Chapter 16. Why it’s hard to construct ad hoc number concepts
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Mira Ariel
Abstract
Lexical meanings are routinely adjusted in order to evoke ad hoc concepts. But number words pose a unique challenge. Carston (2002) discusses two relevant interpretative processes in this connection. Broadening (as in metaphorical uses) introduces an ad hoc concept by incorporating interpretations that fall outside the lexeme’s linguistic meaning, and narrowing (e.g., interpreting finger as ‘index finger’) restricts the lexical meaning to a subset of its senses. I here argue that number words impose restrictions on the construction of such ad hoc concepts: (i) (nonround) number words cannot undergo narrowing, and (ii) when broadened (interpreted as ‘approximately N’), number words typically require explicit marking (e.g., about N). Both restrictions stem from a single fact: Number words lack a prototype category structure (Lakoff 1972; Rosch & Mervis 1975). I support these claims with corpus analyses (The Santa Barbara Corpus of Spoken American English, The Longman Corpus of Spoken American English and the British National Corpus).
Abstract
Lexical meanings are routinely adjusted in order to evoke ad hoc concepts. But number words pose a unique challenge. Carston (2002) discusses two relevant interpretative processes in this connection. Broadening (as in metaphorical uses) introduces an ad hoc concept by incorporating interpretations that fall outside the lexeme’s linguistic meaning, and narrowing (e.g., interpreting finger as ‘index finger’) restricts the lexical meaning to a subset of its senses. I here argue that number words impose restrictions on the construction of such ad hoc concepts: (i) (nonround) number words cannot undergo narrowing, and (ii) when broadened (interpreted as ‘approximately N’), number words typically require explicit marking (e.g., about N). Both restrictions stem from a single fact: Number words lack a prototype category structure (Lakoff 1972; Rosch & Mervis 1975). I support these claims with corpus analyses (The Santa Barbara Corpus of Spoken American English, The Longman Corpus of Spoken American English and the British National Corpus).
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Chapter 1. Building categories in interaction 1
- Chapter 2. Ad hoc categorization in linguistic interaction 9
- Chapter 3. Categories at the interface of cognition and action 35
- Chapter 4. Category-building lists between grammar and interaction 73
- Chapter 5. Are new words predictable? 111
- Chapter 6. The Camel Humps prosodic pattern 155
- Chapter 7. Making the implicit explicit 187
- Chapter 8. Online text mapping 211
- Chapter 9. Exemplification in interaction 239
- Chapter 10. The on-line construction of meaning in Mandarin Chinese 271
- Chapter 11. Et cetera, eccetera, etc. The development of a general extender from Latin to Italian 295
- Chapter 12. Morphopragmatics of rhyming and imitative co-compounds in Russian 317
- Chapter 13. Encoding ad hoc categories in Georgian 355
- Chapter 14. French type-noun constructions based on genre 373
- Chapter 15. In a manner of speaking 415
- Chapter 16. Why it’s hard to construct ad hoc number concepts 439
- Index 463
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Chapter 1. Building categories in interaction 1
- Chapter 2. Ad hoc categorization in linguistic interaction 9
- Chapter 3. Categories at the interface of cognition and action 35
- Chapter 4. Category-building lists between grammar and interaction 73
- Chapter 5. Are new words predictable? 111
- Chapter 6. The Camel Humps prosodic pattern 155
- Chapter 7. Making the implicit explicit 187
- Chapter 8. Online text mapping 211
- Chapter 9. Exemplification in interaction 239
- Chapter 10. The on-line construction of meaning in Mandarin Chinese 271
- Chapter 11. Et cetera, eccetera, etc. The development of a general extender from Latin to Italian 295
- Chapter 12. Morphopragmatics of rhyming and imitative co-compounds in Russian 317
- Chapter 13. Encoding ad hoc categories in Georgian 355
- Chapter 14. French type-noun constructions based on genre 373
- Chapter 15. In a manner of speaking 415
- Chapter 16. Why it’s hard to construct ad hoc number concepts 439
- Index 463
