Meaning, degrees of abstraction and shared knowledge
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Elena Sánchez-López
Abstract
Human communication has proven to be a complex, multi-layered phenomenon, embracing social and individual, abstract and concrete, conceptual and referential elements. This complexity has found its reflection in the several linguistic branches devoted to its study: cognitive and functional linguistics, semantics, pragmatics, sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, discourse analysis, conversational analysis, among others. Far from excluding each other, these different strands can be complementary and contribute to a better understanding of human communication and the semiotic system attached to it. The main objective of this chapter is to bring together the knowledge on human communication, language and meaning construction in order to relate meaning with its different levels of abstraction and pinpoint a definition of shared knowledge.
Abstract
Human communication has proven to be a complex, multi-layered phenomenon, embracing social and individual, abstract and concrete, conceptual and referential elements. This complexity has found its reflection in the several linguistic branches devoted to its study: cognitive and functional linguistics, semantics, pragmatics, sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, discourse analysis, conversational analysis, among others. Far from excluding each other, these different strands can be complementary and contribute to a better understanding of human communication and the semiotic system attached to it. The main objective of this chapter is to bring together the knowledge on human communication, language and meaning construction in order to relate meaning with its different levels of abstraction and pinpoint a definition of shared knowledge.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Preface vii
- What everybody knows 1
- Revisiting verbs and plurality 19
- Grammaticalization of the periphrasis tenir + participle in Old Catalan (13th–16th centuries) 41
- Secondary senses of the verb afrancesar/se throughout history 77
- (No) faltaba/faltaría más 99
- The present tense as a mark of evidentiality and intersubjectivity in Spanish 131
- Quantifiers of factual proximity and counterfactuality in Spanish and other Romance languages 149
- Solipsistic and inter-subjective attitude reports 171
- Acostumar ( a/de ) + inf . From the habitual aspect to the generic aspect 203
- Epistemic futures and aspect 231
- Time after time 263
- Conditionality and the verbal mood in Spanish phraseological units 291
- Meaning, degrees of abstraction and shared knowledge 307
- The role of context in imperative form choice 327
- Potential and presuppositional predicative complements in Old Catalan 351
- The vectorial analysis model and modal-temporal multi-functionality in the Spanish verb system 371
- Index 395
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Preface vii
- What everybody knows 1
- Revisiting verbs and plurality 19
- Grammaticalization of the periphrasis tenir + participle in Old Catalan (13th–16th centuries) 41
- Secondary senses of the verb afrancesar/se throughout history 77
- (No) faltaba/faltaría más 99
- The present tense as a mark of evidentiality and intersubjectivity in Spanish 131
- Quantifiers of factual proximity and counterfactuality in Spanish and other Romance languages 149
- Solipsistic and inter-subjective attitude reports 171
- Acostumar ( a/de ) + inf . From the habitual aspect to the generic aspect 203
- Epistemic futures and aspect 231
- Time after time 263
- Conditionality and the verbal mood in Spanish phraseological units 291
- Meaning, degrees of abstraction and shared knowledge 307
- The role of context in imperative form choice 327
- Potential and presuppositional predicative complements in Old Catalan 351
- The vectorial analysis model and modal-temporal multi-functionality in the Spanish verb system 371
- Index 395
