Polysemy: Pragmatics and sense conventions

Carston, Robyn

doi:10.1111/mila.12329

Cited by 50 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 66 publications

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“…However, one can model these relations once their use in context is analysed. Hence, our view appears symmetrical to but perhaps compatible with pragmatically oriented views of polysemy (Falkum 2011;Falkum and Vicente 2015;Carston 2020). Our view places a greater emphasis on the role of grammar and lexicon in polysemy.…”

Section: Figure 6 |supporting

confidence: 77%

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The Polysemy and Hyponymy of Mandarin Spatial Prepositions and Localisers: Building Semantic Maps from the Ground up

2021

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The goal of this paper is to offer an overview of polysemy patterns in Mandarin’s chief spatial categories: prepositions (e.g., zai) and simple and compound localisers (respectively, qian and qian-mian). The paper presents data from an elicitation study that shows how speakers can access multiple senses and hyponymy relations for the vocabulary items belonging to these categories. The paper shows that while prepositions can potentially cover different spatial relations in the opportune context (e.g., zai “at”), localisers select increasingly specific senses (e.g., qian “front” and qian-mian “front side”). The paper also shows how speakers can access hyponym-like sense relations emerging from these patterns (e.g., qian-bian covering a more specific sense than qian). Semantic dimensions such as “distance” and “location type” determine the strength of these hyponymy relations. The paper offers an account of these data based on the “semantics maps” model, which captures polysemy and hyponymy patterns via the clusters of locations they refer to. It is shown that this novel model is consistent with previous works on the polysemy of spatial categories and sheds light on how Mandarin offers a unique organisation of this domain.

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Section: Figure 6 |supporting

confidence: 77%

“…What counts as a grammatical/lexical property for some speakers (e.g., zai covering cardinal senses) may become a pragmatic inference for other speakers (cf. Cruse 2004;Murphy 2010;Glynn 2012Glynn , 2014Glynn , 2016Carston 2020).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Polysemy and Hyponymy of Mandarin Spatial Prepositions and Localisers: Building Semantic Maps from the Ground up

2021

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“…An individual's pragmatic lexicon, then, is a store of words that she has acquired as a result of her communication history. Most of these words are polysemous, that is, they have multiple meanings whose interrelatedness is transparent to the individual, forming a family of senses (Recanati, 2017, Carston 2019. So, for instance, the noun 'face' has at least the following five senses: body part, facial expression (as in 'to put on a brave face'), apparent character/personality (as in 'she has many faces'), front surface (of an object), metaphorical front surface (as in 'on the face of it'), sense of self/ego (as in 'he didn't have the face to ask her out').…”

Section: The Pragmatic Lexicon Polysemy and The Interface With Syntaxmentioning

confidence: 99%

Words: Syntactic structures and pragmatic meanings

Carston

2022

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1 My focus is entirely on the substantive vocabulary, typically nouns, verbs, and adjective, which have a conceptual meaning that is stable but context-sensitive and flexible, with ever-evolving families of related senses. Grammatical or functional items are quite different -they are small closed sets of items e.g. inflectional affixes (for number, tense, aspect), derivational affixes (for nominalization, verbalization, etc.), articles, demonstratives, quantifiers, modals and others. These are of critical importance to the meaning of the structures in which they occur (sentences, phrases, sometimes 'words'), but their semantics is quite different from that of the substantive items -it is rigid, formal, non-conceptual -and has to be given a separate treatment.

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“…Bližšie k polysémii v súčasnej filozofii jazyka pozri napr. Vicente, Falkum (2017), Carston (2021), Devitt (2021) a Racanati (2017). 2 Pragmatika je systematický výskum významu na základe používania jazyka alebo v závislosti od neho.…”

Section: Pragmatika Vo Filozofii Jazyka: Téza O Jazykovej Nedourčenostiunclassified

Pojem verzus koncepcia spravodlivosti v analytickej filozofii práva (2. časť)

Neština¹

2022

filozofia

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The article is a continuation of the author's contribution Concept vs. Conception of Justice in Analytic Philosophy of Law (Filozofia 2022/4). It focuses on explaining polysemy as a kind of linguistic indeterminacy that constitutes one of the main reasons why courts come to interpret legal texts. The study discusses polysemy from the perspective of the theory of language used by A Marmor in his theory of interpretation. The author shows the limits of semantic analysis in law and the role of normative presuppositions, which influence the final outcome of judicial decision-making not only in terms of content, but are also important for the choice of formal means that are applied in the context of this decision-making.

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Polysemy: Pragmatics and sense conventions

Cited by 50 publications

References 66 publications

The Polysemy and Hyponymy of Mandarin Spatial Prepositions and Localisers: Building Semantic Maps from the Ground up

The Polysemy and Hyponymy of Mandarin Spatial Prepositions and Localisers: Building Semantic Maps from the Ground up

Words: Syntactic structures and pragmatic meanings

Pojem verzus koncepcia spravodlivosti v analytickej filozofii práva (2. časť)

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