Научная статья на тему 'Semantic features in case theory: objections and corrections'

Semantic features in case theory: objections and corrections Текст научной статьи по специальности «Языкознание и литературоведение»

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Ключевые слова
METAРHOR OF SPATIAL IMAGES / ГРАММАТИЧЕСКИЙ ПАДЕЖ / СЕМАНТИЧЕСКОЕ СОСТОЯНИЕ / МЕТАФОРА ПРОСТРАНСТВЕННЫХ ОТНОШЕНИЙ / GRAMMATICAL CASE / SEMANTIC STATE

Аннотация научной статьи по языкознанию и литературоведению, автор научной работы — Ilchenko Olga Sergeevna

The article considers the problems of the category of case. According to the author’s interpretation, the general meaning of grammatical case is based on primitive spatial images (IN OUT) and connected with diatheses and the category of transitivity.

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Текст научной работы на тему «Semantic features in case theory: objections and corrections»

RUSSIAN LINGUISTIC BULLETIN 1 (1) 2015

communicative task, the modality of expression, something new, what actually these speech units are created for.

Thus, classification of the term "primary category" to the words and phrases, and "secondary nomination" to the sentences respectively, is justified by comparing the words in the language system and sentences as units of speech.

Primary and secondary designation in this sense is represented differently in terms of "basic" and "modified"; "Deep" and "casual". To refer to the ability of modern languages replenish their inventory nominative, the concept of secondary nomination is introduced, which is understood as the use of phonetic shape of a primitive linguistic unit for the new labeling, i.e. the emergence of new values in a particular linguistic unit.

The results of secondary nomination are seen as derivatives of morphological structure and meaning. Methods of secondary nomination in this sense differ a lot, depending on the linguistic resources used to create new names, and the nature of this interconnection is "the name of reality."

According to the type of techniques for differentiation the following are used: 1) word formation as a regular way of creating new words and meanings; 2) syntactic transposition, in which the morphological means indicates a change in syntactic function while maintaining lexical meaning; 3) semantic transposition, which does not change the material image reinterpreted units and leads to the polysemantic words formation. By the nature of specifying the name of the validity, two types of secondary nomination are recognised - autonomous and non-autonomous (indirect).

Autonomous nomination is a secondary meaning of the words, taking on an independent nominative function and calling that a fragment of objective reality, with its features or acts being autonomous on the basis of a single name. When a nonautonomous formation of a new linguistic unit occurs through the use of combinatorial techniques, such sign unit "always refers to its referent indirectly, through semantic reference for this combination name".

Thus, the indirect secondary nomination is presented in the language in a logical form of tropes. Phrases, realized due to the constructive value, are simple nominative signs, acting as multiword equivalent of the word.

References

1. Hamad S. To Recognize is to Categorize: Cognition is Categorization. In: Handbook of Categorization, Elsevier, 2005.

2. Hamad S. To Recognize is to Categorize: Cognition is Categorization. In: Handbook of Categorization, Elsevier, 2005

3. Cifuentes Honrubia J.L. Gramatica Cognitiva. Fundamentos criticos/ J.L. Cifuentes Honrubia. - Eudema, Madrid, 1994. -254 p.

4. Talmy L. The relation of grammar to cognition / L. Talmy // Topics in Cognitive Linguistics. - Rudzka-Ostyn (ed.), 1988. - P.

165-205

5. Talmy L. Toward a Cognitive Semantics. Vol. 2: Typology and Process in Concept Structuring. [online]. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2000.

6. Taylor John R. Linguistic categorization/ John R. Taylor. - Oxford University Press, 2003. - 328 p.

Ильченко Ольга Сергеевна

Доктор филологических наук, Санкт-Петербургский государственный университет СЕМАНТИЧЕСКИЕ ПРИЗНАКИ В ТЕОРИИ ПАДЕЖА: ВОЗРАЖЕНИЯ И ПОПРАВКИ

Аннотация

В статье рассматриваются проблемы категории падежа. Общее значение грамматического падежа основывается, по мысл автора, на базовых пространственных образах (ВНЕ - ВНУТРИ) и связано с понятием диатезы и переходности глагола.

Ключевые слова: грамматический падеж, семантическое состояние, метафора пространственных отношений.

Ilchenko Olga Sergeevna

Doctor of Philology, Saint-Petersburg State University SEMANTIC FEATURES IN CASE THEORY: OBJECTIONS AND CORRECTIONS

Abstract

The article considers the problems of the category of case. According to the author’s interpretation, the general meaning of grammatical case is based on primitive spatial images (IN - OUT) and connected with diatheses and the category of transitivity.

Keywords: grammatical case, semantic state, metaрhor of spatial images.

The structural approach to the language semantics is very difficult because the scholars haven’t managed so far to find universal semantic differential features. The attempts to elicit the features belonging exclusively to the plane of content have been made by L. Hjelmslev and R. Jacobson in their well-known works on case. Although Hjelmslev’s and Jacobson’s studies were rather subjective because the authors’conclusions were based on their intuition, we cannot entirely exclude intuition from linguistic research.

Ju. N. Karaulov made an attempt to construct the objective technique in order to find the invariant cases meanings on the material of the Estonian language. He was guided by his intuition to unite several normative meanings into one common state. It was A. N. Kolmogorov’s hypothesis (“the case is a class of absolutely equivalent semantic states in relation to the object’) which aroused the fundamental supposition. If the state of two objects is equal, their lexical meanings don’t matter. Karaulov supposes that the concept ‘state’ in the adequate linguistic interpretation includes three semantic features: the direction of the action, the border of the object and interrelation of the object and the action. They form “the basis of the space of logical possibilities" [3].

Let us look at the relevance of these semantic features in regard to the content of case.

1. The feature of the action (‘direction’): toor fromthe object (is expressed explicitly or implicitly), no direction (is not expressed explicitly).

Objection. We should not include ‘the direction of the action’ in case semantics, however, many scholars do it. They usually name the following spatial relations which are present as shades of case-form meanings in actant functions: the

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RUSSIAN LINGUISTIC BULLETIN 1 (1) 2015

direction of the action from the object; the direction of the action to the object; the action (implementation of the action) is within the object (localization). However, the locative and directional meanings, according to Ch. Fillmore [5, 407], do not oppose each other, but they have surface differences which are conditioned by either the phrase structure or the type of the verb governing the noun. We should by all means take into consideration I. М. Tronskiy’s opinion [4, 75] about the accusative meaning: the feature ‘direction’ (^ ‘arrow, vector’) is expressed not by an accusative case form itself (the accusative indicates ‘immobility’), but a verbal predicate or a context. The action dwells in the object and is revealed in it. In contrast to the subject, the source of the action, which is separated from the action by two-part construction in the sentence structure, the object in the Indo-European languages is integral with the action and constitutes inalienable, but inactive possession of the action. Nearby the verb of motion the nominative means ‘the source of motion’, the accusative - not its direction, but ‘something immobile’, ‘the final point of movement’, or ‘the measure of its extent in space and time’ (the accusative of extent of space).

That is why there are no reasons to include the feature ‘direction’ in case semantics, especially if we mean the semantic state of the object. The direction of the action is not expressed by case forms, but explicitly - by verbal prefixes, by prepositions (after the verbs of motion), by voice constructions - or implicitly - the seme ‘the direction of the action from the subject to the object’ is a semantic component of the transitive verb.

2. The feature of the object (‘border’): the object is divided into parts or it participates as a whole (the border is expressed explicitly or implicitly), the feature is absent (the border is not expressed explicitly).

Objection. Aristotle noted correctly: “If something exists or in the possibility or reality as such, it is characterized by [affected] not so that one part was influenced, and the other does not, as a whole, because it is like that; [he is peculiar to test the effect] to a greater or lesser extent depending on whether it is, as such, to a greater or lesser extent” [1, 412]. Thus the action is either transferred from the subject to the object or not - tertium non datur. However, the border of the object is important in another respect (see below).

3. The feature of interrelation of the object and the action (‘connection’): the object is connected with or separated from the action (the connection is expressed explicitly or implicitly), the connection is absent (the connection is not expressed explicitly).

Correction.In semantic analyses it is necessary and sufficient for defining the state of actants to take into account interrelation of the object and the action. Let us try to show what ‘connection’ and ‘disconnection’ of the object (always conceivable as a whole) with the action (which can be directed to or from the object) means from the viewpoint of spatial relations. As is well known, these are spatial images that belong to the oldest oppositions of the structure of human psyche and make up the nucleus of grammatical categories. For the adequate analyses of the category of case it is essential to separately examine the cases relating to the different levels of the sentence semantic structure [2] - internal syntax (“basis”) and external syntax (“superstructure”) because the mathematical (not linguistic!) concept ‘state’ is represented in different ways in these two levels.

The nucleus of the proposition, its sense centre, is a subject-predicate-object structure. This integral semantic-syntactic complex (we should describe the technique of uniting its structure components as a syntactic fusion) has its own spatial correlations and forms the internal space. In this paper we have to be restricted by consideration of internal syntax semantic structure.

According to localism, abstract (syntactic) cases represent the development of spatial (semantic) cases by means of metaphoric transfer, the so-called “secondary functions” (Е. Kurilovich). А. Shakhmatov (under the influence of B. Delbruck’s ideas) defined the “original” cases meanings according to the position that abverbal cases reveal the nature of active feature modifying this dependent substance. Indeed, the term “verb”, according to A.Potebnya, correlates to ‘energy’ as a property of a thing (a subject) knowable by reflection on other things (objects). Now we can reformulate it in the following way: in the internal space the case is an indicator of the position of the object regarding the action. Therefore, the border of the object is important in spatial respect: the action can be identified within the object (IN) and beyond (OUT). These two primitive states seem to be corresponding to Kolmogorov’s interpretation of case because the strict mathematic term “state” implies “the location of the point of the system within the corresponding element of space” [3].

The notion of spatial localization of the action based on the concept‘border’ is reflected by diatheses [1]. The diatheses as a category of deep (semantic) level shows the spreading of the process which is expressed in the verbal stemin space . Space, according to Aristotle, consists of places (loci). Actants are lociwithin the internal syntax space. The ancient Indo-European diatheses (‘the position of the subject in regard to the process’) as a deep (semantic) category was complicated by the category of transitivity / intransitivity (‘the position of the object in regard to the process’). Transitivity is an “inverted” ancient diatheses appeared when the reversible perspective changed into the direct one and the former subject turned into the modern object. However, as distinct from “internal / external” (E. Benvenist) diatheses which had its marker in the verb, transitivity - in view of the fact that the verb has already been used by the subject - develops the category of object in order to receive its own marker. As the notions of ‘case’ (of the noun) and ‘diatheses’ (of the verb) are entirely symmetrical, it would be logical, on the contrary, to define the diatheses as a case of the verb. It is significant that antique linguists actually referred the definition nxoci^ (ptosis) ‘case’ not only to the noun but also to the verb.

We can find the embryo of diatheses (cases and voices) development in the verbs of exocentric semantics ‘motion in relation to place (locus)’ (Aristotle), i.e. movement.

The formation of the cases’ oppositions is related to transformation of the former opposition centrifugal / centripetal into new gradually forming morphological opposition transitivity / intransitivity in the verbal system. The understanding of the deep semantics of transitivity is the key for the understanding of the nature of grammatical cases. Transitivity / intransitivity as a metaphor of spatial relations conceptualizes transferring and localization of the activity (energy) of an animate being putting in an action (‘do’), and the purpose of the action is creating of an object or changing of its location, attitude, quality or quantity

[2].

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To sum up, the primitive spatial meanings(“IN” ~ “OUT”) play a role of “embryo”, out of which the different configurations of the noun-verb system develop gradually becoming overgrown with new, more differential shades of meaning. And the concept ‘BORDER’ is a criterion of differentiation of the meanings.

References

1. Aristotel'. Soch. v 3 t. / Aristotel'. - T. 3. - M.: Mysl', 1981. - 613 s.

2. Ilchenko, O.S. Odushevlennost' / neodushevlennost' v structure predlozhenija / O.S.Ilchenko. - SPb.: Nestor-Istoria, 2011. -

148 s.

3. Karaulov, Ju. N. K voprosu o padezhnikh universalijakh / Ju.N.Karaulov // Vestnik Moskovskogo universiteta. - 1966. -№ 6. - S. 48-60.

4. Tronskij, I.M. Obshcheindoevropejskoe jazykovoe sostojanie. Voprosy rekonstructsii / I.M.Tronskij. - 2-e izd., stereotip. - M.: Editorial URSS, 2004. - 104 s.

5. Fillmore, Ch. Delo o padezhe / Ch.Fillmore // NZL. - 1981. - Vyp. X. - S. 369-495. [Fillmore Ch. The Case for Case, 1968]

Бойко Анна Константиновна

Старший преподаватель, Донской государственный технический университет МЕТАФОРИЧЕСКАЯ ОЦЕНКА В СПОНТАННОМ ДИАЛОГЕ (КОГНИТИВНЫЙ АСПЕКТ)

Аннотация

Цель публикации: объяснить взаимосвязь между метафорой и комическим эффектом, с целью оценки понимания какие когнитивные процессы лежат в основе реализации оценочных смыслов в диалоге. В результате исследования было выявлено, что оценочная метафора приобретает комический смысл, когда внимание собеседников сконцентрировано на двух концептах, участвующих в формировании метафоры.

Ключевые слова: Спонтанная диалогическая коммуникация, концептуальная интеграция, комический эффект.

Boyko Anna Konstantinovna Senior teacher, Don State Technical University

METAPHORICAL EVALUATION IN SPONTANEOUS DIALOGUE COGNITIVE ASPECTS)

Abstract

The aim of this publication is to explore the relationship between metaphor and comic effect in order to achieve the understanding of those cognitive processes that are updated during the implementation of evaluative meanings in dialogical discourse. Analysis of dialogical speech produced in the framework of this publication, indicated that the estimated metaphor acquires comic effect, causes laughter of the participants of communication, when their attention is focused on two concepts directly involved in the modeling metaphor. Speaking subject - intentionally or unintentionally - separates the domains that are relevant for the initiation of this metaphor, specially emphasizing the differences of these domains. This creates a voltage between the two input spaces are denoted by their borders, which, in turn, leads to comic effect.

Keywords: spontaneous dialogical communication; metaphorical name; conceptual integration, comic effect.

Facts of metaphors generation and initiation of the comic effect of linguistic units have certain structural similarities. In the case of metaphoric nomination and jokes combines two incommensurable concept, but the very nature and purpose of combining in each case are different. Taking into account the structural similarity of metaphors and language units with a comical sense, will try to answer the question: in what case evaluation metaphor becomes a joke, that is, produces a comic effect in the framework of spontaneous dialogue. At the core of our research is the following hypothesis: in order for the metaphor was used in spontaneous dialogical communication in the comic function, it is necessary that the attention of the interlocutors was concentrated on two (or more) spaces entry. This process, in turn, de-automized metaphor and provides the participants with the communication opportunity to emphasize the boundaries between these spaces to provide additional comments regarding their dissimilarity.

Justification of the choice of dialogical interaction's facts between the estimated metaphor and comic effect as the object of the research

are to us the following theoretical propositions. First, linguo-cognitive theories of humor are based on identifying the corresponding effectmainly within the framework of the narrative lyrics [1, p. 17]. Research of humorous effect on the level of communication performed in the aspect conversational analysis, as a rule, focused on the structure and function of the analyzed effect, and not the laws of its production [2]. Secondly, the study of conceptual integration in the production process of metaphor in dialogical communication allows us to identify patterns of how integration is implemented in real-time conditions. This, in turn, sheds light on how the evaluation metaphor involved in spontaneous dialogue, as it is interconnected with comic effect.

Metaphorical value, actualized in the process of communication, initiated by introductory spaces, when the boundaries between these spaces reveals some tension. Thus, in example (1) we will illustrate the fusion between the two input spaces. In this case the conceptual integration of spaces creates a comic effect. In this case, the conceptual integration of the

fusion "extends" the metaphor to recreate ridiculous similarity between the two input spaces. The reaction of the other

person talks about how rarely he feels attracted to and what consequences it brings. Compare:

(1) « (1) “Tell me the phase in which there is sexual activity in your life, and the phases in which there isn’t.” His

voice was thick and raspy. How much do you see those in which there isn’t?

She really knew how to answer him: (2) “Long... ”

(3) “Tell me. ”

(4) “What is there to say? To begin with, from one time to the next I forgot what happens. For instance, I forget how it is to kiss someone, honesty... ”

(5) “You forget what you’ve learnt the previous tome?” (6) “And they are so mane... ” (7) “Isn’t it like cycling and

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