This book offers a new approach to the analysis of the multiple meanings of English modals, conjunctions, conditionals, and perception verbs. Although such ambiguities cannot easily be accounted for by feature-analyses of word meaning, Eve Sweetser's argument shows that they can be analyzed both readily and systematically. Meaning relationships in general cannot be understood independently of human cognitive structure, including the metaphorical and cultural aspects of that structure. Sweetser shows that both lexical polysemy and pragmatic ambiguity are shaped by our metaphorical folk understanding of epistemic processes and of speech interaction. Similar regularities can be shown to structure the contrast among root, epistemic and speech act uses of modal verbs, multiple uses of conjunctions and conditionals, and certain processes of historical change observed in Indo-European languages. Since polysemy is typically the intermediate step in semantic change, the same regularities observable in polysemy can be extended to an analysis of semantic change.
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First Sentence:
As mentioned in chapter 1, recent work on polysemy structures (see Brugman 1988; G. Lakoff 1985) has suggested that a word meaning is a structured and unified entity. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
epistemic conjunction, concessive reading, conditional speech acts, lasagne for lunch, epistemic world, polysemy patterns, epistemic domain, epistemic conditionals, root modality, sociophysical world, worse tailor, polysemy structures, conditional protases, metaphorical structuring, conditional reading, root modals, epistemic reading, content conjunction, comma intonation, distal form, pragmatic ambiguity, causal conjunction, conversational world, bad carpenter, reading wherein Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
China First, King Tsin, New Yorker New!
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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
As mentioned in chapter 1, recent work on polysemy structures (see Brugman 1988; G. Lakoff 1985) has suggested that a word meaning is a structured and unified entity. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
epistemic conjunction, concessive reading, conditional speech acts, lasagne for lunch, epistemic world, polysemy patterns, epistemic domain, epistemic conditionals, root modality, sociophysical world, worse tailor, polysemy structures, conditional protases, metaphorical structuring, conditional reading, root modals, epistemic reading, content conjunction, comma intonation, distal form, pragmatic ambiguity, causal conjunction, conversational world, bad carpenter, reading wherein Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
China First, King Tsin, New Yorker New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
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- Historical Linguistics: An Introduction by Winfred P. Lehmann in Back Matter
- On Conditionals by Elizabeth Closs Traugott in Back Matter
- Universals in Linguistic Theory by Emmon Bach in Back Matter
- John Searle (Contemporary Philosophy in Focus) by Barry Smith in Front Matter
- Cohesion in English (English Language Series) by M. A. K. Halliday in Back Matter
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- Issues in Cognitive Linguistics: 1993 Proceedings of the International Cognitive Linguistics Conference (Cognitive Linguistic Research) by Leon De Stadler on 5 pages
- Spaces, Worlds, and Grammar (Cognitive Theory of Language and Culture Series) by Gilles Fauconnier on 4 pages
- Words in Time: Diachronic Semantics from Different Points of View (Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs, 143) by Regine Eckardt on page 32, page 64, and Back Matter
- Modality in Contemporary English (Topics in English Linguistics, 44) by Roberta Facchinetti on page 17, page 99, and page 266
- Metaphor and Metonymy in Comparison and Contrast (Cognitive Linguistics Research, 20.) by Rene Dirven on page 434, and page 554
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