED) the piano.
After virtually no discussion (THE BILL WAS PASSED).
For no reason (HARRY WOULD BEAT) his wife.
The rule?
RGY: Note that this semantic feature is not evidently conceptually grounded, and it is
clearly not subject to negotiation – there is only one interpretation of monotonic decrease,
and that is not fuzzy. (If you had eaten any apples, ...)