BeReEm

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BeReEm

• (Belief, Reason, Emotion)
• Thinking about THINKING Constructions of Polish
  mental verbs in discourse
• Iwona Kokorniak and Karolina Krawczak

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Presentation outline

• Introduction into the project
• Cognitive grammar assumptions
• Corpus data
• The adopted methodology
• Results
• Conclusions
• Research perspectives

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Aim of the project

• selected abstract concepts investigation of
  meaning cross-linguistically and diachronically
• syntactic-semantic analysis of examples from the
  PWN Corpus of the Polish language to start with

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Cognitive Grammar (CG) assumptionsConstrual vs.
coding

• the unpredictability of grammar arises from the
  objectivist approach to semantics
• cognitive grammar finds semantic value in every
  one of its uses (Langacker 1991 294)
• event can be construed in many ways a number of
  lexical items and grammatical constructions can
  be used to convey these construals

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Construal vs. coding in CG

• construal is partly a matter of linguistic
  convention and partly of the speakers
  communicative objectives (Dabrowska 1997 115)
• it bears objective as well as subjective meaning
  it refers to the role of a substantive it
  encodes the speakers interpretation of that role
• (1) a. Peter has bought a red bike from his
  friend Tom.
• b. His friend Tom has sold Peter a red bike.
• c. A red bike has been sold to Peter (by Tom).
• d. Peter has been bought a bike from Tom.

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CG assumptions about construals

• every verb defines a distinct set of participant
  roles that reflects its own unique semantic
  properties (Langacker 1991 284)
• characteristics of the entities designated to
  interact with one another in the relations
  contribute to the construal of the event
• case markers depicting the relationships between
  the participants involved in the processes are
  semantically motivated
• the meaning assigned by the verbs is distributed
  across the sentence, which is concordant with the
  Langackerian conceptualisation of the whole
  event, and also with the theory of distributed
  semantics by Shina and Kuteva (1995)

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Construal of mental verbs

• mental verbs represent what originates in the
  subjects mind, the internal reality (Shinzato
  2004 862)
• THINK treated as one of semantic primes
  (Wierzbicka 1996)
• Danielewiczowa (2002 35-38) warns against
  putting all mental verb uses into one category
• X mysli, zeX thinks that, X mysli,
  co/kto/kiedy X thinks wh-, X mysli oX
  thinks about, X mysli cos zrobic intend to do
  sth, X mysli. X thinks, etc.
• formal linguistic differences reflect semantic
  differences, i.e. each verb use refers to a
  different mental state
• each epistemic verb constitutes part of a whole
  (Danielewiczowa 2000a, 2000b, 2002)
• hardly ever does language use two linguistic
  units to express exactly the same ideas

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Myslec o vs. sadzic o to think about

• Whats the difference between the two lexical
  items?
• Both are mental verbs
• Both can be combined with oLOC
• (2) Co myslisz/sadzisz o wysylaniu polskich
  zolnierzy do Iraku?
• oLOC the mental experience is not directly
  focused on the object of thinking but rather it
  takes an indefinite constant circular movement
  round the focal point (Radden and Dirven 2007)

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The Polish PWN Corpus data

• extracts from 386 books, 977 issues of 185
  newspapers and magazines, 84 recorded
  conversations, 207 websites and several hundred
  promotional leaflets
• 40 million words demo online version of the
  corpus used 7.5 million words
• 239 random hits of myslec o
• 139 total hits of sadzic o

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Coding schema categories

• Sentence tense Pr, Pt, Ft, Not Applicable
• Verb form Finite, Infinite, Participle
• Mood Conditional, Indicative, Imperative
• Interrogative Interrogative, Noninterrogative,
  Indirect Question
• Transitivity Intransitive, Transitive, Complex
  Transitive
• Negation Negative, Positive
• Aspect Imperfect, Perfect, Aspect Not Applicable
• Impersonal Constructions Reflexive,
  -ono_participle, Non-Impersonal Construction,
  Infinitive
• Person V1, V2, V3, VNA (e.g. nalezaloby sie
  domyslac)
• Number VSg, VPl
• Subject form and semantics
• Object form and semantics

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Subject

• Form NP, Pronoun, Numeral, Adjective, Proper
  name
• Krawiec, On, Szesciu, Niewidomi, Adam
• Visibility Overt, Nonovert
• Soltys myslal chwile o swojej córce i nagle
  ozywil sie
• myslal wtedy o znaku krzyza
• Subject competence Specialist, Nonspecialist
• Komisarz vs. Nikt
• Semantics Human, Metonymic, Personified
• Dyrektor vs. Ministerstwo Finansów vs. pan Osielek

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Direct Object

• Form NP, Proper name, Pronoun, Not Applicable,
  Clause
• Case oLOC
• Person Obj1, Obj2, Obj3
• Number ObjSg, ObjPl, ObjNA (nie myslal o niczym)
• Semantics
• NP Human, Concrete, Abstract, Activity
• Clause Accomplishment, Achievement, State,
  Activity, Hypothetical

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Multiple Correspondence Analysis (MCA) for Verb
Person, Subject Visibility Object Semantics
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MCA for Object form and Object semantics
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MCA for Subject form and semantics, Interrogative
sentences, Negation and Mood
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Results examples

• (3) Myslalem o Makowskim, o Waliszewskim, o
  Czyzewskim, o Cybisie, o naszej walce o stosunek
  bardziej zdecydowany, bardziej surowy wobec ocen
  qualité malarskiej obrazów. V1/Nonovert
• (4) A co pan sadzi o tym dzis...
  V3/Overt/SubjHUM/Inter
• (5) Co jednak dzis nalezy sadzic o owych
  podobienstwach, dzis - to znaczy póznym wieczorem
  niedzielnym, na kilkanascie godzin przed
  planowanym na poniedzialek ósmym zabiegiem?
  Inter/SubjVisibilityNA
• (6) Nie mysl o autobusach zagranicznych typu
  neoplan. NonInter/Neg/Imp
• (7) Przez caly czas gry Adelka myslala o martwych
  zwierzetach na stole w przedpokoju. Obj2CONCR
• (8) Chce zadzwonic do mojej najlepszej
  przyjaciólki, by powiedziec jej dokladnie, co
  sadze o jej nowym chlopaku. Obj2HUM/IndirQ
• (9) A co sadzi o tym wszystkim policja?
  Inter/SubjMETO

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Results summary

• Wh- Subj sadzic oLOC (139) Co pan sadzi o
  pomysle Pawla Piskorskiego? What do YOU think
  about Paul Piskorskis idea?
• Subj myslec oLOC (231) Z przerazeniem mysle o
  tym, co mnie teraz czeka. With terror Im
  thinking about what awaits me
• Wh- Subj myslec oLOC (8) Co myslicie o tym?
  What do you think about it?

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Conclusions

• Polysemy of myslec oLOC opinion vs. activity
  of thinking
• Synonymous forms for opinion myslec oLOC vs.
  sadzic oLOC, but different in language formality

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Reserch perspectives

• Cross-linguistic analysis
• Polysemy of think about in English - reflected
  by aspect
• (10) What do you think about?
• Co myslisz o? vs.
• (11) What are you thinking about?
• O czym myslisz?
• Other criteria to be examined and compared with
  the Polish data

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References

• Danielewiczowa, Magdalena. 2000a. Glówne
  problemy opisu i podzialu czasownikowych
  predykatów mentalnych Main problems in the
  description and classification of mental verb
  predicates, in Renata Grzegorczykowa Krystyna
  Waszakowa (eds.), 227-247.
• Danielewiczowa, Magdalena. 2000b. W zwiazku z
  artykulem Galiny Kustovej Niektóre problemy
  opisu predykatów mentalnych glos polemiczny On
  Galina Kustovas Some problems in description of
  mental predicates, in Renata Grzegorczykowa
  Krystyna Waszakowa (eds.), 265-273.
• Danielewiczowa, Magdalena. 2002. Wiedza i
  niewiedza Studium polskich czasowników
  epistemicznych. Warszawa Katedra Lingwistyki
  Formalnej UW.
• Dabrowska, Ewa. 1997. Cognitive semantics and the
  Polish dative. Berlin Mouton de Gruyter.
• Grzegorczykowi, Renata Krystyna Waszakowa
  (eds.). 2000. Studia z semantyki porównawczej
  Studies in comparative semantics Vol. 1.
  Warszawa Wydawnictwo UW.
• Janda, Laura. 1993. A geography of case
  semantics The Czech dative and the Russian
  instrumental. Berlin Mouton de Gruyter.
• Langacker, Ronald. 1991. Foundations of cognitive
  grammar Descriptive application. Vol. 2.
  Stanford Stanford University Press.
• Radden, Günter and René Dirven. 2007. Cognitive
  English grammar. Amsterdam John Benjamins.
• Sinha, Chris and Tania Kuteva. 1995. Distributed
  spatial semantics, Nordic Journal of Linguistics
  18 167-199.
• Shinzato, Rumiko. 2004. Some observations
  concerning mental verbs and speech act verbs,
  Journal of Pragmatics 36 861-882.
• Wierzbicka, Anna. 1996. Semantics, primes and
  universals. Oxford Oxford University Press.

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• THANK YOU!
• ?
• kokorniak_at_ifa.amu.edu.pl
• karolina_at_ifa.amu.edu.pl