My contribution to this discussion is to attempt to spread a little radical doubt. Since I have spent over 30 years of my life writing and editing monolingual dictionary definitions, it may seem rather odd that I should be asking, do word meanings exist? The question is genuine, though: prompted by some puzzling facts

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Nonstative verbs from various lexical fields are often classified as either manner or result verbs—a distinction implicated in language acquisition (Behrend 1990, Gentner 1978, Gropen et al. 1991), as well as in argument realization. Intuitively speaking, manner verbs specify as part of their meaning a manner of carrying out an action, while result verbs specify the coming about of a result state. Verbs of each type are listed in (1). As the lists illustrate, the manner/result distinction crosscuts the transitive/intransitive distinction.

Introduction This chapter discusses the syntactic and semantic relations between the `head of a phrase' and the phrase itself. 1 In particular, the phrase is a `kind of' the head since the latter provides both the semantic and syntactic type of the phrase (Hudson, 1987: 115--6). For example, the noun can be treated as head in noun phrases and its systematic priority over other categories in the phrase, such as adjectives and determiners, is manifest in the syntactic and semantic type of the phrase. 2 There are three reasons for discussing these syntactic and semantic relations. The first is to introduce a unification framework which characterizes them in terms of a dependency approach to combination: categories in a binary phrase are combined as `head' and `modifier' (or `dependent') (Hays, 1964; Anderson, 1977: 92--100; Hudson, 1984: 75--9; Miller, 1985: 25--31). The second reason is to show that this framework provides a better account of these r

This thesis develops a cognitive linguistic approach to language comprehension. The cognitive approach differs from traditional linguistic approaches in that linguistic description is seen as an integral part of the description of cognition, and that the object of description is the nature of conceptual structures, the processes which relate these conceptual structures, and the effect of context upon these processes. As a cognitive description within cognitive science, a computational approach is adopted: language comprehension is described in terms of two modules, a linguistic processing module and a discourse processing module. Within these modules, conceptual structures and processes are given a uniform characterization: structures are characterized as partial objects which are extended by processes into (potentially) less partial objects. In the linguistic processing module, linguistic expressions are characterized as signs which combine as head and modifier. The conceptual structu...

Verbs drawn from various lexical fields are commonly classified as either manner or result verbs: (1) a. MANNER VERBS: specify a manner of carrying out an action.

Nonstative verbs from various lexical fields are often classified as either manner or result verbs: (1) a. MANNER VERBS: specify a manner of carrying out an action.

In this presentation an approach towards a description of spatial deixis based on the perceptual and cognitive abilities of humans is outlined. After a basic introduction into space perception and representation the findings of this part are taken to form the basis for a characterization of the phenomenon of deixis as well as the conceptual components of deictic expressions in a natural language. For the analysis of deictic expressions a cross-linguistic view is applied to find on the one hand universal components of those expressions but also a number of potentially influencing factors. The goal is to find features that may be components of deictic expressions and thus must be considered in a general model of spatial deixis which can serve to classify and describe the meaning of spatial deictic expressions in any natural language. ii 1 Introduction Deixis is the name given to those formal properties of utterances that can be interpreted only properly in respect to a given (known) c...

It has been suggested that when we use a foreign language, we are not just speaking differently but also thinking differently. This suggestion is examined in the context of spatial deictic expression in two closely related languages, English and Spanish. Three pictures were presented representing objects in spatial relationships which could be interpreted in at least two different ways, i.e., deictically (in terms of the observer) or intrinsically (in terms of the object). Spanish and English native speakers were employed as subjects. They were each further subdivided into three groups: native language (answering in the native language), elementary (in the second language- Spanish for the English speakers and English for the Spanish native speakers), and advanced (again, in the second language). It was found that the Spanish and English subjects when replying in their native tongues displayed different ways of expressing spatial relationships. Furthermore, as the subject acquired the second language, the pattern of response approached that of the second language. Does this trend then support the Whorfian Hypothesis? The results are discussed in terms of a universal "mentalese " underlying all language, but it is suggested that particular languages have preferred patterns of expression which are acquired when one masters that language.

Abstract: The mind constructs narratives from what would otherwise be chaos. Narratives viewed minimally—at least two temporally ordered events—are revealed in the way people talk about space and time. Narratives replete with a voice, causality, and emotion are reflected in the stories people tell about their own lives, stories that, as acknowledged by their tellers, distort the details around 60 % of the time, but, according to their tellers, distort the ‘truth ’ far less often. Life is happening all at once, all the time; everywhere, noise, light, smells from all directions, stimuli from without and from within. Where am I, what is around me, where have I been, where am I going? What am I doing, what is happening around me? Our experience of coherence belies that chaos. Out of the stream of sensation, the mind carves objects in space and actions in time, and configures objects into scenes and actions into events. If narrative is taken in its minimalist sense as a representation of at least two events with a temporal ordering between them (Wilson, 2003), then maintaining awareness of space and time entails creating a minimalist narrative from the continuous ubiquitous multimodal barrage of sensation. Some regard the minimalist view of narrative as too inclusive, encompassing what might better be called description or explanation. They require narrative structure to have causal relations or narrative voice or demand narrative content to include character or emotion (e. g. Bruner, 1986; Oatley, M.S.). Here, drawing primarily on our own research, I first characterize the kinds of minimalist narratives that people create for space and time, and then turn to fuller narratives, the stories people tell others from their lives.