Volume 17, Issue 4

This research asked whether speakers are influenced by systematic semantic patterns in their language in forming new word meanings. We used the novel word mapping technique (Nagy and Gentner 1990) to test whether English and Spanish speakers would show effects of their differing semantic systems in inferring the meanings of novel motion verbs. We also tested for any language-specific effects in inferring novel nouns. Participants were given short passages containing either a novel noun or a novel motion verb, and were asked to infer the meaning of the novel word. The passages provided information about both the path and the manner of a novel motion event. Consistent with the semantic patterns in the respective languages, English speakers were more likely to infer a manner interpretation than a path interpretation and Spanish speakers showed the reverse pattern. Language-specific effects were not found for the meanings inferred for novel nouns.

Drawing on recent work in developmental and comparative psychology, this paper argues that demonstratives function to coordinate the interlocutors' joint focus of attention, which is one of the most basic functions of human communication. The communicative importance of demonstratives is reflected in a number of properties that together characterize them as a particular word class: In contrast to other closed-class expressions, demonstratives are universal, they are generally so old that their roots cannot be traced back to other linguistic items, they are among the earliest words that children learn, and they are closely tied to a particular gesture. Moreover, demonstratives play an important role in the organization of discourse and the diachronic evolution of grammar, which arguably is also motivated by their communicative function to establish joint attention.

In this paper I address the role of words in meaning-construction. My starting point is the observation that the ‘meanings’ associated with words are protean in nature. That is, the semantic values associated with words are flexible, open-ended and highly dependent on the utterance context in which they are embedded. In attempting to provide an account of meaning-construction that coheres with this observation I develop a cognitively-realistic theory of lexical representation and a programmatic theory of lexical concept integration. My fundamental claim is that there is a basic distinction between lexical concepts, and meaning. While lexical concepts constitute the semantic units conventionally associated with linguistic forms, and form an integral part of a language user's individual mental grammar, meaning is a property of situated usage-events, rather than words. That is, meaning is not a function of language per se, but arises from language use. I present an account of lexical concepts and the conceptual knowledge structures, cognitive models, with respect to which they are relativised. I also situate this theory within a usage-based account. I then develop a theory of lexical concept integration which serves to provide an account of how lexical concepts are combined in service of situated meaning-construction. As the constructs lexical concept and cognitive model are central to the theory of lexical representation and meaning-construction I present, I refer to the approach developed here as the Theory of Lexical Concepts and Cognitive Models, or LCCM Theory.

This paper investigates mechanisms underlying the coining of intentional morphological blends and complex clippings. In one case study, I investigate the degree to which (a corpus-based definition of) psycholinguistic recognition points play a role in these subtractive word-formation processes. Also, I am concerned with the issue whether a separation of these two categories, which has been embraced by some but not all morphologists, is supported. Given the role that similarity plays in subtractive word-formation processes, a second case study investigates the degree to which the source words of blends and complex clippings are similar to each other and, again, whether the empirical findings warrant this distinction in the first place.

Laura Carlson and Emile van der Zee (eds.), Functional Features in Language and Space: Insights from Perception, Categorization, and Development . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. xiv + 386 pp., ISBN 0-19-926432-5. (Eva-Maria Graf) Barbara Dancygier and Eve Sweetser. Mental Spaces in Grammar: Conditional Constructions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005, 295 pp., ISBN 0-521-84468-1. (Roderick A. Jacobs) Masako K. Hiraga. Metaphor and Iconicity: A Cognitive Approach to Analysing Texts. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2005. 261 pp., ISBN 1-409-3345-6. (Veronika Koller)